If you are looking for a homeschool grammar curriculum, look no further! Fix It! Grammar has a new version and we are sharing all about it in this post. Keep reading for our full IEW Fix It! Grammar curriculum review!
Disclaimer ~ this is not a sponsored post however the product being reviewed was sent to me at no charge and affiliate links are used in this post. We did use Fix It! Grammar prior to this review product! I only promote curriculum we love!
What is Fix It! Grammar?
The Fix It! Grammar program {published by IEW ~ Institute for Excellence in Writing} is a complete grammar course, with each book providing thirty-three weeks of grammar lessons and practice.
Each level is a complete story broken down into thirty-three weekly lessons with editing exercises that take ten to fifteen minutes per day. Each weekly lesson has four separate passages which may be completed one per day or doubled up to complete two passages per day. It starts with the basics of grammar at the elementary level and takes your students into very advanced concepts as they move through the levels through high school and beyond.
How does Fix It! Grammar curriculum work?
With Fix It! Grammar, students hunt for and correct errors in daily passages that cumulatively tell a story. Fix It! encourages students to immediately apply new grammar knowledge in context, aiding in the transfer of grammar skills into their own writing.
All about the new version of Fix It! Grammar!
If you have no prior knowledge of Fix It! this section won’t really apply to you, but if you have used Fix It! in the past and haven’t seen the new version, be sure to pay attention! The exact issues I had with the previous version are corrected in the new version!
What ages is Fix It! Grammar best for?
There are currently five levels available with another due in fall 2022. The Fix It! Grammar program is appropriate for students in fourth grade through adults. Most students start with Book 1 to ensure that no foundational concepts are missed as each book is designed to build upon the previous one.
To place your student in the new Fix It! Grammar program, review the book descriptions and the student samples on this page. Students with little or no grammar background should begin in Level 1 regardless of their age. Keep in mind, my own child is in 7th grade and we are using Level 2. It all depends on your child and how much grammar knowledge s/he has.
- Fix It! Grammar: Level 1 – Nose Tree
- Level 1 presumes no prior grammar knowledge and introduces basic parts of speech, end-mark punctuation, phrases, clauses, homophones, and more.
- Fix It! Grammar: Level 2 – Town Mouse and Country Mouse
- Level 2 continues defining parts of speech, explains basic comma and capitalization rules, introduces complex sentence patterns, and more.
- Fix It! Grammar: Level 3 – Robin Hood
- Level 3 refines concepts taught in previous levels and explains additional comma rules, various phrasal/clausal constructions, quotation punctuation, indefinite/demonstrative/reflexive pronouns, and more.
- Fix It! Grammar: Level 4 – Mowgli and Shere Khan
- Level 4 builds on concepts taught in previous levels and presents a thorough explanation of additional punctuation rules, essential/nonessential clauses, complex sentence patterns, transitional prepositional openers, and more.
- Fix It! Grammar: Level 5 – Frog Prince
- Level 5 reinforces information taught in prior books while introducing and discussing advanced grammatical concepts related to verb types, noun functions, and pronoun cases. There is also an emphasis on the grammatical jobs of specific clauses and phrases.
- Fix It! Grammar: Level 6 – Little Mermaid
- Level 6 continues to build on concepts taught in the previous books and explains advanced grammatical items, including invisible #4 and past participle openers, transitions, conjunctive adverbs, verbals, active/passive voice, parallelism, and advanced punctuation.
Our personal Fix It! Grammar Curriculum Review
I am using Level 2 with my 7th grader and her friend who comes over for language arts with us. We meet one day per week and do the lesson portion together and also grade the previous week’s homework so we can address issues.
We have used Fix It! in the past and I did like it but we got a bit lazy if I am being totally honest. When IEW emailed me to tell me a new edition was out I jumped at the chance to participate in a Fix It! grammar curriculum review! It fixes all of the concerns I had and I absolutely love it!
Below you can see a peek inside of the books, the photo below shows the lesson for the week. We do this together and I often expand by using a dry erase board to practice together. We often use highlighters to note important information also.
One of the issues I had with the previous version of Fix It! has been fixed in the new version and you can see the circle below showing my favorite addition! At the top of the pages, there is now a list of how many of each (noun, verb, etc.) the student needs to find. I used to go through and count everything manually in the previous version which took a lot of time! I wanted my students to know how many nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. that they were looking for so they would easily know when they were finished. This is SO very helpful!
I also love that the lines to copy the sentences are included in the student book! We used to copy the story into a different notebook. All in one is much more simple and definitely preferred!
We use the grammar cards often during our lessons.
Pebbles LOVES grammar and often joins us. If a cat recommends something, you KNOW it’s a good thing!
How do I get Fix It! Grammar?
- Fix It! Grammar Main Page – see all levels available!
- Fix It! Grammar Free 4 Week Trial
- Fix It! Grammar: Level 2 Town Mouse and Country Mouse
- Fix It! Grammar Cards
Other IEW curriculum we have used
In addition to Fix It! Grammar, we also use IEW for our homeschool writing curriculum. While I have not published a formal review post I have shared about our IEW journey many times on my blog. I will link some blog and Instagram posts below in case you’d like a peek at IEW’s writing curriculum also!
We are currently using:
- IEW Structure & Style Level B Year 1 for 7th Grade
- IEW Structure & Style Level B Year 1 for 10th grade
We began our journey with IEW when my oldest was in 9th grade. In 10th grade he used Teaching the Classics and Windows to the World.
My daughter began IEW Bible Heroes when she was in 3rd grade.
My middle son began IEW writing in 6th grade with Ancient History.
Here is the post where I explain when we switched to using Fix It! Grammar with my kids!
See a peek from a few years ago when we used the older version of Fix It! Grammar and IEW Writing when my kids were in 5th & 8th and I combined them for these subjects.
I get so overwhelmed by about week 10 in Fix It Grammar. So many moving parts and things to mark and find. Can you go a little bit into detail of how you present a lesson or tell your students how to tackle the later lessons? Thank you!
Have you used the new version, or are your concerns with the older version? If older, I was the same. The new version is so similar yet so different and made it much easier for me to follow. The addition of the “how many of each do I need to find” at the time is a game-changer for us!
I teach extensively using the lesson and we practice the new learning together as well as review mistakes made from the previous week. I have also had my kids “journal” certain parts of speech and rules that are difficult to remember. Just notes {sometimes creative illustrations} in a simple spiral notebook. I also give my own “quizzes” and they can use their journals to answer from, to practice memorizing the information. I also use the glossary extensively myself so I don’t get lost. Higher grammar is not my thing and I am lost often also. The pages in the back of the book help me SO much when I need a quick review.