High School Grammar

I have been using IEW Fix It! grammar for three years. It has levels 1-6 and is somewhat of an ungraded resource. I think the company suggested the books be used between 3rd grade and 12th grade.

My oldest daughter (11) is almost done with the 3rd level right now. I have to say, it is more advanced than anything I ever learned myself, through 8th grade grammar. If I didn’t have the answer key I’d be pretty powerless to help her. She seems to have a better aptitude for grammar than I do and is figuring it out pretty well. The books are mainly written to the student and designed to need minimal help from the teacher.

Each level is designed for a 30 week school year with just 4 days per week, so if you do 5 days of school and a longer school year you can move through the books faster. (Or stick with the schedule and have more days without grammar so you can focus more on the literature and narration.)

Each day the student goes over just one sentence to examine, label the parts of speech, correct punctuation, and copy the corrected version. There is also one vocabulary word to look up in the dictionary each day. I have my kids look it up for dictionary practice even if they already know it.

It takes maybe 10-15 minutes per day so it’s not a big time investment, especially if your student is good at it. It takes more time with my 10 year old, who is NOT a natural and seems to take after me in the grammar department! She’s almost done with level one and needs lots of help, but still she’s learned a lot since starting. In general though, I think it would provide a solid foundation in grammar without taking a huge amount of time each day.

I  started using these books at the suggestion of my sister-in-law, who discovered them when her kids were in high school and really loved them. I don’t know where she started hers in the program; maybe there is an assessment available if you are starting an older student? I’ve reached out to the company with questions many times and they’ve always been very helpful.

I’ve seen this program described as CM friendly because the lessons are short and you apply the concepts in more of a real life situation. The sentences you correct each day are part of a story. Level 3 is an episode from Robin Hood.

My oldest girl really enjoys this series and usually picks grammar to do first. I hope this helps!