IEW Reviews

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  • March 19, 2014 at 3:01 am
    pangit
    Participant

    Anyone use Institute for Excellence in Writing?  What are you thoughts?  I was looking at at and wondering if it is something that would be beneficial for us.  My oldest will be 5th grade next year.  So, level A is recommended.  I was kinda wondering about getting level B and just letting her work at it slowly.  But, I haven’t totally looked at it yet, either.  How does it work for those who struggle with reading/spelling?  Is it worth the price?

    Thanks

    March 19, 2014 at 6:14 pm
    pangit
    Participant

    Bump . . . Anyone have any experience with this? Like it, love it, hate it? Overwhelming? Makes things simple? Should I continue to look at it or look somewhere else? If I used it, should I do something else for grammar (currently thinking about analytical grammar)?

    Thank you!

    March 19, 2014 at 6:45 pm
    nebby
    Participant

    I’ve never used it. It always seemed too fiddly and particular for me. But I think people here do use it and make it more CM. Have you tried searching older threads?

    Nebby

    http://www.lettersfromnebby.wordpress.com

    March 19, 2014 at 10:48 pm
    pangit
    Participant

    Thanks, nebby. I search the forum all the time but this time didn’t even think about it! Silly me! I will do that when I get a few minutes.

    March 20, 2014 at 3:40 am
    marmiemama
    Participant

    Years ago, my oldest dd, now a senior, did two a year or two of it at a homeschool group we used to go to.  They met once a week and as a group, mainly focused on the first couple of units.  The first thing they learn to do is make a key word outline.  They have a paragraph and need to pick the three most important words to convey the meaning of that sentence.  They do this for each sentence in the paragraph.  Then the next day, they re-read the paragraph just once, then put the paragraph aside.  They then re-write the paragraph using the key words;  they are looking to impart the same meaning (hopefully better) but not memorize and write it word for word.

    The next unit is where I think that we really parked ourselves…using dress-ups.  A quality adjective, a strong very, prepositional phrase sentence opener, -ly word, etc.  Having them learn to look over their paragraph and put in their dress-ups really improves their writing.  

    Although I own the Structure and Style tapes, I was never able to utilize (ie. find the time) to do them at home.  Tried many times.  Then recently, I had an epiphany…I’ll just teach the first two units to my other children.  They were really what we had gleaned from the program anyway!  So we have been working on adding these elements in (in as natural a way as possible into their written narrations…always a possibility to have the writing sound “forced” with some of these dress-ups).

    Hope this helps!…Lisa

    P.S.  Last year, my oldest also watched his DVD on Essay Writing for her SAT and felt it was it was very helpful.  

    March 20, 2014 at 11:49 am
    TailorMade
    Participant

    We’ve been an IEW family for years.  I found it while looking for a formal writing instruction curriculum.  I highly recommend it, but if you want to keep things simple and trust CM methods, read Lindafay’s suggestions found here:

    http://www.charlottemasonhelp.com/2009/07/narration.html

    We’ve enjoyed the IEW theme based writing lessons and tie them to our history studies.  They are easy to follow and coordinate well with many SCM modules. 

    If you have more questions, please send me a PM.  I’ve been trying to stay off the forum this week in order to get lots of studying done.  We are putting in our garden and are gearing up for our busy time of the year, so I have to stay super focussed timewise.  PM’s will send me an e-mail and I will answer it asap.

     

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