The Best Grammar Curriculum for Homeschoolers | Fix it Grammar Review {4th edition}

Updated: March 26, 2024

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Inside: Fix It! Grammar is a one-of-a-kind grammar curriculum for homeschoolers because it transforms traditional grammar lessons into engaging, story-based adventures. Kids learn grammar and editing skills in context without even realizing they are actually learning the complexities of language. This is why the Fix It! Grammar curriculum stands out from the rest.

Choosing the best grammar curriculum for homeschoolers can be tough considering we have so many options out there. But one grammar curriculum stands out for the rest because of the way it’s implemented and I can’t wait to dive deeper into it with you.

But first, our struggle (maybe you’re there, too).

It’s tough when kids are at different levels in different areas of language arts. Marc is struggling with writing but he is doing great in other areas. so I decided that instead of letting this challenge hold him back I would split language arts into its individual parts, aiming to meet Marc right where he was in each area. (like a true eclectic homeschooler)

This led me to the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW). Honestly, if IEW offered a complete language arts curriculum in a box, I’d have grabbed it in a heartbeat. Their materials and approach are just what we needed—focused, effective, and engaging. I wish they had a literature program so I can sleep at night… but alas, they don’t.

We are already using IEW for their writing curriculum Structure and Style for Students and we love their Fix It! Grammar program. It’s been a great fit for us, providing the kind of tailored and flexible approach to grammar that Marc needed to support his writing and overall language arts learning.

This is a sponsored post. I was given the new edition to review but I already owned the old edition (bought and used it because we love the program). I would never endorse or recommend programs we wouldn’t use ourselves. Read more about it in my Disclosure.

Pin this image to read the article later. 📌

If you prefer a video over reading, or if you’d like to see a comparison of the two editions and a presentation of the new cards and books, I made a video for you:

Teaching grammar in your homeschool

Grammar sits at the heart of how we express ourselves, critical for everything from crafting a persuasive essay to sharing stories with friends. Yet, teaching it feels like navigating a dense jungle without a clear path. It’s essential, yes, but it’s also complex and sometimes subjective. Unlike math, with its definitive right and wrong answers, grammar often invites debate—think of the Oxford comma.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned during the years I’ve been homeschooling is that merely memorizing grammar rules and parts of speech doesn’t quite cut it. For grammar to really “stick,” it needs to be woven into the fabric of real writing and speaking experiences. Just reading great literature or being told what a conjunction or a prepositional phrase is doesn’t automatically translate into understanding or ability to use grammar effectively.

A lot of grammar programs seem to miss the mark. They throw definitions and examples at kids that, while grammatically correct, don’t necessarily connect with their everyday writing or speaking. They’re like puzzle pieces from different puzzles—they just don’t fit together in a way that makes sense.

As a homeschool parent, I’m no grammar expert, and I’m okay with that. But, even experts can’t always agree on grammar rules, which just shows how tricky this territory can be. When I stumbled upon Andrew Pudewa’s insights on grammar, it was a real lightbulb moment. Grammar isn’t a set of rigid rules to memorize, but an art form that’s mastered through practice, through doing.

In our homeschool, we’ve shifted towards a more integrated approach to teaching grammar. It’s not just about learning rules but about applying them in context. This method has not only made grammar lessons more engaging for us but also more effective.

When it came to learning grammar, we tried Grammar for the Well Trained Mind, Beowulf’s Grammar (this one is very fun and I recommend doing it before Fix It! Grammar, for 1st to 3rd or 4th grades), Growing with Grammar and other programs (I will spare you the list).

But no matter what we tried, nothing compared to Fix It! Grammar. Seeing Marc so invested in his grammar has been an absolute surprise and I am so grateful to have discovered a grammar program that we can use for years to come!

What is IEW?

If you”re navigating the homeschool world’ve been around for a while, IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing) is a name you likely came across and a name you’ll want to remember. It’s been a standout resource for us, making a significant difference in how we approach language arts and I am so grateful they exist!

IEW stands for simplicity and effectiveness. Their tools and materials are user-friendly, offer clear explanations, and promote critical thinking—a combination that’s hard to find elsewhere. For the past three years, it’s not just been a part of our curriculum, it’s been a cornerstone and something I warmly recommend to everyone try out (especially since they have extensive FREE trials for everything).

It’s worth taking a moment to explore their website and sample some of their offers. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the quality and range of their materials.

From reading and grammar to writing and public speaking, it seems they’ve thought of everything (I wish they had a boxed LA curriculum- I would so buy it like yesterday!).

We’ve discovered IEW years back and it’s been the greatest find for us for language arts ever, after LOE for reading.

Andrew Pudewa – the best example of a teacher

The history of IEW is as rich as its curriculum, with a tradition of dedicated educators since the 1930s contributing to its development. It feels like it’s a legacy of excellence in teaching language arts.

At the heart of IEW is Andrew Pudewa, whose leadership and teaching methods have been instrumental. His seminars and resources have not only been a source of inspiration to teachers and parents alike but have also demonstrated the impact of the IEW approach on students worldwide.

His seminars, talks, and conferences have been inspiring teachers and parents since the ’90s, and I often find encouragement and confirmation in his words. If you haven’t listened to him yet, access his free resources (audio and written), you will be blown away!

Mr. Pudewa is incontestably the best teacher I’ve encountered so far, the type of teacher I strive to be for my son, every day!

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“Our mission is to equip teachers and teaching parents with methods and materials which will aid them in training their students to become confident and competent communicators and thinkers.

Using the four language arts—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—IEW methods have been proven to be effective for students of all ages and levels of ability, including those who are gifted, have special needs, or are English language learners.”

— IEW

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Fix It! Grammar

Exploring and testing various grammar programs over the years in the quest for the “best grammar curriculum for homeschoolers” has offered me some insight. Each one we tried seemed to either scatter our focus or bore us to the brink with its dryness and lack of connection to the real world. The pattern was all too familiar: theory presented without context, followed by examples that seemed to exist in a vacuum (only making sense in a grammar context), and an endless sea of worksheets.

Sound familiar?

Grammar taught and learned this way can become tedious very fast and you’ll end up like us, ditching the program or just skimming through, to be done with the torture!

What if I told you that you could make grammar learning as easy as reading through a fairytale? That’s Fix It! Grammar and we are in love with this program!

At its core, Fix It! Grammar is deceptive in its simplicity, yet comprehensive in scope. It’s a program where children dive into grammar lessons as if they’re embarking on a reading adventure, not even realizing the depth of learning they’re achieving.

I love how Fix It! Grammar is a rigorous grammar program in disguise. Kids don’t even feel they are learning.

Components

Fix It! Grammar is a textbook-based program that has 2 main parts: a teacher manual and a student book. There is an optional new addition as well, the grammar cards.

The new Fix It! Grammar Cards are such a fun addition! Marc loves playing games with them and grammar review is so fun and easy now! There are several game ideas on the website, but you can even invent your own rules!

For a writing program to pair perfectly with Fix It! Grammar, check out Structure and Style for Students from IEW. We use it and absolutely adore it! You can read my SSS reviews here.

Both these programs can be bought as a package and you would have both writing and grammar covered!

Structure of Fix It! Grammar

The genius of Fix It! Grammar lies in its structure—30 weeks of concise, focused instruction. Each day, students are tasked with fixing and analyzing just one sentence, dedicating only 15 minutes. This approach not only keeps grammar lessons from becoming overwhelming but ensures a steady, deepening understanding of complex concepts.

That’s it! 15 minutes per day, 4 days per week, and your homeschoolers get a solid grammar instruction.

Keep working through these books and you’ll soon see how rigorous this grammar is. Even if they seem easy at first, the complex grammar concepts will keep adding up.

As students progress, the levels of difficulty increase, challenging them to grow and apply their knowledge in more sophisticated ways. The beauty of this progression is not just in the accumulation of knowledge but in the confidence and competence it builds.

Here’s a comparison between level 3 and level 4:

At a glance, here are the steps used in Fix It! Grammar :

• Learn It! – Read and explain the grammar terms to kids, making sure they understood them.
  
• Read It! – Explore the new vocabulary words, every day. The vocabulary words are bolded.
  
• Mark It!– Let kids demonstrate their mastery of the concepts by applying them in short, daily fixes for the next 4 days.
  
• Fix It! – Edit the mistakes by using correct punctuation and editing markers.
  
• Rewrite It! – Copy or dictate the corrected sentences every day.
  

If you want to see inside the program yourself, each level on the website has free samples for both the teacher and the student books, so you could test drive a few weeks’ worth of lessons with your kids!

Fix It! Grammar Lessons

Fix It! Grammar is made up of 6 levels. Each level is, in fact, a story. For a whole year, kids will read, fix, and rewrite each sentence of the story. At the end of the year, they can read the complete story.

While Fix It! Grammar is recommended for grades 4-12, you can start with the first level even with older kids. This isn’t just about brushing up on basics, it’s about building a solid foundation, ensuring no gaps in knowledge. It’s particularly effective for students who might be starting their grammar journey later than others or those who haven’t had formal grammar instruction before.

• Level 1 – Nose Tree: This is where the grammar journey begins. It lays the groundwork with basic parts of speech, end-mark punctuation, phrases, clauses, and homophones.
  
• Level 2 – Town Mouse and Country Mouse: With the basics under their belt, students move on to explore parts of speech in greater detail, along with basic comma and capitalization rules, and more complex sentence patterns.
  
• Level 3 – Robin Hood: Here, students dive deeper into the structure of language with phrasal/clausal constructions, quotation punctuation, and the nuances of indefinite, demonstrative, and reflexive pronouns.
  
• Level 4 – Mowgli and Shere Khan: This level introduces additional punctuation rules, the distinction between essential and nonessential clauses, and complex sentence patterns, including transitional prepositional openers.
  
• Level 5 – Frog Prince: Advancing further, students explore verb types, noun functions, pronoun case, and the grammatical jobs of clauses and phrases.
  
• Level 6 – Little Mermaid: The culmination of the journey, this level challenges students with past participle openers, transitions, conjunctive adverbs, verbals, active and passive voice, parallelism, and advanced punctuation.
  

What makes Fix It! Grammar so effective is its gentle, progressive approach to teaching grammar. Each level builds on the last, ensuring students not only understand the concepts but can apply them in their writing. By embedding grammar lessons within stories, students aren’t just learning rules, they’re seeing them in action. This method helps demystify complex ideas, making grammar accessible and, dare I say, enjoyable.

As a parent and educator, watching my child progress through these levels is incredibly rewarding. Not only does he gain a deeper understanding of grammar, but he also experiences the joy of seeing a story unfold through his own work.

New edition vs. old edition

We discovered Fix It! Grammar a few year back before they came out with the new edition. We loved it so much back then I just invested in buying all the levels.

The new edition, the fourth edition, came out in 2022.

So the decision to switch from an edition I’ve already invested in to a newer one wasn’t one I made lightly. Having just completed the first level of the old edition, the timing of this release put us at a crossroads.

Initially, I was hesitant about the idea of transitioning to the new edition. After all, we had the complete set of the previous edition, why pay again for basically the same thing?

However, curiosity—and a bit of excitement about what improvements the new edition might hold—led us to explore it further.

What we discovered compelled me to upgrade. The new edition seems to breathe new life into the curriculum. The format is noticeably more open and inviting, a change that might seem small but significantly impacts the learning experience.

The text has undergone a transformation as well. It’s not just a matter of new content (some stories have changed) but a whole new approach to implementing grammar concepts. Everything is laid out more gently and with a clear progression, making it easier for students to work independently without feeling overwhelmed. The ease of progression and the airier format have made a noticeable difference in how smoothly our grammar lessons run.

Here’s a comparison of the 2 editions, ♥ marks the changes we love best.

The essence of Fix It! Grammar hasn’t changed with the new edition—it’s the same remarkable program we’ve come to trust and value. However, the latest updates bring enhancements that streamline the learning and teaching process, making an already excellent program even better.

One of the standout features of the new edition is how it facilitates greater independence for learners. This aspect is particularly important in a homeschool setting, where fostering self-directed learning is often a key goal. The new layout and structure play a significant role in this, with information presented in a way that’s not just more appealing visually but also more logical and intuitive. This means students can navigate their learning materials more easily, reducing the need for constant guidance and allowing them to take charge of their grammar education.

The refreshed format of the new edition—more open and engaging—makes the content more accessible. Concepts are introduced in a manner that feels natural and progressive, avoiding the overwhelm that can come with tackling complex grammar topics. This thoughtful approach to presenting information means that learners can build their understanding at their own pace, solidifying their grasp of grammar fundamentals before moving on to more challenging concepts.

What I particularly appreciate about the new edition is its ability to blend structure with flexibility. It provides a clear path for grammar instruction while also accommodating the unique rhythms and preferences of homeschool families.

Overall, the new edition of Fix It! Grammar retains the core of what makes the program special, while its enhancements simplify the teaching experience and enrich the learning journey. It’s a testament to the program’s commitment to evolving in ways that genuinely support both educators and students, making it a joy to incorporate into our daily homeschool routine.

⑧ reasons why we love the Fix It! Grammar curriculum for homeschoolers

In our homeschool, Fix It! Grammar has become something of a staple, and there are plenty of good reasons why it’s stuck. Here’s the rundown on why this curriculum resonates so well with us:

① Mastery based

The way Fix It! Grammar layers its lessons, starting simple and gradually getting more complex, really works for us. Each week, there’s a focus on a specific grammar point, and then Marc gets to apply what he’s learned right away. It feels natural, like climbing a ladder one rung at a time, and it’s obvious this approach helps him grasp things solidly before moving on.

I noticed that Marc learns best if things are presented in a logical, progressive way. And mastery-based programs worked great for us in most subjects.

② Grammar in context

What sets Fix It! Grammar apart for me is how it anchors grammar lessons in stories that actually make sense. Gone are the days of dry, disconnected sentences. Instead, Marc gets to see grammar in action within stories, making the whole learning process much more engaging and meaningful.

See him work on a sentence:

③ Beyond learning grammar

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Fix It! Grammar doesn’t just stop at teaching grammar. It weaves in vocabulary, editing, and even writing lessons. It’s like getting an almost complete language arts workout in one go, which is fantastic for a grammar curriculum.

And if your kids already master writing, you could take it a step up with dictation and penmanship.

④ Grammar is alive

One of my favorite things is seeing Marc apply what he’s learned in real life. Correcting a punctuation mistake in a thank-you note or adding a missing word in a story he’s writing shows me that grammar is becoming second nature to him.

He sees that grammar is alive, that we are actually using it in writing and speaking, not just some boring rules we learn by heart.

⑤ Independent

I never thought I’d find a grammar curriculum that Marc could do on his own, but here we are. Sure, younger kids might need a bit more guidance, but the older ones can work through lessons independently, only checking in for new concepts or clarifications. It’s a big win for busy homeschooling families like ours.

⑥Thorough

At first glance, you might not catch just how thorough Fix It! Grammar is. It covers everything from the basics like nouns and verbs to more complex topics like comma rules and clauses. And it does all this in a way that’s surprisingly fun. Short, daily lessons mean that learning grammar doesn’t feel like a chore.

And all this grammar learning is done in a gentle, fun way.

⑦ Unintentional learning

Here’s what surprised me. Fix It! Grammar makes learning so seamless, it almost feels unintentional. Marc doesn’t sit down to “do grammar” like he would have done with a traditional curriculum (learn the lesson, do the workbook…. spend one hour a day in total) and yet, every day, he’s mastering more concepts, one sentence at a time.

By keeping lessons concise, the curriculum manages to make grammar something that just happens, rather than something to dread.

Because lessons are so short, kids won’t even feel that they’re sitting for a class or working a lot. That’s the hidden beauty of Fix It! Grammar. One sentence per day and your grammar is done!

In 4th grade, we did 4 sentences per day because Marc loved it so much and it was so simple. One vocabulary word per day, one sentence to fix every day, and a lot of solid grammar concepts in a year that are constantly reinforced.

⑧ Fun and engaging

We all know the fun and games start dwindling from 3rd grade and up. The materials we need to cover become more complex and less fun. There is less and less time for games.

But Fix It! Grammar offers us plenty of opportunities and time to play.

Using grammar cards for games or just having the time to talk through a tricky punctuation rule without pressure adds a layer of enjoyment to our lessons.

💔No tests

The only hiccup in our love affair with Fix It! Grammar is the lack of tests or review sections. Our homeschooling setup does require some form of assessment, so we’ve had to get creative here. I do hope IEW considers adding a testing component in the future.

⭐️Our Verdict

All things considered, Fix It! Grammar gets a solid 5 out of 5 stars from us. It’s changed how we approach grammar, making it a genuinely enjoyable part of our homeschool day.

Over to you

In wrapping this up, here’s the deal: Fix It! Grammar has been a game changer in our home. Ditching the traditional, one-size-fits-all curriculum for something as adaptable and engaging as Fix It! Grammar turned out to be one of our best decisions. It meets Marc right where he’s at, blending grammar learning into stories that actually hold his interest.

Fix It! Grammar is about making learning stick without making it feel like a chore. And it does that beautifully. It’s made grammar—a subject that could easily become tedious—into something Marc looks forward to. That’s a win in my book.

For anyone else wondering how to tackle grammar without the dread or boredom, I can’t recommend Fix It! Grammar enough. It’s been a breath of fresh air for us.

Got thoughts or your own grammar journey to share? I’m all ears. Drop a comment, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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