IEW's Fix It! Grammar: Is it worth it? How do I use it?

I always feel inferior when it comes to grammar. It is just not my forte. This was the one area I would admit in teaching interviews that it was an area of improvement but an area I constantly strive to do better in with summer PDs, workshops, and asking for help from colleagues.

But changed for the better when last year my school introduced our Middle School team to the Institute of Excellence in Writing (IEW) Fix It! Grammar program. We were already using the IEW writing program so the integration made sense. But let me tell you why I fell in love with Fix It! Grammar.

EASY TO USE & IMPLEMENT

All you need is 4 days a week 5-10 minutes each day. Easily done. For my 6th-grade English class, we use the Fix It! Grammar lesson as our Bell Ringer activity. It is a great way to have something up on the board that when they came into our room, they could get out their materials, and quietly get to work. They had our procedure down, and it was an easy routine to use with even the occasional guest teacher.

The teacher manual is also very easy to follow with answer keys, additional explanations, and scripts if needed.

REPETITIVE ROUTINE

This is repetition in a good way, not a boring way. The routine created by working through the day's sentence(s) and then writing down the daily vocabulary word(s) helped to give my students structure to something that can be daunting to some (like me). I even created a list of items, which I posted on the board for them, to go through to double-check they did everything for that day's lesson:

Check Capitalization
Choose the Homophone (if included)
Check for End Marks
Mark the Parts of Speech
Write down the Vocabulary Word and Definition
Write down the "Clean" Sentence

They knew what they were supposed to do with little prompting.

BUILDS ON ITSELF

The program doesn't just throw you to the sharks and say swim. It builds little by little, with even different levels to the program so you can differentiate or challenge students who need it. It starts with easy concepts like Articles first (the, a, an) which are easy to memorize and identify. Then builds each week with one more part of speech or "dress up" to look for, while still continuing to practice the concepts already reviewed. Additionally, it also takes into account review days after particularly hard concepts so students aren't moving directly into something else if more practice is needed.

VISUAL & KINESTHETIC

Now, this is a little bit of how I took when the Fix It! Grammar Program was already giving me but bringing it to the next level in my class.

What I would do with my class is project the digital PDF copy of the Fix It! Grammar sentence onto our whiteboard so everyone could see it clearly. While each student would also have their own copy of the week's sentences where they would mark their parts of speech and "dress-ups" with specific abbreviations. Seeing it in two different places and making adjustments as needed.

I use to call up students to the board with their corrections or abbreviations to complete the lesson, but then I realized how I could take this program to be even more visual and tactile.

What I did was create my Interactive Board Icon Magnets to pair with the Fix It! Grammar program. It incorporated color-coded parts of speech and dress-up icon magnets to help give visual cues when marking up our sentences. Such as being able to see how the orange Article icon always proceeded the red Noun icon. Or how the Preposition icon is brown to remind my students of the table example I always use when explaining what a preposition is (you can be on the table, under the table, beside the table). It helped my students make connections. And I have to say the girls in our class loved color coding their own copies to match.

Visual cues are not the only my students were gaining. They also had a kinesthetic piece involved. While students were writing down their initial corrections and abbreviations on their page I would go around and pass out our magnets for that day's sentence. Each student would then take that magnet to the board and have to find out where their magnet goes, placing it above the word it went with. The simple movement of getting out of their desk and interacting with the board really got my boys in the class involved.

**See the end of this post on how I made my Icon Magnets**

AFFORDABLE

If you are buying curriculum out of pocket it can be hard to spend even $50 on something you are not sure you are going to like or use. Well, how about less than $30! To me, that is a pretty affordable price point. And I wouldn't suggest buying more than one student copy. You just need one (or even the digital PDF) to make copies for your students and then use 3 prong folders or binders to hold them together for their lessons. That is at least what we did in our class, we had a 3 prong folder and a spiral notebook. That's all your students need.

I GOT RESULTS

From the time my students were introduced to Fix It! Grammar (at the end of January) I was pretty diligent in using it each week (to the end of the school year in May). We first started with the Nose Tree level then moved up to the Robin Hood level of Fixt It! Grammar. Students' MAPS scores showed growth in Language assessments from their middle of the year assessment (middle of January, before we started Fix It!) to the end of the year assessment. On average my 6th-grade students grew over 3 points in their individual scores! We weren't using any other grammar materials, lessons, or supplements at this time, just Fix It! Grammar.

CONCLUSION

I would highly recommend the Fix It! Grammar program. It's easy to use, implement, it hits multiple learning types, and I personally saw results in my classroom. Also, if you are already using the IEW writing program it only makes sense to combine the two for additional exposure of the "dress up" concepts.

I hope this review helps you in your decision-making process!

All the Best,

Emily

Institute of Excellence in Writing (IEW) Website: https://iew.com/

IEW Fix It! Grammar Webstie: https://iew.com/fix

The Nose Tree [Book 1] Teacher Sample

The Nose Tree [Book 1] Student Sample

Fix It! Grammar Placement Test

**How Do I make my Interactive Whiteboard Icons into Magnets?

First I print out the icons in full color
Then I laminate each page with my Scotch PRO Thermal Laminator (using these Scotch Thermal Laminating Pouches)
Then I cut out the Icons using a my Paper Cutter to get straight lines
Lastly, I stick on the back Round Magnets with Adhesive Backing