Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in
exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I
compensated in any other way.

 

Writing with IEW®

Homeschool Review Crew

Structure and Style® for Students Year 1 Level B

 

Many children struggle with writing. Writing with IEW® can make it easier for them and for you as a homeschool mom. Institute for Excellence in Writing® (IEW®) is a company dedicated to making learning about grammar and all things reading and writing easier for the student while also making sure they get a thorough understanding of it. We have had the privilege of reviewing many IEW® products over the years and also the joy of purchasing others. 

Structure and Style® for Students Year 1 Level B is a new program for us.  We received the physical set and online lessons through The Homeschool Review Crew in order to review the program. This program is geared towards grades six through eight though you could definitely use it with older children as well. 

Instead of using this for younger or older and simply changing things to fit IEW® has made that easy for you as well by creating Level A for grades three through five and Level C for grades nine through twelve.  You can learn about all three levels by going HERE. 

About the Program 

What makes this program unique is that it allows your family to have digital forever streaming of the lessons.  The consumables are reproducible for a family so in essence you only have to purchase each set once and you’re good for the lifetime of your homeschool. 

There are 24 weeks of instruction for each level of the program. These are broken down into nine units. Those units are

1. Note Making and Outlines
2. Writing From Notes
3. Retelling Narrative Stories
4. Summarizing a Reference
5. Writing From Pictures
6. Summarizing Multiple References
7. Inventive Writing
8. Formal Essay Models
9. Formal Critique

Your child does not have to complete each level of the program, but they can if you wish to use it alongside Fix It! Grammar each year.  As a side note, we in our homeschool love and use Fix It! Grammar for all grades!  It starts with grade three and goes through high school. 

If you’re interested in free access to the curriculum go here  IEW.com/lessons2020 where for a limited time you can get three free weeks of language arts. 

Included

Included in your kit you will receive a student binder and packet, a teacher’s manual, and your choice of either streaming or DVD lessons.  As I mentioned above, we received the streaming lessons with our review package. 

 

 

Our Thoughts on the Program

As a parent, I like that the curriculum is broken down for me weekly as well as on a daily basis.  So, I can theoretically give my child the assignments for each day that they should do and let them go off on their own to get it done.  Because this does require a computer for the streaming portion I do require my children to stay in the same room as me.  This also makes it easier for when they’re completing their seatwork if they have questions I’m right there to help them. 

Each weekly video is broken into days so that they know exactly where and what to watch.  I do want to mention that in their daily assignments it also says what pieces of Fix It! Grammar they should be doing.  This is nice for me as we do use that program as well. 

For our review, and really all of our school, we use a four day school week.  It makes it easier for us to have a free day for running errands or simply a day to catch up on school.  I appreciated that the schedule for this course did include that option. 

I used this course with my 14-year-old daughter who is doing 8th grade this year. She has been enjoying the program though she did complain about having to write so much the first week.  After she got into it she changed her tune and has been enjoying it more. 

The only thing I might do differently with this curriculum if I were to buy a level would be to get the DVDs instead of streaming.  We live in the middle of nowhere with nasty internet.  Our internet is slow and we often lose it if it rains. And if we didn’t have internet she couldn’t get her online lessons to view.

My daughter is now currently writing a small series of books which is something she never would have done before.  So I have to say this curriculum is a hit and working well doing its job with teaching how to properly write and structure writing. 

Learn More

You can learn more about writing with IEW® Level B (what we reviewed) as well as levels A and C by reading all of the blog posts linked up on the Main Blog Post over on the Homeschool Review Crew blog.  Institute for Excellence in Writing® (IEW®) can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest.