Institute For Excellence in Writing Review

Long, long ago, at a home school convention far, far away we first heard of Andrew Pudewa and Institute For Excellence in Writing. Homeschooling friends that came with us to the convention attended his workshop and bought the program. I spent an entire school year hearing about how wonderful the program was, but the cost still turned me off. During the course of that school year our son had loaded several of the convention speakers sessions onto his Ipod. Our son went crazy over Andrew Pudewa! But I thought there is NO WAY I am spending that kind of money on a writing program when we have tons of notebook paper, pens and pencils right here in our own home for FREE!
 Guess where our writing program had advanced to BEFORE starting The Old Schoolhouse Review Crews review of Institute For Excellence in Writing with Teaching Writing with Structure and Style Set (TWSS) and Student Writing Intensive Level A Set (SWI)?

Yes, exactly we were still at square one, having days, weeks and years of a student staring at a blank piece of notebook paper. My son would stare in wonderment at the blank paper wondering how on earth to take notes. Even though I thoroughly explained how to take notes (jot down the most important stuff! How hard is that?) It was a struggle for my son to fluff up a story that needed a few more lines, to write creatively or to write an essay. I knew how to do all these things, but I just was not teaching it in a way that was clicking with my son.

 

For this review we received the Teaching Writing: Structure & Style (TWSS) DVD Seminar and Practicum Workbook

We also got the Student Writing Intensive-Preparing Students to Write with Structure & Style Student Seminar Materials Level A set for grades 3-5. There are 3 levels. Level A grades 3-5, Level B grades 6-8 and Level C grades 9-12. The nice thing is that you just need to buy the student materials for each level, the teacher materials stay the same.

What this home school Momma liked about IEW

1. I really liked the parent/teacher training. I have know a few people that did not do well with this program, I am now seeing why, they did not buy the Teaching Writing: Structure and Style. They were just trying to use the student materials.
2. I love how he chats about practicing musical instruments…lol…boy did that catch my son off guard! LOL.
3. Often times I wondered what was going on in our media room where my son watches the DVD’s, there was constant laughter coming from in there when he was watching Andrew.
4. He is so funny in how he chit chats with the kids while he is teaching them, I think sometimes I get WAY too serious when I am teaching.
5. After a few weeks of using Institute For Excellence in Writing with Teaching Writing with Structure and Style Set (TWSS) and Student Writing Intensive Level A Set (SWI),  my son started to put what he was learning to work. I had signed him up for a study skills and note taking class at the local college, after the first class the teacher wanted to talk to me...LOL…being the mom of a boy, I thought “Oh, no!” Well she was interested in where he had learned to take notes since he was the only student (grades 6-9) on the first day of class doing so without having been prompted. I was dumb founded, where did he learn to take notes? Well after finding out that he was using the outline system from IEW, I knew the material was taking hold and carrying over to outside school activities. SOLD!
6. That same week we attended a home school convention, I attended the IEW vendor workshop and purchased a few more items. I bought the Level C set and the book FIX-IT! Grammar and Editing Made Easy with Classics.
7. Love the “Dress Ups” that is such a great way to remind the kids to dress up their papers.
8. Teachers notes are AWESOME!
9. Andrew is so funny with how he read the stories and makes noises and such mayhem…lol. Definitely a boy thing!
10. The course schedule is so nice, I like something that I can cross off what we have done. It’s also nice to be able to look ahead at upcoming lessons.
11. There are so many take a ways for me that will help me in teaching other subjects. Just the outlining format will help with research papers, history assignments etc.
12. I liked the Handouts, I put them in page protectors and used a magnet to hang them up on our dry erase board to use as a reminder. I made notes, drew arrows and pointed out many things from the Handouts.

What this home school Momma did not like about IEW:

1. Andrew was easy to hear, but the adults in the training DVD’s and the students in the Student Writing Intensive DVD’s that were answering questions were off mic and it was rather annoying to me that you could hardly hear them. This might be a minor annoyance to some but I have worked in radio/TV for many years and it drives me bananas to hear something like that.
2. I was a bit overwhelmed at how long the DVD’s were, DO NOT wait until just before school starts to make your purchase of Institute For Excellence in Writing with Teaching Writing with Structure and Style Set (TWSS) and Student Writing Intensive Level A Set (SWI). You will want some time to look over the materials and watch the Teaching Writing: Structure and Style DVD’s. Don’’t fret though, there are Easy Start Instructions included in the student materials, but I highly recommend watching the teaching DVD’s first.
3. I did not like how he had said that grammar books can be dangerous, that could cause kids to become negative towards grammar books. He does go on to talk more about this, but I think it should be discussed in a different fashion when working with impressionable children.
4. I wonder if the Adverb and Prepositions sheets might become a crutch over time?

What this home school student liked about IEW:

1. I liked his humor.
2. Andrew relates well to boys and that is VERY helpful in writing because most boys don‘t like to write.
3. I like how the DVD stops at certain spots, because sometimes I don’t know where the remote is and it’s helpful to not lose my place on the DVD.
4. I like how he talked to the kids about everyday things such as practicing musical instruments.
5. I liked how he addressed those watching at home. It seemed like I was right there with the other kids.
6. Easy to follow along.
7. I liked how he talked about writing wild and crazy things in letters to friends and how we don’t always have to be formal in a letter.
8. The stories were fun.
9. I liked how he made words come to life in the writing, they were more colorful.
10. In the middle of this review I was enrolled in a note taking and study skills class at our local community college, the first day I started taking notes when class started. The instructor stopped teaching and commented on what I was doing. I told her I was taking notes, she walked around the classroom at that time and pointed out how some students were doodling, some were staring off into space, one was sleeping and I was the only one taking notes. She was very impressed, she even talked to my mom after class and complimented me in front of her. She was really surprised to find out that I was home schooled, I guess home schooled kids should not know how to take notes? LOL.
11. Later in the week we went to the state home schooling conference and I asked my mom if I could buy the Portable Walls which is the Handy fold-outs with writing models and word lists on it. She let me!
12. I like the way that Mr. Pudewa is so animated when he read the stories.
13. My favorite story was The Boy Who Cried Wolf, I like the way Mr. Pudewa got goofy in the way he read it.

What this home school Student did not like about IEW:

1. I can’t think of any thing that I did not like.

Institute For Excellence in Writing will give your student the ability to take notes, write stories, summarize using main ideas, write reports. Oh, I almost forgot, how to have fun with and fine tune creative writing skills. Another exciting thing that I found out through having the privilege of taking part in this review is that a friend of mine's son uses Institute For Excellence in Writing at his private Christian high school. I thought that was pretty cool that even brick and mortar schools use IEW. Please be sure to check out the rest of the http://www.excellenceinwriting.com/ website for many more great products for your homeschool. If you have a chance to attend an IEW vendor workshop at your local homeschool convention go for it! I attended one this spring and learned so much about IEW.

 

 

My son has truly been blessed through this review, it's helped him stop struggling so much with writing, though he still has to gain more confidence before posting any of his work on my blog. We have a few more lessons to get through on Level A, we plan to skip Level B and move right on to Level C which I bought at convention.

SpellingCity.com Review

As homeschool product reviewers for The Old Schoolhouse Magazines TOS Review Crew we were given a Homeschool Membership to SpellingCity.com, it's a family membership for up to 5 students in our family. I had to giggle and reminisce back to the first years of our homeschool. We loved using SpellingCity.com, back in the day the homeschooled young man loved to play the free games and practice his spelling using the program. We had found our homeschool curriculum's spelling lists on the site and used those daily. Other times I would import my own lists for history, science and reading words. But there was something lacking in that whole process, now after using the Homeschool Membership of SpellingCity.com, I know exactly what it is. We were lacking accountability in knowing what was actually getting done, I just knew my homeschooler would tell me "I got X number wrong." or "I played this or that game."

Letter Fall game

With the Homeschool Membership you get so much more for your homeschool shopping dollar. SpellingCity.com has an age range of K-12th grade, but I played around with some of the games and had a lot of fun, though I struggled with the Letter Fall game, the homeschool young man LOVED that game and played it a lot.

When you sign up and start the Homeschool Membership, you as the homeschool Momma type in the students' names, it's that easy! Then when your students sign on to SpellingCity.com, they just log in and they will automatically go to your parent homepage.
All activities done on SpellingCity.com will be recorded for you to later view in your parent account. Spelling test results will be right there for you to see and are recorded including the score
              as well as the words that were spelled right or wrong.

I allowed the homeschooling young man to goof around on the site and find what he wanted to work on and he found some pretty cool areas that I did not even know existed on the site. He came across some very COOL science vocab lists that are by grade and by subject, as well as GERMAN word lists. Now how cool is that? He was messing around with those German word lists day and night, big thrill for him since he is taking German this year. The other games that he really liked were Hang Mouse and Word Scramble.

Word-O-Rama game

I do have one hint for you, coming from a homeschooling family that has used SpellingCity.com in the past, MAKE SURE THAT YOUR CHILD USES THE CORRECT ACCOUNT THAT IS HOOKED UP TO YOUR PARENT ACCOUNT! At first I could not figure our why things were not being recorded in my parent account, I figured that I (not being tech savvy in the least!) had goofed something up. Well come to find out the homeschooling young man was going in and doing activities on his personal account, he was so use to entering in his (free account) info, that it never dawned on him that he was using the wrong account. And ya know how us homeschool mothers get busy...lol. We finally got it straightened out.

Flash Card

"Differentiated Learning": you can assign different tasks to each of your children

"Efficient record keeping": Great for states where homeschoolers must track their students because the tests results and student activities are recorded right away.

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• *Set up year-round homeschool spelling word and vocabulary practice with our Word Study Playlists
• *Students can create and customize their own word lists
• *Receive immediate feedback on all games and tests
• *Review and assign learning activities to match your homeschool vocabulary curriculum
• *Easily review your child's work from the parent portal
• *Accessible anywhere

SpellingCity.com also offers Mobile Apps, and now they even offer an Android App and a Kindle app. We used the Kindle app and it worked really well.

All in all we had fun playing with the SpellingCity.com Homeschool Membership and I think we learned from using it too. Make sure you check out the FAQ section, lots of helpful info there and also a great video guide is on the site too.
P.S. SpellingCity.com comes in handy when homeschool Momma is busy and can't stop just right then and there, she can send her students to play on SpellingCity.com...lol. The kids won't even know they are learning, they will be having so much fun!! Also, SpellingCity.com is a great learning tool for homeschoolers. See SpellingCity.com for more information.

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Upcoming review of SpellingCity.com

I've been given a Homeschool Membership to VocabularySpellingCity.com for a candid, personal, online review. Can't wait to share it with you all!

VocabularySpellingCity helps students study word lists using 25 different learning activities such as Unscramble, Hangman, WordFind, and Crossword Puzzle. Parents can create their own spelling lists, find published lists already available on the site, or use any of the prepared lists. Try a sample game. on topics such as Multiple Meaning Words and Possessive Nouns . Be sure to come back in three weeks to read about my experience.

Review of Joyce Herzog's Budding Authors & 6 Weeks to Understanding Grammar

Joyce Herzog is an accomplished author and speaker of many resources for homeschoolers. I've seen her speak a number of times at homeschool conventions on a variety of topics. She is a real gem to say the least. We were given copies of the Budding Authors series to review for The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew. Now let me start out by saying that I am so use to using Turn Key Operation homeschooling materials, this left me a bit out there. I like to see Day 1 we do this, Day 2 we do that. We are not in Kansas anymore Toto...lol. But this material was very easy to follow despite my worries and fears...lol. We used this material with our 12 year old 7th grader.
The first book is Step Into Writing Budding Authors in the Budding Authors series and is $10.00. The second book Step On Into Writing Budding Authors in the Budding Authors series is also $10.00. Both stressed the importance of using your best penmanship, punctuation and work spacing. Your students daily work should take around 10 minutes at most. This book is suppose to contain dictionary pages, which I did not find in the book. I really liked the idea of C,P,S, paper. Each page has a section off to the side marked with those letters. Once the child is done writing, they know to check for C=Capitalization, P=Punctuation and S=Spelling. Even though we did not use this book (it was too easy for our 7th grader) I plan to implement the use of the C,P,S, system since it's easy for our son to forget to go back and look over his work.

I really liked the quote in the book "Do not expect your learner to correct and concentrate on all skills at once!" Oh, as homeschool mommas we all need to hear that sometimes, don't we? Many times we expect way too much from our kiddo's in the area of picking up on concepts and them putting them to use.

These first two books are set up with copy work, dictation (love that, helps kids to learn to listen), experience story in which the parent and child discuss the picture that is on the writing page. The child tells you the story and you write it out in their own words in the first book, the second book you do the same thing except the child writes out the story.

We started out with book number three Adventures In Writing Budding Authors in the Budding Authors series which is $10.00. This book concentrates on "Writing short stories in a single paragraph." Again each page has a picture to look at to get an idea and then there are word boxes to help the student write the story. Later on there are blank word boxes for the child to get key word ideas down first before writing the story.

We also got book number four Then and Now Budding Authors in the Budding Authors series which is $12.00. Your student will learn to "Write comparisons in two paragraphs." This book has a note to the reader with a touching story of how the book came into being. This book teaches what a good paragraph is, ordering of ideas, using 3x5 index cards to get ideas down and in order. Your student will learn thinking, organizing and writing skills through the use of this book.

We did not get to the Writing U.S. History Budding Authors in the Budding Authors series yet, but plan to work through it this summer. This book is $15.00 and gives a quick overview of how to take notes on 3x5 index cards and work on researching topics and writing them. There is a letter to the student (I think that this helps the student to feel important and take ownership of the material) giving details of how this book is laid out and what is expected of the student. After glancing through this book I can now see where our former curriculum went wrong! It was not detailed enough and expected way too much from the student too soon.

We are very pleased to be able to use these materials from Joyce Herzog and I totally recommend these to any homeschooler, but especially to those that have struggling writers, they can become budding authors through using Joyce Herzog's materials.

We were also given a copy of 6 Weeks to Understanding Grammar to review. WOW!!! What a little book this is! It's like a Cliff Notes book for grammar. We loved this! The only thing that I found a problem with was that on page 12 there is a partial sentence and the rest of the paragraph is missing. I think that this little book would be a great study companion for the SAT/ACT testing. It's definitely worth the $12 for your student!

 

The Joyce Herzog website has a lot of great links and explanations about her books on it. If you even have the chance to hear Joyce Herzog speak do it. I've come away with so much from her talks.

 

We did not find anything in this review that we did not like. We had fun and our son learned how to write and form well read paragraphs. Thanks TOS Review Crew for another fun learning experience.