Review: Hake/Saxon Grammar and Writing 3

Probably anyone that has homeschooled for any length of time has heard of Saxon Math. Stephen Hake is the lead author for Saxon Math textbooks, grades 3-8.  He long believed that students could greatly benefit from a language arts program that used the model that Saxon Math has long used.  Thus Hake Publishing was founded.  We've been able to spend some time recently with their newest addition,  Hake/Saxon Grammar and Writing 3.  Our youngest has always struggled in the the Language Arts area, so even though he's finishing up 5th grade I felt the 3rd grade program was more at his level.  Our box arrived and as with any Saxon Math product the quality was wonderful.  We received the following:






Grammar and Writing 3 with Daily Review-Consumable Textbook
Grammar and Writing 3 with Daily Review-Teacher Guide
Grammar and Writing 3-Writing Workbook

The Writing Workbook and Teacher's Guide have previously been 3-hole punched for easy insertion into a notebook if you prefer. All the answers to the lessons, writing activities and tests are included in this book. There are also a few additional practice lessons in the back for extra reinforcement. The consumable workbook was not and I actually think that would have been nice. For our youngest sometimes everything needs to be in one large notebook or they get lost. As I quickly glanced through the homeschool grammar program I liked what I was seeing. The program is set up to have daily lessons, review sets as well as tests.  There are lessons on parts of speech, sentence structure, spelling rules, word usage, dictionary skills to help with writing, capitalization and punctuation.  We've touch a little on diagramming sentences and this program continued that to offer a greater understanding.
As well as the daily lessons there is a series of writing lessons. These are there to help the student complete a composed essay.  One things that seemed very helpful was the grammar meeting at the beginning of every grammar lesson. This helps practice correct word usage, new vocabulary and to develop good speaking habits.  One thing that differentiates this program is the continued review and incremental development. Another is that in each lesson Core Knowledge®  content is included in the lessons. Such as age-appropriate references to art, geography, literature, history, poetry and science.

I like to work on grammar 4 or 5 days a week because our youngest seems to do much better when we don't take long breaks. I aim to do that, but if we get 3 times a week then I'm still happy. Since  Hake/Saxon Grammar and Writing 3 already includes daily review I felt better about not getting to work in the program every day.Often we have to go back and redo lessons because Issac has forgotten, but I felt the built in review would be helpful for him.  The program jumped right into the two parts of a sentence. Issac knows what a noun and a verb are, but when the program used the words subject and predicate it was confusing for him. Even though he seemed a little confused he was able to complete the Review Set 1 on his own and get them all right. As we moved on through the lessons he seemed to struggle more with the subject and predicate and often switched them. We haven't touched much on the verb tenses yet, but he seemed to catch on to that fairly well.  When he did make mistakes it was to always use the past tense which I thought was interesting. There are some additional practice lesson in the back for when the student has some struggles. I do wish that maybe the information was spread over a few lessons. Even though there is the daily review and additional practice sheets Issac still needed more review. He often just doesn't catch on in one lesson. There is so much covered in this book.  There are 111 lessons and it seems like pretty much everything is covered from capitalization, verb tenses, spelling rules, indirect objects, clauses and much more!

I feel this is a good program for Issac, but we might have to still work the same lessons more than once. During this review period we redid several lessons to help with his understanding. Even doing the additional practice sheets he'll need more review on some topics. That said I do like the setup and appreciate the extra build in review!

Hake Publishing has provided us with a wonderful schedule to follow. I know not everyone likes a schedule, but I've always felt it gives me a good jumping off point.  It's a nice reminder as well to know when the student has a test and or a writing lesson to be done since they aren't all in the same book.  

Hake Publishing currently has this program in grades 3-8.   Hake/Saxon Grammar and Writing 3 is their newest addition. If you'd like more information about this program check out this video as well as what other crew members thought.