Review: Structure and Style® for Students Year 1 Level A

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.

If you need help teaching your children to write then I recommend checking out Institute for Excellence in Writing® to help you get started.  I've never thought I was a great writer and therefore I have struggled with teaching my children. Thankfully there are great resources that can help such as Structure and Style® for Students. We've recently been working in the Structure and Style® for Students Year 1 Level A (Grades 3-5). My son is older than the recommended age, but as we haven't done much structure writing it's recommended to start with level A.  Our box arrived and the first thing we needed to do was set up our student notebook. This writing course follows a structure plan and the student notebook is part of that.  There are folders for the source texts, model charts & outlines, work in process, finished compositions,  stylistic techniques, banned words, punctuation & usage and documentation.  Each week has certain goals and then a 5 day schedule.  If you need to shorten your week you could combine a few days together, but we followed the 5 day plan.  The week starts out with the student watching a video, usually about 30 minutes. The videos are actually a taped seminar with Mr. Pudewa, the founder and director of IEW.  Mr. Pudewa interacts with the students in the video, so our students feel a little like they are involved in the seminar. As the lesson is taught, starting with the key word outline (KWO) the student is told when he needs to pause the video to work. There are printed stories included in the lessons and that is what the student uses to make the outline.  The videos are streamed from the IEW website, so they are always available when you need and you don't have to worry about losing disks! They are forever streaming, so you can use this program with multiple children and just purchase additional student packets. If you prefer disks you can chose that option as well.

         

My son is going into 8th grade and has some special needs when it comes to learning. This being our first structured writing course I wanted to try and follow the schedule as closely as I could. He seemed to catch on to the key word outline fairly quickly and was able to retell the stories to us fairly well. Sometimes he didn't quite remember even using the outline, but I felt he was doing well. Week 2 jumped into reviewing the key word outline and then progressing on to writing a summary. For my child that moved too quickly. He's struggled with just writing paragraphs before and so jumping straight into this summary was a little hard for him.  We had to start stretching our lessons out over several days.  He has fine motor issues as well, so he needed more like two days to work on the writing rather than just the one.  The daily schedules are well written, so my son was able to watch the video on his own and complete the key word outline by himself.  During week 3 the checklist was added and that was something we reviewed together for his understanding.  The addition of -ly adverbs was added as well. Fix It! Grammar is recommended, but I chose not to use that program as it was above my son's level. We just reviewed the definition of an adverb and moved forward from there.  I was "hired" as his editor at the suggestion of Dr. Pudewa to compare his draft to the checklist and return it to him for the final draft. This process took him longer than the recommended time.  Due to the extension in time that we needed for the lessons we were only able to get through four weeks of the program.  I feel like for my child that I wished that a few more lessons were spent working on the key word outline and moving into the writing of the summaries a little slower.  I looked through my information and on the website and didn't really see a way to change any of the lessons to make it work better for us other than just giving him more days to do the work. I know this program was made to get students to write, but it just moved a little too quickly for my child. That said I plan to continue moving through this program this year and just going at a slower pace. We will probably use almost 2 weeks to get through one of their weeks, but that's the beauty of homeschooling is being able to adjust how you need for your individual children. 

As your student finishes up Structure and Style® for Students Year 1 Level A they can move into Level B and eventually Level C. There are sample videos and lesson plans for you to review in helping you decide which level suits your child best. For updated information follow Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Youtube. Also check out which levels the other reviewers used and see how those fit your family.