Writing with Structure and Style for Students

Jenny/ August 18, 2020/ Homeschool Reviews

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 compensated in any other way.

Disclaimer: I use affiliate links of products I love & use!

I was blessed to get to review
Structure and Style® for Students Year 1 Level A from Institute for Excellence in Writing® this year! They have a whole series through this program Structure and Style® for Students.

We received the student manual, teacher manual and online streaming videos. I had never used IEW and we were absolutely amazed at this company and program!

First of all this is a program designed to teach writing. The SSS is Structure and Style for Students. We have the first level as my son is 9 years old. Andrew Pudewa is the online instructor and he is absolutely fabulous! In fact I liked this program SO much I bought their spelling series called the Phonetic Zoo.

Anyway back to the product at hand.

What’s included in IEW’s program?

The videos are lifetime streaming so you buy this once and you can reuse everything but your student manual. That makes this especially attractive to larger families in my opinion. I know I will have 4 students to use this so that makes me super excited😝 You do have to have internet for this streaming option but you can also choose physical dvds if you prefer.

Their website is very easy to navigate and they actually offer a freebie for several of their programs. This means you get the first several lessons absolutely FREE to try out! They also have a podcast and tons of good articles for you to read to help you become a better teacher. I went and bought quite a few, hehe😜.

In the first part of your program your child is learning how to effectively get the main points of a story so that he can retell it. They read a short story, then pick out 3 words from each sentence to record. When they’re done they use this to practice retelling the story to you or a sibling. Jake loved Andrew Pudewa. He is a wonderful, amazing teacher!! He’s funny and can hold even a reluctant writers attention, cough, cough, someone named Jake 😝😝.

The lessons progress through many different short stories and teach the young person parts of writing such as using “-ly adverbs, who/which clause, strong words, adjectives” and more. Their binder is set up with dividers that say source text, model charts and outlines, work in progress and finished composition. There are lesson plans, checklists and more.

The teacher manual is super helpful and has a complete view of each lesson your child needs to learn. It helps you understand exactly what is being taught. One very nice factor is it tells you the minute you are to watch to in the videos. BTW the videos are excellent quality and are easy to see and hear and are professionally filmed.

I can’t think of a more excellent way to teach writing and tons of others things at the same time. The stories are also information or stories with a moral too!

Why choose this writing program?

This is a wonderful company with a ton of great resources to help you! Just on a side note, I bought a CD set called Music and the Brain, an mp3 called Teaching Boys and Other Children Who’d Rather Be Building Forts and the Phonetic Zoo. This Structure and Style for Students actually has an additional resource called Fix It Grammar but after taking the placement test I decided my son needed to start at the Phonetic Zoo first.

Don’t forget to check out what our other reviewers thought at the link below!