CyndiLJ
- Reviewed on Saturday, October 24, 2009
- Grades Used: 5th
- Dates used: 2009
We have just finished our 3rd week with Saxon (Hake) Grammar and Writing. We pulled our son out of public school after 3 weeks this year so are new to homeschooling and I was struggling to find several programs to work with to cover all of language arts, and was finding myself frustrated as it was hard to discern what might work best in each area. After hours of research I stumbled upon this program and explored it further. We had started using Saxon math and we were already seeing results with how the program was presented and I thought we might find the Grammar and Writing program to be as effective. I was right.
My son is reading at 9th grade level as a 5th grader, but his grammar and writing skills were awful and were at 3rd grade level. It seems public school is more concerned with the thought behind the writing, which for him was always creative and well supported, but had almost no emphasis on correct punctuation, capitalization or sentence structure.
3 weeks in we are already seeing improvement in all areas. This program includes 2 vocabulary words with each lesson, which are then reinforced within the body of the lesson. It has terrific explanations of grammar and spelling rules, and it requires dictation once a week which is challenging. It also offers a topic for daily journaling, suggesting at least 3 lines written each day which we actually increase to a couple of paragraphs.
Like Saxon math, it introduces concepts incrementally in small steps, and offers lots of review of older concepts. But the lessons are not as tedious as many would think...the cross-curricular approach has already led us to Googling geography terms an historical events, and it keeps my son interested in the lessons which are not all that long. He completes them in about 30-45 minutes. His retention is quite high of the concepts presented, as the continual review allows him to more easily build on concepts rather than it being "hit and miss" with much forgotten.
This is not an inexpensive program, costing a similar amount ot their math programs. But it works, and that is money well spent over lesser programs that are not as all-inclusive as this one. I have no doubts that our son will be a very good writer by the end of this 4 year course of study (4 different levels of texts from 5th - 8th grade).
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4wildberries
- Reviewed on Wednesday, March 25, 2009
- Grades Used: 6,8
- Dates used: 2008/09
I LOVE, love this grammar program! I too heard about it on the Well Trained Mind forums, and after waffling between Analytical Grammar and Hake---I decided on Hake for several reasons. First of all, I like the integration of journaling, dictations and copywork. This is something I was looking to incorporate and Hake has made it very easy. Second, I like the vocabulary at the beginning of each lesson. They are very interesting words. My very favorite thing about Hake Grammar is the Saxon approach of incremental learning!!! This REALLY works for grammar---in fact, Saxon math was a total bust for my daughter who is now thriving with Hake grammar. The best thing about Hake are the index numbers next to each problem----so if your child forgets what gerunds are or what an appositive is---all they have to do is flip to the exact lesson in parentheses and review. This is an awesome program that has really skyrocketed both of my children to an understanding of grammar and diagramming and dictations that I really was not expecting. I highly recommend this program. I will say, though, that we are not using the writing portion. I too do not really care for it since we have been using IEW, the method of teaching writing is not really our style.
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beverly
- Reviewed on Monday, May 12, 2008
- Grades Used: 6th
- Dates used: 2007-2008
We decided to use this because we saw it on the well-trained-mind forum, but I regret that we bought it. The writing lessons are a huge disappointment, as far as teaching the skill of writing. (The grammar lessons are "ok".)
The index is not very thorough, in fact some of the topics for lessons are not listed at all. If I needed to find a certain topic, I would sometimes not find it listed. That didn't make sense because there was a lesson on that particular topic. There are also several type-o's in the books.
If you have a beginning writer, this is not for you! If you're child is a natural writer and loves to write, then you may like it. There is not enough information for the parent to teach writing if your child is not a natural writer.
The sample pages on their web site looked impressive, but upon receiving it and trying to implement the writing lessons.......I don't think so! Too expensive to buy at this rate!
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