Easy Grammar Ultimate Series: Grade 9 by Easy Grammar Systems Review

Grammar is fundamental to every facet of life which is why I was eager to review Easy Grammar Ultimate Series: Grade 9 with the Easy Grammar Ultimate Series: Grade 9 Test Booklet by Easy Grammar Systems. Easy Grammar Ultimate Series: Grade 9 provides 180 daily lessons in only 10 minutes of time each day. It utilizes the concept of continued learning through daily application building on the previous day(s). Another bonus with this curriculum is the ability to reproduce (with limitations) the student pages from the teacher's text. If one does not want to copy the pages for subsequent students, they can purchase the student workbook. The answers are provided in the back making it a very easy open and go curriculum. There is a separate test book with the answers in the back of the book and an option to purchase a downloadable version. The covers of both books are made of a nice reinforced material that does not tear or crinkle easily.

How it Works

A lesson a day in approximately 10 minutes is the expectation for this curriculum. For this review, we utilized it four days a week over a six week review period. 

Each concept is first introduced, expanded, and reviewed in the text. The Scope & Sequence provides rules and which lesson it can be found. Each lesson is set up in a repeating format that will allow them to complete each lesson with ease while focusing on what they are learning.

Every lessons consists of five sections for every lesson:

• The first section consists of capitalization errors that the student is required to identify and correct. 
• Section 2 requires the student(s) to correct the punctuation by rewriting the sentence or they can utilize the sentence to provide the correction. I preferred to have mine rewrite the sentences.
• Section 3 and 4 are the teaching, reviewing and the application of the grammar rules and concepts. It starts out teaching concepts and then subsequent lessons build on it such as incomplete sentences, fragments, and run-on sentences.
• Section 5 is combining sentences which gave my daughter the hardest time. With my help, we were able to work through them with greater ease as we continued through each day. The knowledge learned in the prior sections and previous lessons help the student gain the knowledge and concept to work through these without as much trouble when they first begin the curriculum.

From my experiences with the curriculum, the level of teacher involvement is dependent on the child's skill level. However, in the Suggestions and Other Information of the Teacher Edition, it does have guidance on how to teach the lessons. I definitely utilized the helpful tips and found it was the key to working with my student.

Getting Started

After I read the answer key for each day, we proceeded with starting Day 1. The suggestion is to have the student provide their insight and discuss answers. A thing to note with the sentence combining exercise is that it does provide information about geography, history, cultures and more so it's a great opportunity to take that knowledge and expand to make the curriculum go outside the grammar scope.

Here are some example pages from different days:

As the lessons proceed, they become a little harder and more intense but again, they do build on the previous lessons. Here is a look ahead at Day 155:

This is an example of the answers so the student can self-check or the lessons can be checked together:

The assessments are found in the Grade 9 Test book. The 18 assessments are given at practical intervals ensuring the student has retained and understood what they were taught. After Day 40, she had her 4th assessment:

Overall, I like the concept of a teaching textbook and the short concise lessons each day. It provides just enough to teach the concepts and to provide practice over the next lessons. I think my student would have benefited from the earlier grade levels and built up to this one as she might be a little behind due to her listening and learning disabilities from having epilepsy. I plan to utilize the grammar curriculum with my 12 year old as she's advanced enough to be able to grasp the learning material while breezing through the daily lessons. This is a gem for the child who prefers short and concise lessons. It provides the knowledge needed for test taking skills and the ability to speak and write properly.

More About Easy Grammar Systems

• They have received the Parent and Teacher Choice Award from HowToLearn.
• There are placement tests available at their website.
• Videos are also available to learn more about Easy Grammar and the author, Dr. Wanda Phillips.

Social Media

Check out Easy Grammar Systems on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Our Learning Experience Reviewing IXL Learning's IXL Online Program

If you are a homeschooler or a parent wanting to supplement your child's learning opportunities, you are like me and like to keep options open for a program that your child(ren) will love. In the past, I have searched and often times, worksheets from IXL Learning would pop up but it wasn't until I was provided the opportunity to review the IXL annual membership from IXL Learning that I found how helpful it is. One of the things I didn't know was IXL Learning products are utilized in classrooms as well as homes in more than 190 countries around the world. The technology based learning and the long track record of success since 1998 sold me on why I wanted to try this with two of my children. IXL starts with pre-K skills all the way to adult level if one needs help for instance in Math where topics include Calculus and Geometry. Core topics include math, language arts, science, social studies as well as Spanish. 

I found getting started was very easy and as a parent, I enrolled my students and then started with the Diagnostic Arena so I could be sure that they began at the right level. The screenshot below is from my youngest and it provides her assessment as well as recommended skills to help her improve in the areas she's deficient in. It also provides the option to print out the diagnostic summary. 

Some of the other features include Usage so I can track her progress, Trouble Spots to help me guide her in how to help her, Scores provides more details into the individual assessment areas, access to the Questions and a Progress summary as shown below:

Another feature I like is the ease in accessing both my children's progress, results and more with a drop down feature:

To help keep the enthusiasm going, there are even certificates as we know children like to be rewarded!

Both my girls have spent a lot of time working through the various topics and have enjoyed some areas more than others. Math was not a favorite but my middle one enjoyed Science and learned a bit about photosynthesis.

One of both of their favorite topics was Social Studies and we spent a bit more time in this area due to the vast amount of topics that interested both of them. Here is just a sampling of the many many categories under Social Studies:

• Prehistory
• Ancient Egypt and Kush
• World Religions
• The America's: Geography
• Government
• The Constitution
• Banking and Finance

There are many more available and with a year's subscription, we will have plenty to work through. A quick way to see what each skill entails is to hover the mouse over each category and it will display a preview such as this:

That was a summary of the program and how we interacted with the many features. It's a very intuitive and easy program to allow your students to work by themselves or in the case of my girls, I needed to work along side of them to keep them encouraged as they are not good at solo online learning programs. It can even be taken on the go with mobile apps!  I really enjoyed the program and the many topics so I will continue to push them forward with using it as I think it's a great way to supplement their education.

There are three packages available:

1. $9.95 a month for single subjects;
2. $15.95 for combo package of Math and Language Arts; or
3. $19.95 for core subjects that include Math, Language Arts, Science and Social Studies.

My youngest enjoyed especially the topic of Roman Numerals as apparently, I neglected to teach her that! They both liked how easy it was to move around the different topics and grade levels. Being able to see where they were deficient also provided a good source to turn to when needed to practice more. They could return to where they left off and next to each topic was a number in parenthesis of how many were answered correctly. I liked the versatility that the program allows the child to jump around if they prefer. Overall, with over 7,500 topics and hundreds of awards, we would recommend IXL from IXL Learning. 

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