Bridgeway English–a Review

Have you ever reached a point with your children when you wished your English curriculum was more user-friendly and straightforward?  My kids have been working through formal English grammar and writing curricula for years.  At this point in time, my eleventh grader is needing more of a user-friendly review that he can use to help him refresh his skills and sharpen him in preparation for his college entrance exams.  Bridgeway Academy has published a comprehensive grammar and writing curriculum, suitable for students in grades seven through twelve, which is appropriate for either remediation or review.  We have been using the Bridgeway English Book 1 Focus on Grammar and Bridgeway English Book 2 Focus on Writing as well as the Bridgeway English Key. Each of these products is sold separately for $23.33.

     One of the features we are thoroughly enjoying with this curriculum is the layout of the books.  Both student worktexts are spiral bound and contain instructional material, practice exercises, review exercises, practice tests, and final Pak (unit) tests.  The English Key contains reduced images of the student worktexts complete with answers.  The system is simple to implement.  Students read the boxes (shaded) containing the instructional material for each lesson.  The amount of instructional material is chunked for ease of understanding.  Then, students complete some ‘fill-in-the-blank’ exercises or short answer exercises based on the instructional material.  Once completed, practice exercises of some sort are completed.  The material is divided into Paks (the Bridgeway curriculum term for units) and each Pak is divided into lessons.  The lessons are short enough to be completed easily in one sitting.  At the end of a lesson or review or practice test, students are encouraged to check their work using the Bridgeway Key, correct their work on their own, and then check it again.  The goal for students is mastery.  Topics covered in the Bridgeway English Book 1 Focus on Grammar include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, and a huge grammar review.  The Bridgeway English Book 2 Focus on Writing includes topics such as sentence structure, clauses, subject/verb agreement, sentence variety, proofreading, and letter writing, just to name a few of the topics. 

     My son really likes the format of the Bridgeway curriculum.  He knows to complete a lesson each day, check the lesson, correct his work, and recheck the lesson.  He has shown a great deal of improvement in his grammar and writing skills since using this curriculum.  I am excited to see how he improves on his ACT skills in the Spring.  He has been doing a lesson out of both the grammar and the writing books each day of our school week.  Because of this pace, he will complete both books sometime after Christmas.  Normally, a student would complete the grammar text in one semester and the writing text in the next semester.  This is a great product to use as a sole English curriculum or as a review product.  Older students needing remediation will appreciate the straight-forward layout of the curriculum.  There is very little ‘fluff’ with these worktexts.  My son and I have enjoyed the length of the lessons as well as the ease of implementation along with the quality of the instructional material and exercises.  The tests provided in the back of the student worktexts (parents should remove these prior to giving students the worktexts) are thorough, but are based very specifically on the lessons in the paks and the reviews and self tests.  The entire program is set up for student mastery and success. 

     My friends on the Schoolhouse Review Crew have been using these products as well as some of the other products offered by Bridgeway Academy.  To read their reviews, click on the banner below.