Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Time4Writing Review: Extreme Paragraphs

Pros: Small time commitment,personally coached by individual teacher, simple way to develop practical skills

Cons: Small icons were at first confusing to navigate after logging in, would love to see more teaching videos, animations to teach writing concepts, or interactive lessons like Time4Learning.

Summary: Overall a great little course with lots of helpful writing tools. My daughter was able to finish with minimal time commitment. Writing teacher was helpful and kind. She usually graded assignments within a 24 hours. Instructions were simple to follow and explained well. I feel that my daughter learned some useful information and had fun using her imagination to write paragraphs.

Full Review: After reading the parent info on the site, we decided that the "Extreme Paragraph" course looked like the right level for our 8 year old. J started off her writing course introducing herself to her teacher Mrs. Jennifer. The course began slowly with exercises and assignments to practice writing all the parts of a paragraph, beginning with topic sentences. 

Each lesson began with a short video clip that explained the concept that she would be learning. Then practice activities and quizzes came before the assignment. After completing her assignments, J's kind writing teacher, Mrs. Jennifer graded her writing and left a grade and helpful feedback to either correct the assignment, or to move on to the next lesson.

J seemed to fly through the lessons and quizzes with ease, but took a lot longer finishing the writing assignments. Once she was finished she was proud of her accomplishment and very excited to get feedback from Mrs. Jennifer.

Overall we thought the course had a lot of useful writing tools and clear instructions. My daughter learned some useful information and had fun using her imagination to write paragraphs. She seems a little more confident and has even expressed an interest in writing a book someday. :)  At the end of the course, J earned an Extreme Paragraph writing certificate. 

7 comments:

Unknown said...

what age group would you say this is good for. We are thinking of homeschool our boys and while he is only 3 something like this might work for us

Ree said...

If you are thinking of homeschooling, try time4learning.com.. You can easily start kids as young as 3 and its a great curriculum! I would save Time4Writing till 1st or 2nd grade. :)

tm said...

This sounds like it would be good for my son.

Krystal said...

Sounds like a great tool for homeschooling or for kids who need a little extra help with writing.

Unknown said...

I was homeschooled and I think it's so neat that there are services like this available now in our modern world! (Not that you would need to be homeschooled to use this!)

Show Me Mama said...

Looks like a great educational tool. I love to find new learning tools that will help any child to succeed in school and beyond. Thanks for sharing this with your readers.

Minta's Creations said...

Sounds great for homeschooling parents! I will pass this on.