Bridgeway English



 Bridgeway Academy  is a nationally accredited homeschool company that provides curriculum & online classes for homeschoolers (think virtual teacher & participating in a group class with homeschoolers around the world!) I admit I hadn't heard of them until I was recently asked to review Bridgeway English Book 1 Focus on Grammar (along with the accompanying Bridgeway English Key for correcting the work). 
 

This course is stated to be a remedial english course for students in grades 7-12. I was a little unsure of what to expect by that definition. The student book is a consumable, spiral bound book. The topics book 1 covers are:

-subject and predicate
-fours types of sentences
-sentence fragments
-run-on sentences
-compound sentences
-noun functions
-pronouns
-adjectives
-adverbs
-prepositions and prepositional phrases
-conjunctions
-interjections
-grammar review

It is a self instructional curriculum that follows a mastery approach with each new lesson building on the previous ones. So it's important to make sure the student understands what they are doing before moving onto a new lesson. Each section is called a PAK and there are 6 packs in this book each around 34-43 pages long. At the end of each PAK is a self test that the student takes in preparation for the final tests.

Since I have 3 children that would be in the appropriate grade to use this curriculum, they had to figure out which one was going to use it. One of my 8th graders said she thought it looks like something she would enjoy doing. She worked on it 4 days a week during the review and found it very easy to follow the guidelines & directions in the book.

At the begining of each PAK it lists the objectives the student will learn in that section as well as a short story called "Tremendous Tales". The directions throughout the book are shaded in gray making it easy to see what she needed to complete. At the end of each daily lesson, there is a reminder for them to check their answers, correct the mistakes and then recheck their answers which helps them review anything they got wrong.

The answer key makes grading everything very simple. There is a copy of each page of the student text (2 to a page in the answer key) with all the answers filled in so you only have to glance between the 2 books to correct it all.



We felt that this was a very thorough grammar curriculum. There is no "fluff" involved, it gets right to the point yet in an engaging & understanding way. We also enjoyed the uplifting & encouraging quotes that were sprinkled throughout the text.

There is also a Book 2 that focuses on writing but we didn't receive that. After reviewing book 1, my daughter wishes we would've gotten the second book. (just as a side note, the teachers key book is the answer book for both books 1 & 2). She said that she feels she is understanding grammar much better by using this curriculum and she appreciates the straight-forward approach.

I think the description for this course should be stated as a thorough, in depth review of grammar instead of a remedial course.

Book 1Book 2 & the English Key can be purchased for $23.33 each. Check out other reviews as others from the crew reviewed the online classes!

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