Warriner's Handbooks Courses

Warriner's Handbook has long been an educational and homeschooling favorite: a good, solid grammar course with an excellent reputation at the secondary level. Instruction is easy to understand and thorough in its coverage of grammar, usage, and mechanics (capitalization and punctuation) as well as sentence construction skills. Republished as a Holt Traditions course, there are a number of components which provide instruction, extra practice, tests, answers, and teacher support.

The heart of the course is the Student Edition (or Handbook), a hardcover, consumable worktext that provides instruction, modeling, and independent practice using a workshop approach. There is an emphasis on sentence structure, sentence variety and paragraph coherence with the goal of effective writing. Bonus features include manuscript form and samples, a history of English, test-taking strategies, and a grammar reference section. There is no answer key in these Handbooks. This student text does not include any online resources even though the graphic clearly shows a statement from the front of the book that implies there are online materials included with the purchase. 50 pg, hb.

The Online Edition - a one-year subscription - provides access to a student digital edition of Warriner's Handbook plus various student resources. This is the material referenced on the front cover of the Handbook. Unfortunately, it does not provide access to the exercise answers. The online version could be used in conjunction with or instead of the hard copy course. It could also be used as a companion to other language arts courses as a grammar resource.

Chapter Tests, a softcover, consumable workbook, provides short-answer questions for each chapter in the Student Edition (Handbook). An answer key to the tests is included. 64 pg, sc.

With this course, answers are important - both in terms of time saved and in terms of learning accuracy. Answers to the exercises in the Student Edition are found in the hardcover Teacher's Edition along with some additional activities (624 pg). Answers are also available on the One-Stop Planner CD-ROM which includes a digital copy of the Teacher's Edition plus worksheets, customizable lesson plans, a test generator, PowerPoint resources, the Holt Calendar Planner, and Holt PuzzlePro. Please note: this CD-ROM is an older computer product and may not work on newer computers. Please check the system requirements (found on the back-cover graphic on the website).

The Support Package is a collection of supplemental workbooks as well as the Chapter Tests book. Included:

          Language and Sentence Skills Practice Book

          Language and Sentence Skills Practice Answer Key

          Developmental Language & Sentence Skills Guided Practice Book

          Developmental Language & Sentence Skills Guided Practice Teacher Notes and Answer Key

          Chapter Tests with Answer Key

The Language and Sentence Skills Practice consumable workbooks provide two types of worksheets: Traditional - practice and reinforcement for every rule and major instructional topic. Language in Context - literary, composition, and proofreading extensions. The Answer Key is a separate three-hole punched softcover book. 464 pgs and 64 pgs, respectfully.

The Developmental Language and Sentence Skills Guided Practice consumable workbooks provide additional instruction and practice for struggling students with notes, reminders (grammatical terms and concepts), tips (mnemonic devices and recognition strategies), and guided practice which helps students with the first one or two items of each exercise by asking questions that guide students to the correct answer. The Answer Key is a separate three-hole punched softcover book (184 pg and 192 pg, respectfully).

Whether you need a good, thorough grammar review or a comprehensive high school level course, Warriner's delivers. While a little expensive to get the answers needed, you can be assured that you have strong, college-prep material. ~ Janice