Your Child Can Master Academic Writing and Reach the Top of the Class

For over 20 years, the Academic English Mastery (AEM) writing program has been helping students in grades 5-10 unlock the secrets of great writing and get FAR ahead of their peers, even if they are currently struggling with writing.

In as little as four months, your child can master the four critical elements of academic writing. As a result, your child will be able to write well on EVERY assignment in EVERY subject, which means significant grade increases in EVERY class.

Results are guaranteed. Your child WILL learn to write well - or your money back!

The Academic English Mastery program is based on four pillars of writing excellence:

• understand instructions and success criteria, so they know exactly what the teacher is looking for
• brainstorm, develop, and organize relevant ideas
• find information from reliable sources
• find and understand statistics, so they can support their ideas with data, which is the gold standard in academic writing
• organize information in a reader-friendly structure
• provide references
• avoid plagiarism
• deal with AI tools

What makes this program different from other writing programs?

Students see big improvements quickly because of our unique approach to writing: direct instruction, lots of supervised writing practice, specific feedback with opportunities to revise errors, and focused training on weak areas. 

For that reason, after each weekly class, students complete three writing assignments that receive detailed, colour-coded feedback the next day. Students then revise their writing based on the feedback and re-submit their work for additional feedback and corrections. Because of the frequency of practice and feedback, writing concepts stay top-of-mind and students see rapid progress in writing skill.  

• Assignment #1: Grammar exercises based on concepts taught in class, sentence combining exercises, editing
• Assignment #2: Summarizing and paraphrasing, detailed descriptions of graphs and processes (these will be used in Assignment #3)
• Assignment #3: Paragraph, report, or essay

Please note: There is no limit to revisions. Students can write with teacher support up to seven days per week. In fact, we work with many parents who want their child writing every day, either because the child is far behind or because the child is ambitious and wants to be the best writer in the class. Children progress quickly when given the right support!

To be effective, feedback needs to be prompt and meaningful. 

Assignments can feel like busy-work if students don't receive timely and meaningful feedback. In the AEM program, students receive detailed, colour-coded feedback the morning after submitting their work.

At school, children often wait weeks or even months for assignments to be returned with feedback. Last January, a colleague who teaches grade 11 English for the Toronto District School Board admitted to me that she still hadn't returned essays submitted by her students in November. She said she was "bored to tears" reading essays that no one enjoyed writing about a book that no one enjoyed reading (it was required by the department head). 

When students finally get their work back (weeks or months after handing it in), their feedback is often just checkmarks and "Great work!" Parents send me writing samples like the one below. This kind of feedback isn't helpful, and it also gives the wrong impression that everything is perfect.

This student is a fairly good writer but also has great potential just waiting to be developed:

• Grammar errors: awkward sentence construction, run-on sentence, plural possessive error
• Many missing commas
• Vocabulary is repetitive and informal in places

Every assignment like this with meaningless feedback is a wasted opportunity for this young man to develop his writing skills. In the AEM program, all of these issues would be identified, and the student would revise his writing based on the feedback. We would then discuss any outstanding issues during the next class and make a plan to avoid the same issues in the next assignment. 

In writing, receiving feedback promptly and then incorporating the feedback into revisions keeps writing concepts top-of-mind, and students progress quickly. Consequential follow-up makes all the difference.

To be effective, feedback needs to be accurate. 

Many parents suspect that their child's high grades are "fake news." Unfortunately, they're right. In the AEM program, students receive detailed, colour-coded feedback as well as an objective score of their work using rubrics based on international criteria.

Grade inflation is real. For example, the sample essay below was written by a girl who received 93% in grade 9 English. Her parents called me because they knew her grades were far too high. In fact, she had no idea how to use a comma. 

These high grades set unrealistic expectations for university, where students experience enormous grade point decreases. Students are bewildered as their "A+" level writing in high school drops to a "B" or even a "C" in university. For that reason, grade inflation in elementary and high school ends up harming students' confidence and motivation in university. In frustration, students drop classes or change majors (and in some cases, drop out of school) because they never learned to write properly. This can cost thousands of dollars in wasted tuition or remedial tutoring, but more importantly, broken dreams, as students doubt their ability to succeed. University is too late for writing training! 

School is failing students by not teaching fundamental principles of writing. 

These principles are still taught at elite private schools but are often neglected in public school. 

It's not your child's fault they are struggling with writing. The reason is that many English teachers NEVER teach grammar. Teachers either look down on grammar rules or they HOPE students will magically pick them up. I've been to teacher's college: grammar instruction is frowned upon as not being "creative" and teachers are discouraged from developing lessons on writing mechanics.

This is true even in classes full of ESL students. When a child asks for a grammar lesson, they are told not to worry about it because "we focus only on big ideas."

Recently, a student in grade 11 told me that in three years of high school, they had talked about grammar for half of one period IN TOTAL! Again, this is at a school in Scarborough with a large percentage of ESL students. 

The results are not good: according to Ontario university professors, around 75% of students can't write well. This harms their future at university and at work - it limits opportunities and closes doors. 

The table below shows the percentage of American students (the results are similar in Canada) who are considered proficient in mathematics, reading, science, and writing in grades 4, 8, and 12. Notice that most results get WORSE over time (except for a slight increase in reading skill).

• Source: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/

In Canada, according to recent research at York University, Western University, and the University of Toronto, 41% of students were identified as "at risk" of not being able to do well in their university studies, and 16% were classified as "dysfunctional," which means completely incapable of succeeding in their studies.

Mirroring U.S. findings, only 23% of university professors at these Canadian universities "believed students were able to write at a university level." Even the students agree they're in trouble (although students GREATLY OVERESTIMATE their own abilities): "49% of the sample [of students admitted that they] lacked the skills considered essential to academic success" in writing.

• Source: "Academic Skill Deficiencies in Four Ontario Universities"
  

in Ontario, EQAO (Education Quality and Accountability Office) overstates students' writing abilities. I prepare students for the literacy test (OSSLT) and I have even marked it: the tasks are simple and the marking is generous. EQAO states that 35% of Ontario students (40% of ESL students) are NOT proficient in writing, i.e., they are at Level 2 ("C") or lower. However, this does NOT mean that those who score Level 3 or 4 on the literacy test are good writers! As noted, according to 3/4 of university professors, students are not able to write well.

Massive grade inflation sets students up for failure once they get to university.

57% of Canadian university students are at risk of doing poorly in their courses or even failing, yet 90% of Ontario high school students graduate with a "B" or "A" average. Many students and parents are happy with these grades, but smart students and parents know that this creates massive problems down the road. 

I went to one of the top high schools in Canada and almost nobody got over 80% in English. Times have changed. A student who recently joined my writing class received 97% in grade 9 English, yet the writing she showed me had many grammar problems and was difficult to understand in places. I asked her how it was possible to get 97% in English with such problems. She replied that she knew she had lots of grammar problems and she had even asked her teacher for help. However, her teacher said, “In my class, we focus only on big ideas – we don’t worry about little things like grammar.” 

It's critical for parents to make sure that their child thoroughly understands the foundations of writing, even if they are getting good grades right now. These good grades could be a source of overconfidence and lack of preparedness for more challenging writing tasks in the near future. 

Who designed the AEM writing program?

My name is Jan Waginski and I am a certified teacher in Ontario. In over 20 years of teaching academic writing, I have developed a powerful system that transforms young learners from struggling to confident writers. This method has helped hundreds of my students, many of whom were reluctant writers when they started. In fact, it's common for a "B" or even a "C" student to become an "A" student after only a short period of training. When students master the foundations of writing, their grades soar on EVERY writing assignment in EVERY class.