Review of Progeny Press

If you have been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that we have used and loved Progeny Press almost since we began homeschooling (2007!). As a piece of trivia, Progeny Press began with 18 study guides in 1993 and has 115 guides currently. I have also been lucky to have reviewed it several times before. You can read those six reviews here. This time around, we got to review The Scavengers - eGuide. Like all Progeny Press study guides, this one follows a similar format. The study guide is 73 pages, including an answer key. It contains background information, pre-reading activities, vocabulary, content questions, what I call comprehension questions (so, digging deeper and critical thinking short essay-style questions), and activities. There is a wide enough variety that a student can either complete the whole study guide (which I would think is preferred), or pick and choose which parts suit their style. For instance, I have one child who loves to write, so would eagerly tackle all of the writing/short-essay style questions, but who loathes anything that looks like a hands-on craft or activity. I have another child who is dysgraphic*, so doesn't necessarily embrace writing, but who is very hands-on and loves activities (*note that dysgraphia isn't nearly as big a problem with Progeny Press e-Guides, as students can type directly into a pdf!).

Mary-Catherine (13) was my tester for this study guide. After I bought The Scavengers for her to read, she inhaled the book in one day. Well. That's not usually the best way to go about doing a study guide. It generally works better, from my point of view, to read a section and then do the accompanying study guide section, but I have never once ordered my kids to stop reading, so we dealt with it. Because she had already read the whole book, Mary-Catherine was allowed to complete the study guide at her own pace; no reading before writing necessary!

Mary-Catherine really enjoys words, so it was no surprise to me that she thoroughly enjoyed completing the vocabulary activities. She also liked the short answer questions. Her enjoyment of the study guide was confirmed when the first "Thinking About the Story" activity talked about word play, like alliteration. It's always exciting to see something you know a lot about pop up in your curriculum, so she eagerly went after this section, too. The longer essay-type questions are a bit more challenging, but because the book was below her current reading level, they didn't present as much of a challenge as they otherwise might have. One reason I love these study guides is because they force me to make my kids struggle with literature (by which I mean it forces them to confront issues in books and to wrestle with the meanings and implications). It's something I do naturally, and I take it far too much for granted that my kids do it, too. They don't necessarily, though, so Progeny Press always holds my feet to the fire!

Like every Progeny Press study guide we have ever used, beginning with the paper versions in 2007 and right to the pdfs today, this one was excellent. I would recommend any of their study guides to anyone.

If you have kids younger or older than Mary-Catherine, be sure to click the graphic below to read more reviews, including reviews of study guides for the youngest readers through high school.