Literature Study for All Ages

Homeschool Review Crew

Progeny Press

We love to read at our house.  You will always find half-read books scattered throughout this house.  And you will probably also always find a book in the hands of at least two children at any point in time.  My kids tend to revert to reading anytime they’re not actively doing something.  And I’m so okay with that!  Because of this, I love it when I find places that offer Literature Study for All Ages like Progeny Press.  They have literature study units all the way from Kindergarten to your senior year! 

We received two of their Literature Study for All Ages.  One covers grades K-3 and the title of The Long Way to a New Land Study Guide.  I actually have never personally read this book so I thought it would be a great one to introduce to my children.  We could read and learn together.

The second title we received is Hound of the Baskervilles Study Guide which is for grades 9-12.  I am such a huge fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Sherlock Holmes books that I was very excited to receive this one!

We have used Progeny Press units before so I knew I was going to love them.  They are PDF downloads and interactive.  Basically you can download and then let your child work through them on their own.  There will be clickable links and such to use and spots where they are to answer questions.  In a separate PDF download for this particular study (Hound of the Baskervilles) is the answer key.  In The Long Way to a New Land, there is only one download.

About the Program

Progeny Press is a company I can get behind and recommend.  They have a literature study for all ages and quite a variety at that. These studies are well written and truly help your child to think and comprehend the wonderful work of classic literature they’re reading.  Okay.  So if I’m honest I don’t consider all of their study guides to be classics but I’m picky about giving books that title.

The company has a mission statement that includes teaching children to think clearly, to understand literature, and to rely on the scripture for truth and values.  I love that!  Scripture is a big part of our home and I love having it interwoven into every single bit of our homeschool.  

Within the studies, they teach critical thinking, analysis, literary techniques, and how to study the themes and issues within the book they are reading.  So even after they are done with the literature study for all ages they can still use those skills they learned with every book they read.  I find that my children now can pick out pieces of stories better and retain them longer. 

Included within each study are sections and lessons covering a synopsis, author information, a dig deeper section, vocabulary, pre-reading activities, and a look or thoughts on each chapter or section of the book being read.

Studies for grades 4 and up are where you can fill them in online.  They’re interactive.  All studies can be printed and used multiple times and since you’ve downloaded them they are yours forever to use within your homeschool. 

Our Thoughts

We love these!

I personally love going through the Hound of the Baskervilles with my two 9th grade students.  We’re not done with the study yet but I love seeing them learn and comprehend and hearing their thoughts.  If nothing else, this is a great way to have discussions about books you’re reading aloud!

The studies from Progeny Press use the NIV version of the Bible in their work.  We use KJV or NKJV so there are some slightly different wordings but it’s not a deal-breaker.  Yes, I like it when our school uses the KJV like we do but it’s not something that is going to make me turn up my nose and not use their program again.  I did want to mention it though because it is something that I look at when purchasing a curriculum for our family.

You do have to purchase the book to go with the study.  The books do not come with the download though you can buy the book from Progeny Press.  You can also purchase the study guide as a printed workbook or on a CD.  So you don’t just have to buy the e-guide download like what we received for our review. 

Hound of the Baskervilles

The Hound of the Baskervilles is definitely a title that I’m not reading aloud with my kids like I do most of the books that we read for school.  It can be a bit scary and really isn’t one that my three or six-year-old would be wanting to listen to.  Some of my other children who are in middle school might be interested in the book but the study guide would be above their level of work still.  

Okay, so the Hound of the Baskervilles is amazing.  Holmes has long been a favorite of mine and I love getting to go through one of the classic stories with my children.  I just had to add that in here.

This study is supposed to be used over an 8-10 week period.  We’re probably going to make it into a 12 week one though because I just can’t limit what we’re doing and we may have to take a week or two to read the rest of the Holmes books and call it part of this study.

The first week we read the about the author section, the synopsis, and did the pre-reading activities.  They also each read the book that week.  Yes, the entire book.  The study guide mentions that reading the whole book the first week and then re-reading the sections to be studied during the weeks they are studied is the best way to do this so that’s what we did.  

I really liked the small section on gothic fiction.  We actually then researched gothic fiction and I requested other gothic fiction books to have in their library reading basket.  These were ones that I personally okayed though because there are a lot out there that are NOT okay for teenagers to read so be careful and look at the reviews if you do this. 

Fun fact.  I have family who lives in England.  We someday have on our bucket list to go over there and visit them.  Now we’ve added Dartmoor to our locations to see.  For now, though we just googled a bunch of images to see what the countryside looks like.

Here’s an example of how this can be interactive.  You can also just print it off and use it as a paper and pencil study as well. 

Again, this is an amazing guide.  It even has me rethinking and contemplating different things that I never have thought of in relation to this book.  Some of the ideas and concepts that it teaches are things that I have never even heard of and I took college Literature and English courses!  See an example below!

Long Way to a New Land

I personally had never read this book before and had to purchase a copy for our use.  Because I had not read it before I did read the book myself before we started the unit.  For this unit, I read the book out loud to the five children I had working through the study.  The rest of my kids listened in too so all 11 were in the room.  The baby was always nursing or sleeping or playing close by.  My toddler would play or sit and listen depending on what was happening in the story and the four older children who were not doing the study did listen and add in some of their own input at times.

Because I had five doing this study we did it a bit differently. It is not interactive.  I did print off a copy for each of them to have and use except for my kindergarten gal who is six and not doing a lot of reading and writing on her own.  But they didn’t do a lot of writing in their guides.  For the discussion questions, we did more oral discussion with those.  

Oral discussion is wonderful because then you get them questioning and talking with each other and asking why and how and what makes them think that because they think this.  Love it!  I love seeing my kids learn and push each other to learn and dig deeper.  

This is an I Can Read book so it’s not really long.  It does not take a long time to read the whole thing through and the study guide doesn’t take very long to work through either.  There is a great list of other books at the end of the study guide and a sequel book (with its own study guide too).  We requested most of the listed books and the sequel to keep in our library book basket for on their own reading.

Spoiler alert:  My kids loved the book and really loved the sequel too.  The sequel is westward!

You can see the contents below of the study guide.  I planned seven weeks for us to use this study.  One week for pre-reading activities and to read the book.  Each chapter gets one week and then a week for after reading activities and fun.  

The answer key is included with this download and this e-guide is not an interactive one.  It is geared for the lower elementary grades and Kindergarten.  I think it follows that well but you are going to have to help your kindergartener a lot with writing and reading.  This is why we did quite a bit of it orally and I read the book as a read-aloud.  

If you haven’t read the book it’s very sweet.  It follows an immigrant Swedish family.  As a fun lead up into and then after the book is done we prepared some Swedish dishes and talked about some of their customs etc.  

And lastly, here is a sample of the level of questions that this includes.  They’re short answers and easy for the kids at this grade level to understand and answer.  Highly recommend this new to us book and the study to go with it!

Learn More

You can learn more about Progeny Press and the other study guides that were offered for review by going to the Main Blog Post over on the Homeschool Review Crew page.  The list of titles available includes the two we received as well as Little House on the Prairie Study Guide Grades 4-6, and Shadow Spinner Study Guide Grades 5-8. 

Progeny Press can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.  I hope you’ll check them out and find at least one literature study for all ages you would like to use