Review: Progeny Press, Stone Fox Study Guide (TOS Review)

For this review we used Stone Fox Study Guide by Progeny Press.

This product is a digital download, it comes as two files; the interactive guide and the answer key.  Both are PDF files.  The guide can be typed into on the computer (this is what makes it interactive).  My son is not proficient at typing, therefore we printed the pages and he wrote on them with pencil.

I used this product with my 9 year old (4th grade) son.  He loved the book and read through it rather quickly.  He does not like to read a chapter or two at a time in a book he is interested in, and for this reason we sometimes struggle with unit guides like this one.  This was the case with this read as well.  He read it all in two sittings, would have read it in one, but I tried to discourage that (which I hate doing). 

Even though he finished the book quickly, we still worked through the guide.  There were discussion questions that were chapter specific, we mostly did these orally.  He doesn’t like to write, and well, I pick my battles.  (I did sometimes choose one or two that I wanted him to write the answers too though.)

There were also some geography, vocabulary exercises, fact v/s opinion,  and other language arts type activities that were short answer that I had him do by hand.  I really liked the activities and the questions that went along with the chapters.  My son reads at a high level, but sometimes I wonder if he is reading properly, or even understanding all he reads.  This is a book that was on his grade level (though he can read higher).  It was a good way to check his understanding of the book, and get him talking about it.  He didn’t love the exercises really, but he did have fun with the thesaurus and some of the other vocabulary related exercises.  As long as he didn’t have to write a lot, he didn’t mind doing them.

There are religious references in the guides; typically scripture versus are given to look up, they are related to lessons taught in the story.  If you are a secular homeschooler, they could be skipped over. 

Progeny Press has several study guides to choose from, for a wide variety of reading levels (K-High School).  The guides are versatile, as you see, you can type, write or do them orally; all depending on your child’s needs. This is what I loved about them! 

The price varies by grade level, studies for Upper Elementary, like this one are $17.99.  As previously mentioned, they are downloadable and the book is not included.

Although these types of studies are not my son’s favorite, I do feel they bring a lot to the table.  I will be looking at a few more that coincide with some books we plan to read this year and giving them a try as well.  Such as, The Door in the Wall and The Sword in the Tree.

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