Progeny Press Review

For our latest review, we read The Door in the Wall and Uncle Jed’s Barbershop and complete the study guides for these books from Progeny Press. We received the downloadable study guides for each of these book these books. The Door in the Wall is guide is intended for students in grades 3-5 and contains 39 pages, while the Uncle Jed’s Barbershop guide is intended for students in grades K-3 and contains 33 pages.

Progeny Press produces study guides, from a Christian perspective, for many well-known novels. Guides are available for all school levels: lower elementary, upper elementary, middle school and high school. These guides are designed to help children enjoy literature and help them to have a better understanding of what they are reading.

Though these guides are written by different authors they all follow a similar format. Each study guide also includes an answer key. We received the e-Guides (pdf files) for both of the books we read. The Door in the Wall e-guide is also interactive so you don’t need to print, you can type in the answers directly and then save your work.

Guides are also available for books such as Frog and Toad Together, Charlotte’s Web, Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, Mr Popper’s Penguins, Anne of Green Gables, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Secret Garden, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hobbit and The Hunger Games.

I received the downloadable pdf versions of both of these study guides, but a printed version with a cd is also available. Although I supplied the books for my boys to read, you can also purchase them from the Progeny Press Bookstore.

How we used these products:

At the start of each guide are Notes to the Instructor. These pages give you some guidelines on how to better use and what to expect in the Progeny Press Study Guides. I found this very helpful as Progeny Press study guides are new to me.

Prior to reading the books and completing the study guides, there are some introductory pages, a synopsis of the book and some pre-reading activities. I chose to print out the study guides for both of our boys and staple them together as we find it a lot easier than using the interactive guide.

For The Door in the Wall, the pre-reading activities included researching the Black Death and life in a medieval monastery which we had a brief look at as they were eager to read the book. This book is set in the Middle Ages during the time of the Black Death.

We all sat down together and read the whole book, which took us about a week. Then our oldest boy sat down and started working on the study guide. He was able to complete some of the questions on his own, when armed with a dictionary and the book. Some of the questions that involved research, I watched and directed him in the right direction as he had to do most of this research online. He completed about 1 -3 pages per day depending on the questions, so in all it took him around 3 weeks to complete the study guide. There were times where he would go back a read some of the chapters in the book again, just to make sure he remember exactly what happened and could answer the questions correctly.

There were four main sections in this study guide: vocabulary, questions , thinking about the story and dig deeper.

With Uncle Jed’s Barbershop, again, we all sat down and read the book one afternoon. The following day, our youngest started completing the study guide. As he is younger, he only completed 1 – 2 pages per day. As this was a short book, he was able to remember most of what he had read and answer the questions accurately.

This study guide was in the same format as the previous one, also including introductory pages, a synopsis of the book and some pre-reading activities. It also contained some after-you-read activities which our boy really enjoyed.

This book, written by Margaree King Mitchell, is about perseverance, family, and the segregation of people in America which our boys were didn’t know much about. This led to many interesting discussions and research as to why everyone couldn’t work together or visit the hospital together.

I was very impressed with the content in the guides and how they asked many questions which led to a greater understanding of what the boys were reading. They really helped our boys analyse the books they were reading and if that is your goal too, then I would definitely recommend your consider looking at the 100+ Study Guides Progeny Press has available.

We also were impressed who these study guides incorporated biblical scripture and how the pre-reading activities included researching about the time period that the books were written in.

Overall, we have really enjoyed reading these books and using the study guides and look forward to try out some more in the coming future.

Details At a Glance!!

Name: Progeny Press
Website: Progeny Press
Product: Uncle Jed’s Barbershop and The Door In the Wall
Price: Uncle Jed’s Barbershop is $11.99 US ($12.87 AU) and The Door in the Wall is $16.99 US ($18.24 AU)
Ages:

Uncle Jed’s Barbership: Lower Elementary: Recommended for Grades K-3
The Door in the Wall: Upper Elementary: Recommended for Grades 3-5

There is a FAQ page on the Progeny Press Website, that is very helpful if you have any questions.

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