We had the opportunity to review the Seventh Grade Literature Guide Set from Memoria Press.
I really love it when a homeschool parent is behind a curriculum we love. That does not surprise me. I think they have some type of intrinsic vision where they know exactly what a homeschool parent would like in the curriculum they use in their school. Homeschool mom, Cheryl Lowe, and her son Brian founded Memoria Press in 1994. The family-run business publishes Christian Curriculum – some authored by Lowe – that is also used in the Highlands Latin School, which she and her son founded in 2000.
Memoria Press does a wonderful job with the presentation of its products. They are high quality in aesthetics and thorough in content. I had the pleasure of seeing everything they publish in one place at a homeschool convention I recently attended. I was a kid in a candy store. Having used many of their items throughout our homeschooling, I was already familiar with their Latin and kindergarten programs, which we loved, but never used their literature guides.
Currently, there are literature guide sets for second through ninth grades. It is my understanding that guides through high school will soon be available as well as complete curriculum packages targeted to homeschoolers who would like to use the programs. All of the titles in the existing literature sets are wonderful pieces of literature. Many of them are classics and ones you will enjoy sharing with your children. I chose the seventh grade set, which includes Anne of Green Gables, The Hobbit, The Trojan War and The Bronze Bow, to use with my daughter. Memoria Press generously provided both the Student Study Guide and the Teacher Guide for all four books.
My daughter jumped at the opportunity to use the study guides and chose Anne of Green Gables. Although she had already read the book, she was eager to read it again. This also gave me a chance to enjoy a story with my daughter that I had only seen in a movie version.
The guides concentrate on comprehension, composition skills, spelling and vocabulary. This is accomplished through Reading Notes, Vocabulary, Expressions for Discussion, Comprehension Questions and Enrichment sections in the Student Study Guide. Your child is not just reading through the chapters to the end of the book. They are analyzing content “Oh, I am an afflicted mortal.” – 23}, for a better understanding of the story and learning new vocabulary words {bedizened – 17}.
As I mentioned before, I have never read Anne of Green Gables. I decided it would be fun to treat the book as a read-aloud my daughter and I would do together. We took turns reading parts or all of a chapter to each other. I must admit, I don’t do well having a book read to me, which is why audio books are not preferred. I get easily distracted or zone out after the first few pages. Listening to my daughter fluently read through the chapters was fun and I found I was able to stay engaged for more than a few pages.
Per the suggestion of the guide, we read the Reading Notes, Vocabulary and Comprehension sections together before reading the chapter. We also discussed the story through our point of reading. This was especially fun. After we finished reading a chapter, I let Lily finish working through the guide answering the comprehension questions on her own.
We enjoyed using the study guide together. The work was complete enough to grasp a deeper understanding of the novel and concise enough where you are not spending hours dissecting a chapter. I think analyzing a book is great, but sometimes you just want to understand and enjoy the story.
Although we did not get to yet begin reading the other three books, The Trojan War, The Bronze Bow and The Hobbit, I was able to read through the Student Study Guides and Teacher Guides. The layouts are just about the same in both the student and teacher guides, but I did notice some different type of activities in some of the lessons.
In The Trojan War the Reading Notes contained more content which I believe is due to the large number of Greek characters mentioned in the story. In The Bronze Bow, some of the work students will complete is Implementation where students use some of their new learned vocabulary words to write paragraphs. They also work on synonym substitution. The Hobbit guide is similar to the Anne of Green Gables guide, but also has some fun parts of lessons where students learn the Runic alphabet and practice translating content. All four novels, although different in theme, compliment each other for a well balanced literature study for the seventh grade. The titles, even Anne of Green Gables, are ones that will interest girls and boys. I think what really makes the guides effective are the comprehension and discussion questions and the attention to the vocabulary that could often get overlooked or read over without a definite understanding of the word. I mean really, what is a hauberk (The Hobbit -17) and what do bedizened or dyspeptic mean? If you know the answers, well good for you, but those words will be new to most seventh graders.
At the homeschool convention I attended, I was able to look through all of the levels of literature guides. Gosh, they are pretty. We are going to continue working through the remaining guides. I have also decided to add the Second Grade Literature guides to my youngest son’s curriculum. I can’t wait to start reading through those books with him.
The Seventh Grade Literature Guide Set with Novels is $129 and without novels is $95. You may see a sample of Teacher Guide for The Hobbit.
You can read more reviews of this item by fellow crew members.
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