Memoria Press Lit Guides

[hands-on-mama]

I was just looking at the 1st grade enrichment guide. I think I might use that for my youngest. How are the lit guides for 3rd and up though? Do you like them? We read all kinds of books but I would love some help walking through books with them.

[VickiW]

We have been using MP literature for 4 years at home and three years before that at the school in Louisville. They are intense but very rich. My advice, depending on the child of course, is to not feel obligated to fill in every blank. The amount of work can be daunting if you feel compelled to answer every question and fill every blank. Often we answer just a few key questions in written form and orally go over the rest. An older child might accomplish more of the work. A younger child might need help in reading the difficult passages and will enjoy the enrichment sections. The studies do offer a deep level of study and excellent discussion. While I'm moving away from some MP curriculum, I will retain the literature portion in our studies.

[MeganW]

We used the MP lit guide for The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe this summer.  It was WONDERFUL!  We really dug in and got SO MUCH out of it.  I had several other literary analysis books to use alongside, and by halfway through I was just using the MP guide.  

 

We read Heidi next, and got the lit guides for that as well.  The guide was very similar.  We didn't like it nearly as well, perhaps because there isn't nearly as much deep stuff to get out of the book.  It felt like overkill for what it is.  We have ditched all writing at this point, and are just answering the questions orally.  The questions for this one are fine, but nothing I couldn't have easily come up with myself on the fly.  

 

In the future, I will definitely get the guides for books that are harder or have a lot of symbolism.  I will not get them for books like Heidi, which is a bit long, but otherwise is an easy, sweet little read.   

Edited August 8, 2016 by MeganW

[Holly]

We are using the MP lit guides this year.  I just picked up the teacher guide, so we'll be mostly using them for discussion and some of the extra assignments.  I think it would be overkill to do every last thing in each guide, but I like being able to pick and choose from all the activities & discussion questions.  It's also nice having a list of vocabulary words to work with.  We are using these as a family, which I know isn't how they are intended, but so far it's working well. 

 

We'd been using Charlotte Mason's "read and narrate" method, and I'm finding I much prefer MP's approach!  I'm not very good at facilitating discussions, so I think MP's materials are a better fit for me.  We will add in an occasional written narration (for 4th grade and up), so I'm not totally ready to move away from CM methods.   :lol:   We will also only be covering a few books each year with the guides.