I used copies of A Reader's Guide by Dale K. Dykema for this review. I looked at seven separate copies, each a classic book from Covenant Home Curriculum. These titles included Robinson Crusoe, Wuthering Heights, Crime and Punishment, Captains Courageous, Great Expectations, King Arthur and Huck Finn.

Basically, the way this works is like this: while your student reads the classic book, you'll use this guide as a discussion tool. The guide offers you the teacher biographical information about the author, a brief synopsis of the story along with historical context, insight into world-view, and biblical perspective. There is help with vocabulary and character placement and plenty of review questions. The guide is a tool to help you to discuss character facts and author's techniques. The questions help you and the student to analyze the story and keep the student straight on certain key incidents, major characters and their actions. This guide will also help uncover the world view perspective of the writer.

The guides that I reviewed were written to be used with middle school and high school aged students. The guide could be used by the student only, but it's important to know that the review questions are written with answers immediately following the question. Detailed yet very easy to understand, I'd recommend them to anyone exploring the classics!

-- Product Review By: Mari Almon, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC