Customer Reviews

Scholastic Book Guides: My Side of the Mountain

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

My son has been struggling with Scholastic's "Accelerated Reader" program for four years. He reads his books and speaks intelligently about them but does not do well on the tests. Frustrated, I bought this book when my son decided to read My Side of The Mountain. My thinking was that if I could get into a Scholastic study guide then maybe I could understand their testing methods.

Things have changed a lot in the 30+ years since I was a fifth grader. "Back in the day" it was more important to remember that Sam Gribley learned to make a fire using flint and steel than it was to remember the name of the character in Chapter 1 who taught him to make fire and is never heard from again. Such is not the case on an A/R test.

The study guide is top notch. They provide several useful tools to get readers involved in the story. The discussion topics are great. I used them in the car as I drove my son to school. It brought him back into the story and made him anxious to learn what adventures Sam and Frightful would have next. The section-by-section synopses are very helpful. The puzzles and worksheets keep the story alive and don't have to be drudgery for kids. We used the worksheets as a trivia game ... just trying to remember the details for the dreaded Test Day.

As a study guide alone I'd give this five stars. I've only given it four because it did not, in the end, serve the purpose that I wanted it to. Scholastic's study guide is great but their reading program and the mystery behind why they ask nit-picky questions that hang on the periphery of the story are still elusive to me and mine.