Free Literature Study Guides for Your Homeschool

Published:
August 28, 2014

Contributor:
Jeannette Tuionetoa

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Did you know you can find tons of literature study guides online for free? A book study guide is a great accompaniment to a reading program for middle school or high school students. 
free book study guide for students

Free Study Guide for Novels

I was blown away at all of the novel study guides that I have found online and they are all free. This is a great resource to help create a solid literature curriculum or to supplement a language arts curriculum. 

You can easily use these as a valuable tool with your kids without having to purchase an extra comprehensive guide. Most classic literature books are available free on the public domain too.

You can have students read the books and complete the study guides to go along with each book and save a lot of money. No extra teacher guides or lesson plans are needed when you put something together yourself. 

You may be wondering why you would need a book study guide and not just have your students read the book and discuss it with you later.

Do study guides help students?

Study guides are very helpful to students while reading large books like American literature and British literature. One day your kids may be college students, which will require some strong literary skills. 

Study guides will help your students to be able to better organize their thoughts with book notes. If you have a student that struggles with comprehension, a study guide can help them to really think through what they read.

It is a great help for learning plot summary and keeping track of character descriptions. You can even use study guides in reading groups and use them to teach whole classes with like in a homeschool co-op.

Free Book Study Guides

These book study guides and literature guides will be a great addition to your homeschool. 

We have broken these down by guides that were created for some specific books that are more commonly read. There are also websites devoted to just hosting study guides with close to 100 different guides to choose from. There are even blog posts and resources to help you get started with teaching literature in your homeschool.

Study Guides for Specific Books 

1984 by George Orwell – You can click through each chart for free and get a biography, quotes, themes, characters and symbols from the book. To save time and clicking you can also purchase the study guides in convenient pdf files to download. 

Beowulf Resources and Study Guides – Lots of resources and study guides to understand and dig deep ihttps://americanliterature.com/the-call-of-the-wild-study-guidento this interesting epic poem.

Anne of Green Gables Study GuideAnne of Green Gables is a classic coming of age story that is a wonderful family read aloud. This free study guide will help learn more about the book and story line. 

Conversations Around the Lamppost – This is a great study guide for the Chronicles of Narnia and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

The Call of the Wild by Jack London – Great for students to understand the story and its significance in American Literature and history time periods. 

Moby Dick by Herman Melville – Learn why this is considered one of the best works of American Literature and explore the themes with this free study guide. 

Homeschooling with Les Miserables – Find our more about this classic novel with links to free resources, book studies and even studies for the stage musical.

Book Study Guides and Literature Guides

Bibliomania has over 100 Free Study Guides located under their Study Tab.

Novelguide has a huge list of guides that are similar to cliff notes. You can also use their search bar to type in what you are looking for.

Teacher Vision Literature Guides and Literature Worksheets – These are broken down by genre and grade level.

Sparknotes offers all of their Sparknote Lit guides to read for free online. 

Great list of literature guides for many different books and genres for homeschool high school students. 

Course Hero – There are hundreds of literature study guides that have in-depth literary analysis and videos for the books. You can search, and they are listed in alphabetical order.

Millstone Education has World Literature Units that are also broken down by grade level: K-3 World Literature Units | 4-7 World Literature Units | 8-12 World Literature Units

More Literature Study Resources

How to Write Your Own Study Guide – This is a great article with a free download.

Author Study Printables – Is your student interested in learning about a specific author? They will enjoy these free author studies. 

Notebooking with Living Books – Great ideas and concepts for use with your highschoolers. I love the ideas and concepts she has. You can use these alongside any book and study guide to create your own notebook of the book.