TOS Crew Review -- EDUDPS

Sometimes as my oldest child edges toward high school I fear I will miss something important or we will attend graduation without any idea what to do next. Through EDUDPS (Educational Diagnostic Prescriptive Services) we found a helpful tool. Definitely fluff-free as advertised, but packed with useful information.


The Complete Career, College and High School Guide for Homeschoolers offers over 200 pages that include:

• self-evaluations of learning style, interests, work environment preferences, and personality
• identifying potential college/career tracks based on the self-evaluations
• items of consideration for men as leaders of their home
• possible stay-at-home and part-time jobs for moms and wives
• lists of occupations
• technical school vs. college education
• considerations for various occupations including middle school and high school courses to complete, activities to get involved in, and candidates to interview
• homeschooling high school tips
• sample high school study plans
• twelve principles for raising godly teenagers (some great information here)
• volunteering ideas
• CLEP and AP tests
• Calculating credits and GPA
• Transcripts
• ACT, SAT prep
• Scholarships
• planning worksheets
• and more!

If you need a little reassurance that your homeschooled middle schooler or high schooler is headed the right direction this book can offer that and lots of information and direction.

What we loved . . .

I went through a number of the evaluations with my seventh grader and it gave us some great insight into his preferences and skills. I had always pegged him as an auditory learner, but as we examined the types together we concluded he leaned more strongly towards a kinesthetic learner. This has already helped in my own approach to his learning. I generally try to incorporate all the learning styles as I teach them, but this has still altered my perspective a bit

Lots of information for now and to tuck away for the future

A dose of confidence. We can do this!

What we tweaked . . .

Since he is just in seventh grade I didn't feel the need to nail down lots of specifics right now, but it has given us a general direction that we can revisit and refine in the next few years

I do still want to keep his learning experience somewhat broad to help him explore things he might not have considered otherwise.

We did the evaluations out loud together and I recorded the answers and tallied them up as we went. In this way one book could easily be used for multiple children (or adults!)

All in all I was very impressed with the amount of information available in this guide. Right now you can purchase the ebook for $26.20, but it usually runs $34.95. The soft-cover book is just a few dollars more, $39.95. That ebook is a great price, but a print edition would be much easier to work through, especially with multiple children.
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We also got to review a vocabulary builder program, great for SAT/ACT prep, or just for everyday schooling with all your kids. Roots and Fruits breaks down words and you focus on them in cohesive groups. It is available in ebook format regularly for $14.98, on sale a limited time for $11.25 (25% off). Printed pages are $17.48 plain or $19.98 with comb binding. Either way, a pretty good deal for such a long-term use program.

This program takes little time on a daily basis and incorporates easily into the school day, even with a diverse group of ages.

What we loved . . .

Everyone could enjoy this one. I expected bigger words of the older kids, and as the book recommended, they could handle two roots each week. We could still do this mostly together.

Easy to pick up and implement. The book with its list of 673 roots and prefixes and 1716 vocabulary words along with some index cards is about all you need to start boosting your child's vocabulary in 15 minutes a day.

Connection to Latin and Greek. Even though we don't study these right now (although I tried at one time), I do want the kids to see how much of what we say builds on these languages.

What we tweaked . . .

Since we have not done any serious vocabulary study before, we kept it simple at the start with everyone tackling just one a week. Eventually the older kids get two, but while we all acclimated we stayed with one.

Challenges . . .

This product is somewhat basic, and some sections I would have liked longer lists of vocabulary words at least as options. I could always pull them out on my own, but it would be nice to have a more extensive list ready to use.


**Their ebooks use special software that requires an extra download, but we did not have any problems with this going through easily and quickly. However, you are limited to two printouts of the product, so I would generally recommend going with their printed products because any partial printing counts as one print. Or, plan on printing it out in its entirety and storing it that way for needed copying for your use.


To see if these products would make a good addition to your homeschool, check out the EDUDPS website for other information and some free downloads. Also, check out more TOS Crew Reviews on these and other EDUDPS products.