The Critical Thinking Co.

The Critical Thinking Co. is the publisher that put the "logic supplement" on the American homeschool shelf. It has quietly produced reasoning, analytical, and thinking-skills workbooks for more than sixty years, and nearly every other curriculum that claims to teach critical thinking has either borrowed from it or been measured against it.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Subject-specialist workbooks / supplemental thinking skills
Worldview	Secular
Grades	PreK-12 (most series K-8 with high school extensions)
Formats	Print workbooks, downloadable eBooks, software (legacy)
Cost tier	Budget
Parent intensity	2
ESA-common	Varies by state
Accredited	No
Established	1958 (as Midwest Publications)
Website	criticalthinking.com

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	4	Carefully sequenced reasoning tasks; several series used in gifted programs
Ease of teaching	5	Self-directed workbooks; answer keys in the back; minimal parent prep
Content quality	4	Consistent voice across the catalog; some titles show their age in illustration
Flexibility	5	Standalone subject supplements; plays well with every other curriculum
Value for money	5	Most individual workbooks fall between $11 and $25
Worldview scope	5	Fully nonsectarian; usable across every worldview family
Visual/design	3	Clean and functional; not designed to compete with glossy elementary workbooks
Support resources	3	Minimal teacher guidance needed; thin compared to full-curriculum publishers

Who the publisher is

The Critical Thinking Co. was founded by John Baker in 1958 under the name Midwest Publications. The original brief was a math-and-textbook company with an unusual conviction: students learn more from a well-built reasoning puzzle than from a drill worksheet of the same difficulty. The name changed to Critical Thinking Press and Software in 1976, then Critical Thinking Books & Software in 1997, and finally to its current form in November 2003. The company remains family-owned under Michael Baker, John's son.

What Midwest Publications proved, and what The Critical Thinking Co. inherited, is that a narrow, well-built catalog beats a sprawling mediocre one. The publisher now lists more than two hundred titles across reading, writing, math, science, and social studies, but the spine of the company is a small number of franchise series that have earned their reputation over decades: Building Thinking Skills, Mind Benders, Mathematical Reasoning, Editor in Chief, Word Roots, Reading Detective, and Balance Benders. Gifted programs in public schools have used these materials for a generation. Homeschool families discovered them in the 1980s and have not let go.

The company is secular and nonsectarian without making a show of either. There is no statement of faith to agree with, no worldview to work around, and no ideological seam running through the content. A Catholic family, a secular family, a Jewish family, and an LDS family can all hand a child a Mind Benders A1 workbook and expect the same logic puzzles. This is a real editorial choice, not an accident, and it is a significant part of why the publisher's products are used across nearly every homeschool worldview family in America.

The core pedagogy

The house method is self-directed skill practice with an explicit reasoning purpose. A Critical Thinking Co. workbook does not spiral. It does not use a mastery model in the Math-U-See sense either. Each title isolates a specific cognitive skill, deductive logic, verbal analogy, figural pattern recognition, editing, vocabulary morphology, and drills it through progressively harder tasks until the student internalizes the move. The student reads the directions, works the problem, and checks the answer. A parent may hover; more often, a parent grades the weekly pages at the kitchen table in five minutes.

Signature mechanics: (1) One skill per book. Editor in Chief teaches proofreading. Mind Benders teaches grid-logic deduction. Mathematical Reasoning teaches applied arithmetic and pre-algebraic thinking. The division is respected, a student working Editor in Chief is not asked to do arithmetic. (2) Progressive difficulty within a narrow band. Most titles come in lettered or numbered tiers (A1, A2, B1) that step up in complexity without broadening scope. (3) Minimal scaffolding. The workbooks expect the student to read, think, and try. There is no script, no lesson plan, no teacher guide in most titles, just a short introduction, an answer key, and the problems themselves.

Where the catalog is strongest is in non-linguistic reasoning. Building Thinking Skills trains figural-matrix thinking (the kind of visual-pattern task that appears on cognitive assessments) with a thoroughness that no other homeschool publisher matches. Mathematical Reasoning in the PreK through grade 2 range is widely used as a primary math program, not just a supplement, for families who want a broader definition of early math than arithmetic drill provides.

A day in the life

A third-grade student using Mathematical Reasoning as a primary math program opens the workbook at the breakfast table and works the next two pages, perhaps twenty minutes of mixed-topic exercises covering place value, simple geometry, pattern recognition, and a word problem. A parent checks the page against the answer key at the back. If Mind Benders is in the rotation as a Friday logic-and-reasoning block, the child spends another fifteen to twenty minutes solving a grid-logic puzzle (five clues, five suspects, five weapons, or the equivalent) using a printed grid and a pencil. A student doing Editor in Chief on the same day reads a short paragraph containing a dozen errors in spelling, grammar, and capitalization and circles each one. Total time across all three products in a single day rarely exceeds an hour.

Families using the catalog as supplementation rather than spine are the common case. A child on a complete math program like Saxon or Beast Academy might run Mind Benders once a week for logic variety, or Building Thinking Skills as a weekly cognitive workout, without any conflict between programs. This is the point of a specialist catalog: it integrates.

What they do exceptionally well

Specificity. Each book does one thing and does it well. In a homeschool market full of "all-in-one" workbooks that cover five subjects poorly, a Critical Thinking Co. title's restraint is its own argument. A parent who wants their fourth-grader to practice deductive grid-logic for the next six weeks can buy Mind Benders Level 4, work thirty minutes a week, and see measurable improvement in how the child approaches other subjects.

Price and bundleability. Individual workbooks generally list between $11 and $25 per the publisher's store, with bundle discounts. A parent building a custom curriculum can buy three supplements for the price of one major textbook package. For ESA families in states where specialist workbooks qualify, the budget goes unusually far.

Cross-worldview reach. The catalog is used by classical, Charlotte Mason, Montessori, unschool-leaning, and traditional families alike. It is also used in enrichment programs, gifted pull-outs, and after-school co-ops. Few publishers have this kind of horizontal acceptance. It is a direct consequence of the editorial choice to keep the content skill-focused and worldview-neutral.

Gifted and accelerated fit. Several of the series, particularly Building Thinking Skills at the upper levels and Mind Benders at the advanced tiers, have earned a reputation in gifted communities as challenge material that respects a bright child's capacity without requiring the parent to assemble enrichment from scratch.

What they do poorly

Visual design shows its age. Most of the catalog was laid out in an era before full-color elementary workbooks became the norm, and many titles have been updated only cosmetically. Beside a glossy The Good and the Beautiful page or a full-color Beast Academy comic panel, a Mind Benders page reads as functional but plain. Younger children who are strongly visual may resist the format even when the content is good.

No scope and sequence to coordinate across subjects. Because each book is standalone, a family using six Critical Thinking Co. titles at once must coordinate them manually. There is no weekly schedule, no cross-subject cadence, no overarching progression. This is a feature for families who want to build their own rhythm and a bug for families who want the publisher to plan the year.

Thin teacher support. The publisher assumes the parent can hand the workbook to the child. Parents who want lesson plans, instructional videos, or pedagogical coaching will not find them in most titles. For products like Mathematical Reasoning used as a primary math program, this matters more than it does for pure supplements.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick The Critical Thinking Co. if: you want secular supplemental workbooks that play well with any primary curriculum; you have a strong reader who works independently; you need targeted practice in logic, editing, vocabulary morphology, or figural reasoning; you are building an eclectic or Charlotte Mason program; you have a bright or gifted child who needs real challenge without fuss; you want price-per-workbook in the low double digits.

• Skip The Critical Thinking Co. if: you want an all-in-one program that plans the year; you want richly illustrated full-color workbooks; you need a teacher's guide with scripted lesson plans; your child needs intensive parent scaffolding to complete written work; you want a publisher whose materials carry an explicit worldview integration.

Cost honest assessment

Most individual workbooks list between $11.99 and $24.99 on the publisher's site as of April 2026, with frequent bundle discounts and seasonal promotions. Mathematical Reasoning Level B (kindergarten) runs about $42 for the full-year workbook; Building Thinking Skills Level 2 about $32. A family supplementing a primary curriculum with two or three Critical Thinking Co. titles will typically spend between $50 and $120 per child per year.

Compared to peers, this is substantially cheaper than BJU Press logic and thinking materials, and more flexible than Classical Academic Press logic textbooks, which run $25-$40 per subject book plus a teacher's edition. Against a full curriculum like Beast Academy at $140 per level for the complete set, The Critical Thinking Co. is a different category, not a primary math program at the upper levels, but a superior logic-and-reasoning complement.

An all-in estimate for a family running Mathematical Reasoning as primary K-2 math plus one supplemental title per week: $90-$130 per child per year.

ESA eligibility notes

Because The Critical Thinking Co. is secular and carries no religious content, ESA eligibility is generally straightforward in states that permit specialist workbooks. The publisher's products appear on several state ESA marketplaces including Arizona's ClassWallet, Florida's MyScholarShop, and Iowa's Student First Scholarship as individual purchases. The company does not operate a dedicated ESA ordering workflow the way some larger publishers do; families typically purchase through approved marketplace storefronts or reimburse via receipt. Because the catalog is priced at the workbook level rather than the curriculum-package level, per-item ESA approvals can be inconsistent, some states approve Building Thinking Skills but not Word Roots in the same quarter. Families should verify eligibility by title within their specific state program.

Alternatives

• Classical Academic Press, a family would choose CAP over The Critical Thinking Co. for formal classical logic sequences (Art of Argument, Discovery of Deduction) with explicit teacher guides and video instruction rather than standalone puzzle workbooks.
• Beast Academy, a family would choose Beast Academy over Mathematical Reasoning for a comic-book-style primary math program that teaches problem-solving at a level of depth few other elementary publishers attempt.
• Logic of English, a family would choose LOE over The Critical Thinking Co.'s language-arts titles for a unified Orton-Gillingham-derived reading and spelling program rather than a collection of editing and vocabulary supplements.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed The Critical Thinking Co.'s About page, company history, current catalog, and individual product pages at criticalthinking.com in April 2026. We cross-referenced the company's founding date and ownership history against the publisher's own history page and Cathy Duffy Reviews. Pricing and ESA marketplace availability verified April 2026.