The Critical Thinking Co.

The Critical Thinking Co. produces reasoning, analytical, and thinking-skills workbooks.

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
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 publisher now lists more than two hundred titles across reading, writing, math, science, and social studies, including the series Building Thinking Skills, Mind Benders, Mathematical Reasoning, Editor in Chief, Word Roots, Reading Detective, and Balance Benders.

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.

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.

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.

In our assessment, the catalog is strongest in non-linguistic reasoning. Building Thinking Skills trains figural-matrix thinking (the kind of visual-pattern task that appears on cognitive assessments).

What they do exceptionally well

Specificity. In our assessment, each book does one thing and does it well.

Price and bundleability. Individual workbooks generally list between $11 and $25 per the publisher's store, with bundle discounts. In our assessment, for ESA families in states where specialist workbooks qualify, the budget goes unusually far.

Cross-worldview reach. In our assessment, the content is skill-focused and worldview-neutral.

Gifted and accelerated fit. In our assessment, several of the series, particularly Building Thinking Skills at the upper levels and Mind Benders at the advanced tiers, work as challenge material for a bright child without requiring the parent to assemble enrichment from scratch.

What they do poorly

Visual design shows its age. 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.

Compared to peers, this is 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, in our assessment, a strong 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. 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.
• 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.