Latin curriculum for home schooling

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DeniseM

DeniseM

Puritan Board Freshman
I began teaching my children Latin a few years ago using the series by Memoria Press; Prima Latina, Latina Christiana I & II. My oldest will be finishing the series this year and I am looking for a Latin curriculum for next year that will build upon what he has already learned in the LC series. I have found that the Memoria Press materials were a little to biased towards RC in the readings and memory passages. For that reason I have chosen not to use First Form, Second Form, etc. series from MP for our continuing studies.

Do any of you have suggestions on curriculum that you have used with your children? Is anyone familiar with Latin in the Christian Trivium, or with The Latin Road to English Grammar? Any comments that can guide me as to these two curriculum especially would be helpful.
 
I'd suggest Wheelock's. It's a standard college textbook, but it's very accessible, well-written, and self-explanatory. As accompaniment, I would suggest finding Latin texts (maybe even shelling out fifty bucks for a copy of the Vulgate). The forty chapters of Wheelock's cover all of Latin grammar and there are quite a few good readings in the back.
 
Philip said:
I'd suggest Wheelock's. It's a standard college textbook, but it's very accessible, well-written, and self-explanatory. As accompaniment, I would suggest finding Latin texts (maybe even shelling out fifty bucks for a copy of the Vulgate). The forty chapters of Wheelock's cover all of Latin grammar and there are quite a few good readings in the back.
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We do have a copy of Wheelock's Latin, but, I don't know Latin personally, aside from what I've learned by teaching the children with the MP series, and my oldest is only going to be 12 next year. I think that jumping right into Wheelock's might be a little too intimidating for both of us. I'm sort of setting Wheelock's aside for high school and for reference. Thanks for the tip about the readings in the back. I think that some of those could be of use to us now.
 
It's difficult to offer a recommendation without knowing what your children have already learned. Which concepts have they already covered, and what sort of texts are they already comfortable reading? At some point in the near future, if they are going to continue to make progress, they're going to need supervision from someone who knows Latin pretty well. It's very difficult to gain real proficiency in a language simply from a grammar manual.
 
It's difficult to offer a recommendation without knowing what your children have already learned. Which concepts have they already covered, and what sort of texts are they already comfortable reading? At some point in the near future, if they are going to continue to make progress, they're going to need supervision from someone who knows Latin pretty well. It's very difficult to gain real proficiency in a language simply from a grammar manual.
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This year we are finishing up Latina Christiana II. You can go hereto read what is contained in the book and what it covers. I need a curriculum basically on a junior high level. I don't want to jump right into high school and college level curriculum at this point as my oldest student is only going to be twelve next year. Our goals for learning Latin are not necessarily to become proficient in the language itself, but for the overall academic benefit of studying the language, and as a springboard into Koine Greek, of which we are just beginning in earnest this year.
 
Denise, one important and counter-intuitive point to remember is that in language learning, terms such as "high-school" or "college" or "elementary" are much less helpful in establishing the correct curriculum. Those terms make sense in a field such as history, since children are normally exposed to it very early and taught it progressively, so that a high-school history textbook assumes that the students already have a middle-school familiarity with the material.

In language learning, the process will be quite similar for an 8-year-old, an 18-year-old, and a 28-year-old. In fact, the "college" textbook Wheelock's contains the same information that was normally taught to 12-year-olds when Latin was a regular part of the curriculum. Now, pacing may become an issue, as it's somewhat unreasonable to press a 10-year-old to have a higher reading level in Latin than she does in English.

I apologize if it sounds like I'm delivering a lecture. I simply wish to encourage you not to be afraid of grade labels. For language learners, the categories of beginner, intermediate, and advanced make more sense than grades. It looks to me as though that curriculum still leaves your children in the beginner category, but with some good foundations. I have enjoyed the curriculum Latin for Americans, aimed I believe at middle or high schoolers. It stresses reading comprehension in context from the very beginning. I think Wheelock's would work, but with some supervision. Finding the answers and such in that textbook is not always straightforward.
 
At the very least, you should take the time to go through Wheelock's yourself so that you're familiar with the grammar and vocabulary as you're using other materials with your kids.
 
Thanks for the advice. I will have to familiarize myself with Wheelock's a little more over the course of the year, in preparation for next year.
 
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