Is GSWL necessary before Latin Alive?

[shukriyya]

I've read so much about the merits of GSWL as a primer for the beginning latin student. However I like the look of Latin Alive as thorough more comprehensive program. Ds has no latin experience and he's a rising 6th grader. His grammar is fairly good but not rock-solid. Would we be able to jump right into LA? Or would we best be served by starting with GSWL? If the latter how far will this take us into the school year?   TIA

[angela in ohio]

I taught Latin Alive to students with no Latin experience, and it truly starts at the beginning. I do think it is helpful for the teacher/mom to have some Latin experience when using it, moreso than some other programs, because it is very parts-to-whole. It is easy to be confused by the bits of instruction which will eventually come together. Just a bit of reading a good overview of how Latin works would be enough.

[Tranquility7]

I'm a generally a big fan of GSWL for younger kids (or older kids who are dreading Latin), but for a sixth grader I'd probably just jump into LA. 

 

GSWL will teach you:

1st and 2nd declension nouns (basic uses of all cases except vocative, if I recall correctly)

1st and 2nd conjugation verbs (present tense only)

irregular verbs esse (and I think potesse)

1st and 2nd declension adjectives

some vocab for all other parts of speech

 

GSWL is very straightforward and has you do a lot of basic sentence translation, which is a nice and simple intro to Latin (and *much* better, IMHO, than typical "little kid" programs like LFC or LC). That being said, I think nearly everything you learn in GSWL will be covered in the first ten chapters of LA, and LA also introduces additional things in those chapters that are not in GSWL at all (like different verb tenses). Also, I think LA is a fantastic program overall - explanations are clear and implementation is easy.

 

If you do decide to do GSWL first, I would think it would take maybe a month or two.  A super motivated sixth grader with some language aptitude could probably do it in even less than that.

[EndOfOrdinary]

My son jumped right into his first year Latin without GSWL. We did GSWL orally with my son over about a month. I would read the exercise sentences to him and he would translate them without seeing them printed. It worked quite well and was fun for both of us. The entire book covered the content of the first four or five chapters of his first year book. The pace is slow and information is doled out slowly. If your student is excited about Latin, it might be too gentle an intro or too abrupt a shift when you start the textbook

[SilverMoon]

I think he'd likely do okay in LA. There's only 28 lessons in the first book, so you could spread each one to a week and a half.

 

Do have him make some form of drill practice for the vocab. Quizlet, flash cards, headventureland.com. Something. Daily. :)

[shukriyya]

Thank you, ladies. This gives me something to work with. It appears we'll do okay jumping into LA.