I may be just dreaming, but I think the Latin primers available now are much too easy for grammar school. Thus, I'm thinking of jumping straight into Wheelock's. Anybody ever tried it? What was your experience like? Am I being foolish? Thanks for your help.

I have the same concern. I looked at Memoria's examples online for Prima Latina and was baffled by it. This obviously will cause trouble when attempting poetic meters.

I started with a class NT Greek offered by a Bible college. I then taught myself Hebrew, then Latin and German. About that time I discovered classics programs offered at big universities and came across the graduate reading lists in Greek and Roman writers. So I decided to start with Homer and read chronologically through the Graeco-Roman writers. About a year into reading the classics, I discovered the reading list at St. John's College and learned about Mortimer Adler, Robert Hutchins, and the Great Books. So I decided to read those as well. Next I discovered Doug Wilson. By the time I bought Bauer's book on self-educating, I had known about most of her recommendations.

Hi Elizabeth. Airpower! (I just had to say that to you being former AF myself J) Thanks for the info on phonics and the history of reading pedagogy. Thus far in my researches, I’ve come across modern sources claiming the New England Primer and Bible were the two works the Puritans used for beginning readers. Since Noah Webster came long after the introduction of the New England Primer, what were the colonists and early Americans using before his speller? What other spellers were there before Webster’s? Yesterday I received my copy of the Original Blue Back Speller from Vision Forum, but unfortunately it’s a facsimile and the print is SO POOR, my child will never be able to read it! The more I look online for a decent copy, the more I find similar complaints about available versions of Webster and Isaac Watt’s Logic (also available only in poor facsimile). If I can’t get a decent copy of Webster’s speller, I may consider going into business myself to reprint better copies for the market.

Martha, Sounds like your CAP leadership needs help. I suspect the leaders are just volunteers who don't have the time or resources to perform like salaried employees. I was never in Civil Air Patrol in high school, but I did Sea Cadets and remember that parents ran the program for their kids. More recently I served 6 years in the Air Force Reserves as an officer, and here's what I can recommend: call your nearest base's Wing Commander, and see if he/she can connect you with an enthusiastic officer (at least an O-3) to help your CAP squadron with coordinating better training activities for the kids. Any mature officer would be thrilled to help the kids (at the very least for a good annual performance report). When I was stationed at McConnell AFB in Kansas, I do remember Group Commanders (O-5s) who got involved with school programs to introduce kids to the Air Force. A Group Commander has enough authority to do whatever he wants around the Wing to make things happen for the kids. You could also call the base's Public Affairs office to schedule incentive flights for your kids to experience actual airpower by riding in a plane. In my reserve unit, we took church pastors and local employers for rides on refueling missions in the KC-135 tanker. CAP cadets would love doing something like this. God bless.

Hi everyone. I'm at the beginning stages of taking my 5-year old through the New England Primer, and I can't find any supplemental resources or teaching aids through online searches. Anybody have any resources you can share with me? Word docs or PDFs? Advice? Etc.? Please share about your experience(s) teaching it. Thus far it's going well for me, but I'm surprised this classic work seems neglected in the modern classical education movement. I'm attracted to it because it was handed down from the Puritans, whose generation, in my opinion, was the pinnacle of the classically educated according to the Christian worldview. Why not use the same books they taught their children with? Well, nuff said. Thanks for your help. You can email me at keith.saare@gmail.com.