I've discovered that Latin is the secret to successful homeschooling in high school

[Jean in Newcastle]

There are a number of elementary level Latin courses who mainly teach some phrases, vocabulary words and basic parts of speech in both English and Latin. They are helpful to getting your feet wet in the language as well as in understanding more difficult words in English because so many English words have Latin roots.

 

I think that a middle schooler could just as easily learn Latin at that age too. They won't have as much repetition but will still be able to learn it just fine.

 

I used Prima Latina and Latina Christiana in the elementary years and Galore Park's Latin Prep in the middle years. I know there are lots of other programs out there.

[G5052]

My Latin teacher friend, who has been so supportive in my teaching DD, is the ONLY Latin teacher left in her entire school district, and, every year about this time, expects to get the "your position has been eliminated" letter, but so far, there have always been just enough parents who see Latin as a good thing who have enough influence to keep her job. As it is, her comment is that she's had to water down Latin instruction a lot for the group, and then add additional content and teach the 2-3 kids who actually want to know the language in any depth after school/at lunch because she can't teach what was a real Latin course when she started teaching 20 years ago or so and keep students in it beyond those 2-3 a year who actually get to the level of being able to take the National Latin exam, place into upper level college courses, and so on. Which may be one reason why her suggestions are working well for a 7 yr old :).

 

It's offered at all of the traditional public high schools in my county, and there are two private prep schools that offer it as well. The public schools use Cambridge Latin.

 

There are actually four colleges (a friend reminded me of another one) that offer a Latin and/or Classics major within a two hour's drive.

 

Where I came from, the only people that I knew who studied Latin went to an elite Catholic school. The colleges I went to didn't have it at all. Not on the radar screen.

Edited February 20, 2012 by GVA