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Becky Parker
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Posted: Jan 06 2007 at 9:59am \| IP Logged

LH,
I've been reading these posts but have not had anything to add. We have been in LCI for 2 1/2 years now! It's getting old, but ds just doesn't put his heart into it so he's not learning it very well. I've decided that I need to make him more responsible to learn it - sort of give him the ball. He's 13 and seems to need the responsibility. If I don't put him in charge of it he gives it absolutely no effort unless I'm right there pushing him. I'm not sure if I am explaining this problem correctly but bottom line is I'm very frustrated with our Latin progress! LH, I'm curious to know how you set your son up to learn Latin independently. Is there a particular method or sequence that you use?

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Kathryn UK
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Posted: Jan 07 2007 at 3:49am \| IP Logged

I am making Latin a priority with my 8yo, using a new UK textbook, Latin Prep Book 1. So far I'm very pleased. It is very thorough, very user friendly and lends itself to short lessons. I am amazed at how much my dd has learned in a term. The biggest downside is that the book is falling apart (dd is none too careful

. Also the humour may not be to everyone's taste.

A year or so back we worked through much of LC1 with another family. I liked some aspects of it, but found it a bit dispiriting in that you never get past translating little snippets. Latin Prep has students translating short paragraphs as early as the first lesson, which gives more or a sense of achievement.

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LH
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Posted: Jan 10 2007 at 5:20am \| IP Logged

Becky asked how I set up my son to learn Latin independently.
For LC1
I made a lot of homemade flashcards on 3x5 index cards.

I wrote out the vocab. E to L and also separate cards L to E

I wrote out the little "grammar chart" at the bottom of the left page. If it was amo amas amat etc.

I would write

amo    _____
____   ____
____   _____

on the front of the card, and he had to recite by filling in all those blanks. the back of the card had the entire grammar forms written out.

For the right-side of the page, I made a card for every 'assignment' as is and then backwards
So if the sentence was E to L
I made a card 'as is" in the book and I made a second card
L to E. So a card with the ans on the front and the 'question/assignment' on the back
And then for the English word derivatives
I wrote out a card for each Engish word derivative, on the front of the card is the English word and then I wrote an "r d "   in the upper right corner on the front of the card. This told my student that he needed to provide
1-root - the Latin root
2-definition - translation of the Latin root
That's the R and the D and then he also had to provide the English definition of the word on the front of the card.

He also declined 1 noun per day and conjugated one verb.
I photocopied cut n pasted the words from the various declensions/conjugations into lists/pages per declension/conjugation. He chose one each noun/verb to "write out" the decl/conj in as many tenses as had been taught to that point. I can't remember how many tenses were taught in LC1. I haven't seen the book in a while

I separated these [ton of] index cards rubberbanded into
Daily cards - current lesson
and
Weekly cards - all old lessons

He did his daily cards daily with a right/wrong/repeat method.
He did one-fifth of the weekly cards daily, so that eventually he repeated all of his 'old' cards each week.
Anything he got 'wrong' in the weekly/review cards went into his "daily" stack for the week, so he saw that card more often for review

I had these assignments listed all separately on his 'checklist.'

___ decline a noun
___ conjugate a verg
___ daily cards
___ weekly cards
___ copywork -- that pdf drill sheet it did x3 week

I think that is all on the LC-1 level
He did not write in the LC-1 student workbook.
He did all his work oral chants and with these index cards. His only writing was that pdf drill sheet which he did 3 x per lesson (because there is space for 3x on the sheets)

There were a LOT of cards, but we were very organzied about it. I used a lot of rubberbands and white cards, but the front card was a "title" card and I used a purple card that said WEEKLY on it; a yellow cards that said DAILY on it. and each stack had a blue card behind which he'd put his re-do's on that stack so I could see what he had to re-do. He had to re-do any m;issed cards until he got it right, but still put it behind the separator. When he was done I would move the weekly card 'redo's'into the Daily stack

With me doing all that prep work I'm not sure that qualifies as independent learning. But I just made the cards about 50 at a time. I probably wrote out at least 6 cards per minute and therefore could make at least 50 cards daily in a matter of nine minutes.
When I see all these cards [did it for LC2 and Henle also]
it seems like a huge task, but when broken down to about eight minutes daily I was able to finish the cards with seemingly little effort :-)

Becky Parker
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Posted: Jan 10 2007 at 7:12am \| IP Logged

Wow, thank you LH for this detailed reply. I'm going to have to really study it! It seems like an awful lot of work, but our current method just isn't cutting it.
Blessings!

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Becky
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LH
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Posted: Jan 10 2007 at 7:50pm \| IP Logged

It seems like an awful lot of work, but our current method just isn't cutting it.

it does sound like a lot of work, but it didn't seem like it to me. When I was "preparing it" I kept book, a few paks of index cards, and a few pencils in a gallon ziplock bag and just did ten minutes here, ten minutes there. It really adds up. And then once it's done, you don't have to do it anymore.
Did you mean making the cards or the student doing the work?

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