Latin Shmatin

We've been doing Latin this year, and it's actually going really well. I'm thinking that we'll be doing it next year too. But here is the reason: I love Rosetta Stone!

Oh, we've tried a few different curriculum for the subject.

The first, Prima Latina, a work book type approach, was rather dry. It would have been OK for Sierra, but it would have never kept Bailey's interest. Also, it required a lot of work on my end. Not the happiest thing for me.

Next, due to a fluke in ordering through Options, we tried Power Glide. This curriculum uses audio stories to teach words along with a workbook for visual learning. The girls loved it! They listened to the stories, picked up the words easily, and were able to do it with very little help from me. It was a good program, but there were some big draw backs. I personally found it annoying to listen to as the stories were very much aimed at kids and the voice acting was sub par. Not a problem for the kids, but I also wanted to learn Latin. The other was that it really didn't cover a whole lot. We finished the program in two months. It was a very nice introduction actually, but that's about as far as it went.

Finally, after the fluke order was fixed, I got my hands on Rosetta Stone, a computer program using both audio and visual. It didn't take long for me to be highly impresses. All of the stuff that the girls had leaned with the previous curricula was covered in about three lessons. Now, grant it, the girls would take a few days to cover each lesson, but they still learned it faster (in a couple weeks vs a couple months). And they were just getting into the program! (It will likely take them over two years to complete the first level.) Oh and I enjoy it too.

How Rosetta Stone works is, you look at the pictures and hear the words. Then you match the pictures to the words. Next, they give you a picture and the printed words, which they read to you. Again you match. For older students, they then give you the printed words, and you have to match them with the picture without audio. The only down side is that they never actually tell you what the words mean. You have to guess. A Latin dictionary can easily solve that though. Oh, and if you want to learn grammar, you'll need to either get their accompanying workbook or some other text to teach it to you. But still, for a 3rd grader and a Kindergardener, it's fantastic! And I'm learning a lot too with seemingly little effort.