LATIN - The Next Step After Phonics
Latin in the elementary school, after phonics? This may sound like a new and experimental idea, but it's really an old and traditional one. Have you ever read Good-bye Mr. Chips or Anne of Green Gables? If so, you may have noticed that the students seemed to spend a lot of time studying Latin grammar and that it was completed before high school. In fact, this is where the name grammar school came from - from the days when the most important subject in elementary school was Latin grammar. . . .
The most practical reason for Latin study is that it also teaches English. Over half of our English words are really Latin - and it's not just any half, it's the difficult half. The common one or two syllable words of every day speech are English, but the big three to five syllable words are usually Latin. These are the words students start to see in their reading in science, history and literature beginning in the third and fourth grade. Do we really prepare students for this transition? . . . . . The advantage of beginning Latin early is that we give our students the tools to decode these big words just when they begin to encounter them, instead of five years later. . . . . .
Another reason to begin Latin in the early grades is that students at this age still find memorizing an enjoyable task, something not true of students in high school. Much of the vocabulary and forms of Latin can be learned in grades two through six. . . .
To really understand the structure of language (and that is what grammar is), students must study a structured language. In Latin, grammar is the organizing principle, rather that a vestige, as it is in most modern languags. Students who learn English grammar by comparison and contrast with Latin grammar, develop an understanding of language far superior to anything that can be achieved by the study of modern languages alone. . . . . . Studying a disciplined, organized language like Latin helps students learn to think in a more disciplined, organized way. The very nature of the language affects the way students think and write. . . . . .
Latin is the mother tongue of Western civilization. . . . . .Everything in the modern world seems to be related to Latin and to the ancient and medieval cultures that spoke it. By examining the roots of our culture in its mother language, knowledge begins to integrate naturally. . . . . . The best way to put it is this: Latin is a Unit Study where the work is done for you. . . . . .
[P]arents struggling to integrate and simplify their curriculums (not to mention their lives) will find in the study of Latin, not just a language, but an organiing principle that could revolutionize their home schools.
