Bridge to the Latin Road
A one-year introduction to Latin designed for students 10 years and older, preparing both teachers and students for the grammar and translation work in The LATIN Road to English Grammar.
The best preparation for Latin is not only a study in Latin roots, but solid basic skills in English grammar. The ability to identify the relationships of words in a sentence both by part of speech and sentence structure provides students with the foundation for Latin translation work. And since no other language in the world affects English as much as Latin, learning Latin components not only prepares them for later Latin translations, but strengthens English vocabulary and spelling.
The BRIDGE to the Latin Road gives students a good working introduction to Latin in the form of common Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes. These Latin components and the principles for using them provide the design elements to complicated English words. With the help of Designing Codes® and color-coded Designing Cards, students will learn to build about 400 more difficult English words from Latin roots, giving them valuable clues to spellings and meanings.
Using the theme of a builder throughout the year, students learn to build the English language in the same way a carpenter learns to build a house. With the foundation of basic skills in spelling, writing, and reading English completed in the younger years, it is time to begin rough framing a student's language skills with Framing Codes®, introducing the various parts of speech and parts of a sentence with Grammar Tunes®, simple tunes to help students remember many of our English sentence components. Since a word is NOT a part of speech until it is used in a sentence, students focus on building and analyzing sentences, learning how words relate to each other. With the help of Framing Keys® students gain clues to help them discern how words can be used in a sentence. The writing they do to build their notebooks provides students a great opportunity to coordinate their spelling, writing, and thinking skills with each phrase or sentence they write.
After the rough framing is completed, I challenge students as they learn to add roofing support and framing design to their building through the building of scaffolding, which is my process of sentence diagramming, in preparation for Latin. By the end of this study, students will have built their own English reference handbook to use during your 3-year study of The LATIN Road to English Grammar.
