Please share thoughts on Wheelock Latin – today please

This is a good, thorough, solid program.  We own a copy that  my son has used for his own personal use–we use another curriculum.  The weakness of Wheelock’s is the dearth of help for teachers.  There are online groups I know of that use it.  If you don’t know Latin already, it’ll be hard to teach it using Wheelock’s.

As she moves forward, you will eventually be needed to grade assignments.  Right now, her choices of vocabulary are quite limited—going forward, they will not be. For every sentence translated, there will be maybe 10 ways to do it right–and dozens of ways to do it wrong.  The only way you will know is if you know.  I found it very necessary when using a book program to learn it all myself so I could grade and teach.  And you need materials that will support you–for instance, listing several different ways your child could have translated the passage.  You’ll want to ask if this is possible using the teacher’s guide–many of the basic programs like Wheelock’s DO have teacher’s guides–but they are intended for Latin teachers who already know Latin.  For a homeschooling mom who doesn’t, you do need more support.  I also don’t have any experience with the Linney’s and don’t know how long it will take to get it done. 

If you are going to use Wheelock’s, and you don’t want to learn Latin, then I’d strongly recommend finding her a discussion group that goes through together and is graded by group members, so you can know when she’s right and when she’s not. 

I’ve not used Latin Alive.  I really, really like Latin in the Christian Trivium.  It has really allowed me to be successful teaching Latin to all 3 boys, at varying ages (10 and up).  It’s got GREAT teacher support, and even online support if the materials don’t have what I need.  And I’ve used that! 

Sonya is the one who recommended Getting Started with Latin to me; I decided I’d like to try it as a gentler intro for ds #3 who has a harder time with languages and who was still working on a few grammar skills.  I did like it.  I don’t think it’s NECESSARY before a comprehensive beginning curriculum, and it doesn’t really cover very  much, but it is a gentler first step and did help prepare my son for more intensive work.  It IS a confidence builder!

My kids really like to pick out those Latin phrases and words that crop up everywhere. We used to, on a previous car, have a bumper sticker that said, in Latin, “When catapults are outlawed, only outlaws will have catapults.”  It amused us.    The latest idea the teens had was to make up t-shirts that said “Ultime Vir”  which REALLY means “sir” but, translated directly, means something on the order of “Ultimate Man”  This amused the kiddos, who wanted it put in a Superman type badge on a shirt.  LOL  We’re obviously  much too easily amused here.  LOL