The Bridge to the Latin Road is a new product that arrived on the market last spring, 2007.
Because my son had excellent grammar skills, I was considering starting him in Latin this year.
Although he is a brilliant thinker who is easily bored and needs a challenge, he was fearful that Latin would be too challenging for him, even though he wanted to study it.
My main concern was his ability to do the copy work, which he detests.
Eventually I bought the Bridge last summer for him to use this school year.
Sold by the same company that sells Latin Road to English Grammar, which my daughter uses, this is the bridge between their phonics program and their Latin study.
Grade Levels 3-6
The Bridge is meant for grades 3-6.
Benefits
The Bridge incorporates lots of dictation into the daily work, which has taught my son to hold large chunks of information in his head while writing out what he hears.
Struggling to hold a simple sentence in his head at the beginning of the year, he can now hold onto large chunks of mental information.
My son has also conquered the copywork issue! Although it’s still not his favorite thing to do, he has disciplined himself to sit and write for portions of time.
This is a kinesthetic aspect to learning that can engage the brain more actively than reading.
In addition, he is building an impressive English grammar reference notebook!
Uses Imagery of a Construction Worker in a Journeyman Program
The idea behind the Bridge is compared to that of a journeyman, who has learned basic foundational skills as an apprentice in learning phonics, spelling, etc.
The word picture used for the journeyman is one of a builder who learns framing codes, scaffolding, framing keys, and design codes.
Although the imagery doesn’t go into detail within the lessons, journeyman terminology is used for grammar concepts.
Student Notebook and Tools
The student gets a notebook, construction pencils (regular, red and blue), and a scaffolding tool (6″ ruler).
The notebook is in three parts: Framing Codes, Sentences to Analyze, and Design Codes.
Framing Codes
The Framing Codes are divided into parts of speech as well as sentences, phrases, and clauses.
Each day I dictate a definition and then a sentence, which ds copies.
With his red pencil he makes special marks while parsing sentences, like he will use later in the Latin Road to English Grammar.
Scaffolds
After marking the sentences, he scaffolds (or diagrams) the parts of speech.
Design Codes
Introduced later in the year are the Design Codes, comprised of Latin prefixes, bases, and suffixes.
There are vocabulary cards to move around (kinesthetic) to study these.
Teacher Notebook
In front of the Teacher’s Notebook are the DVDs for each week in clear pockets. These DVDs are for training the teacher, not the student.
There are usually only 4 days of lessons in each week, for 36 weeks.
Definitely Recommend The Bridge to the Latin Road before using Latin Road to Grammar
While studying verbs with my son in The Bridge to the Latin Road, we learned the 6 verb tenses (Simple Tenses: Present, Past, Future; Perfect Tenses: Present Perfect, Past Perfect, Future Perfect) and suddenly it made sense.
Using that information to review the principal parts charts he had made a few weeks before, everything was making more sense!
From there our study of Progressive Verbs are making more sense!
And now the Timeline of Verb Tenses makes more sense!
Copying from my notebook on the right, my son is filling in his Verb Tense Timeline charts today.
Feeling victorious with this new knowledge, I put The Bridge to the Latin Road away and to prepare for my daughter’s Latin lesson.
As I reviewed the Third Conjugation Verbs that dd and I are currently studying in LRTEG, I realized they made more sense!
Moving Forward
When I first purchased How to Study Your Bible by Kay Arthur ten years ago, I was excited about deepening my Bible study.
However my enthusiasm deflated as I saw all the confusing tenses, voices, and moods of verbs.
Honestly, I don’t remember learning any of this in my Spanish classes or regular English grammar classes.
Yesterday as I flipped through the book, I found the section called “Tense, Voice, and Mood of Verbs.”
Yes, there it is, the section that sent me over the edge ten years ago…the 6 verb tenses!
Flipping to the Voice section, I saw the active and passive voice which we have studied recently in LRTEG.
Middle voice? Kay Arthus says it’s unique to Greek construction.
Isn’t it amazing how we take things for granted in English, but Latin (and Greek) makes us think?
