First form latin

[Kallie BURRUANO]

My daughter is finishing up her sixth grade year. We started with prima Latina way back when. I think third grade. She did fine. Latina Christiana was harder and Latin is not a subject she enjoys. We began first form at the tail end of fourth grade and after the summer break decided to just start from the beginning again in fifth. This past summer we moved, battled illness and death in the family and finally got FFL finished. A mere year and a half after we began the first time. She at times still looks like a deer in the headlights. And she is a bright girl. So instead of going to SFL in the spring I decided to do an accelerated review of FFL. how much mastery is needed to progress? She can do her vocab and her drills/exercises fine. But when I go over the questions she gets confused. I'm really tired of looking at FFL. My poor books like they've seen a war. How long do u beat the horse until you just move along?

[pickandgrin]

I am sorry to hear of the hard times. Cumulative academic things can be difficult with a lot going on in hearts and bodies. I had to do First Form about five times until I really got it, so she's running circles around me. And she's so young still!
Have you given her the final exam? How did she do on that? Was FF the newer edition with the extra parsing in each lesson or an old copy? When you say "questions," do you mean the Grammar Questions in back of the workbook?

[enbateau]

Are you doing any grammar program along with FFL? Has your child memorized any of the EGR rules? I also missed if she's done any DVDs. The grammar questions just have to be memorized. For FFL, it was a huge part. For SFL, it's not as big a part because the foundation has been laid. I have more thoughts but wanted to see where y'all fell in the above regard.

[tanya]

Hello.

I'm sorry for your frustrations. If your daughter has mastered the vocabulary and grammar forms (can recite/write all the grammar forms from memory), you should be fine moving forward. Just continue to work on the grammar questions. SFL is going to have more translation form drills, and I'm going to warn you now that this is always a challenge, so you will continue to get the "deer in the headlights" look. But just have your student parse every word (and that is built into the workbook), and she will progress. It is a tedious process, but so worth the time, even if you do fewer problems but do them thoroughly and well.

If she hasn't mastered the vocabulary and grammar forms from FFL, that is where you need to focus your time before moving on. I don't mean she should necessarily be able to fly through every flashcard without pause, but she should be able to do the great majority of them. And see if she can decline and conjugate endings and model nouns/verbs/adjectives orally and on paper. If not, concentrate on that. This is the goal of FFL. The understanding of the grammar and syntax will come gradually, so don't worry if she struggles some on the workbook exercises. If it looks like she does need more work in FFL, she could take the MPOA FFL Review this summer to really solidify her foundation: https://www.memoriapressacademy.com/...-latin-review/

And finally, all students won't love Latin, and that's okay. All students don't love math either. But it's worth the toil in so many ways, so good for you for persevering! She may thank you one day.

Tanya

[Kallie BURRUANO]

Thank you all. She has used the DVDs through every course and I try to watch them all with her. We do full MP curriculum, so she is using EGR. Since her ability to do the work in EGR was there I think I dropped the ball on the recitation/ grammar questions. She has every ending memorized and grammar forms as well in FFL. Oral drills aren't to hard for her. I guess it comes down to the questions. I don't test her but rather use the tests as a review because she will freeze up for fear of not being able to do it. When asked she says she understands but the questions are confusing. I can never tell if I am expecting too much or not enough out of my children academically!
I really appreciate your feedback😁

[howiecram]

First, I wouldn't worry AT ALL if it took 1.5 years to work through FFL. The program is designed for 1 year, but at home we have many things that make this not always achievable, verses in a classroom. Second, think of Latin like math. I would try and refocus your goal of simply doing Latin every year, verses "complete x level in x amount of time:" Now, I realize that you are looking for specific information on simply whether to hold on FFL or move forward to SFL, but hopefully this frame of reference will help you moving forward.

I just moved along with my daughter with FFL last year, not sure how far she would progress. We made it through the first 4 units. In the end, I actually plan to take this route moving forward with my other children. We start school back up in August, but I call it "light school" and just re-adjusting expectations. I find having something that is not entirely new a great way to start the school year. After Labor Day we we resume "full school". She finished the regular lessons in Unit 4 and then we started SFL right away (skipping the review lesson + FFL year review). Lesson 1 of SFL is a review lesson, so we took 2 weeks between the end of the new material in FFL and Lesson 2 in SFL to do a through review of FFL. It was probably mid September before we got to Lesson 2, but it worked out really well. She will finish the same this year in SFL (through Unit 4). In FFL, the 5th unit is 2nd Conjugation verbs so having those very fresh to start the year worked out well. In SFL, the Passive Voice is in Unit 5. Again, we plan to pick that unit back up in August. I did the "math" on TFL and we will only cover the first 3 units and then finish the following year. I am hopeful, that by the time we get to Fourth Form, we will be able to finish in 1 year. Ultimately, it will take us 4 years to do FFL-TFL, but that seems doable for future children as well. During the summer, I do ask for daily flashcard review (5-10), and daily review (the FFL review book was good)- no more than 20-30 min a day. Additionally add a few drill forms ( declining pairs of nouns and adjectives (small river, etc)) and doing a verb synopisis.

The grammar forms, as Tanya says, just memorize them! The understanding does become more clear in SFL.

*additionally, taking the Adult forms summer latin class has been a tremendous help*

I took FFL adult class summer 2020 and then I took Second Form Latin twice! HA! (summer 2021 + Fall 2021). The repeat of SFL was because I didn't keep up well enough with FFL and so during the summer SFL I was going back through FFL) - the repeat SFL I was able to keep up better and I am still "studying" about 30 min a day. One form of review I like to do, is I printed all the quizzes. I just write the answers in a notebook. I prefer writing out the vocabulary to flashcards so I do a quiz or two daily. (I only do some of the translations, because I am starting to memorize those)

[Bonnie]

If your daughter has mastered the vocabulary and grammar forms (can recite/write all the grammar forms from memory), you should be fine moving forward. Just continue to work on the grammar questions.

I think Tanya gave you good advice. It sounds as if your daughter is doing very well in applying, in a concrete way, the information she has learned, but perhaps has trouble explaining when asked to re-present information in a more abstract way. That is not at all unusual for many students. Sometimes it is not a question of doing everything more slowly. Can you give an example or two of the types of questions that she cannot answer? Maybe she needs you to explain more fully the ideas behind the grammar questions? Or perhaps she just needs a prompt or hint from you to get started in answering.

Bonnie