Memoria Press First Form Latin Review: Highly Recommend

I have always been interested in learning Latin and wanted the opportunity to teach one of my children. My fifth grade homeschooled daughter seemed to be the perfect candidate for this learning endeavor. We've been using the complete set for several weeks now and to date, she really has been enjoying the First Form Latin lessons from Memoria Press. Intended for grades 4-9, it's been the perfect program to introduce and teach her Latin. The complete set has everything needed to begin learning Latin and is affordable. I've tried another language program in the past that worked mainly from memorization but First Form Latin is much more and each product has a purpose:

• The Teacher's Manual provides an introduction to the person teaching the language which is very comprehensive. It's not the type of program that one can pick up and teach without preparation. It appeared a little overwhelming at first given all the materials provided but once I was able to understand how each product fit into the overall teaching picture, it was easy to follow. 
• I've tried many different homeschooling programs and curriculum over the years and what I liked about Memoria Press's Teachers Manual is the student text inset with answers in color to ease the teaching process. I didn't have to keep flipping from book to book as everything was right where I needed it to be.
• I'm a chalk board type of teacher so the "Chalk Talk" portions of the instructions were favorites of mine.
• The recitations helped to reinforce her oral skill set as well as memorization of each lesson.
• The extensive teaching notes and FYI sections were also useful references to turn to when I needed extra guidance.
• The Student Workbook contains lessons that provides practice and tests mastery as well as helps to teach the concepts behind Latin. It can be very confusing understanding things such as first conjugation present, imperfect and future and singular versus plural with the "o, s, t, mus, tis, nt" endings but the lessons helps to reinforce it along with the Student Text. Here is one of the pages from lesson twenty:

• The Student Text is a smaller more concise 34 two-page lessons that furthers instructs.
• The Quizzes and Test booklets is used to ensure the student is learning and can be reproduced to reinforce areas that might be troublesome. The Teachers Key has all the answers to the workbooks tests and quizzes making it easy to find without having to search.

Additional items in the complete set continue to reinforce and master First Form Latin by Memoria Press which includes:

• Flash cards that are provided loose bound so the order can be created however is best for the student's needs. They include vocabulary, Latin sayings and grammar forms.
• The DVDs, three discs at nine hours directed at 15-20 minutes per lesson, provide further instruction on ensuring pronunciation of the words are understood. The DVDs compliment the program greatly as Highlands Latin School teacher Glen Moore does a great job bringing Latin to life. My only wish here would be for him to slow down when he's pronouncing the words as he does go a bit fast but as time progressed and her learning increased, it was easier to understand.
• The Pronunciation CD included all the vocabulary and grammar forms for each lesson. We were even able to take it with us as we ran errands to reinforce the lessons.

She really liked the program which I was very happy about! 

I think her only complaint was the length of the workbook lessons but those can be divided up pending the speed and attention span of a particular child. The resources compliment one another to provide an extremely comprehensive program for learning a new language in a pace that meets your's and your student's needs. I liked the ease of use once I got the hang of the program as well as being able to have tools that helped reinforce the lessons. I would highly recommend Memoria Press First Form Latin. I really like the classical Christian approach to education and I am definitely going to look into supplementing my children's education with one of the other subject areas Memoria Press has.

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Memoria Press has other packages in various subjects such as Traditional Spelling 1 and Traditional Spelling II along with many others. Click below to see what others from the Crew thought about First Form Latin and other subject areas from Memoria Press: