Roman Roads Media Picta Dicta Vocabulary Builder Review

Roman Roads Media has an online course titled Picta Dicta Vocabulary Builder which is the subject of this review. Roman Roads Media provides parents and teachers with a classical curriculum choice for their student(s) in middle grades to adults. It is a self-paced program in which the student is expected to complete a lesson per week over 30 weeks.

• Signing up was effortless to include enrolling my learners into the specific course I purchased or in this case, received to review. Each learner has their own login and there is a master account to track and adjust settings as needed. The master account holder can adjust the course from easy to normal depending on the skill level of the student.
• The campaigns are sequential so a student cannot jump to another assignment without completing the preceding one. There are activities or games to reinforce what was learned.
• Each word is presented and pronounced with extra information to put the word in correct context with an accompanied picture. The student can repeat the pronunciation as many times as needed to ensure he or she can pronounce it properly.
• After so many words, a game follows that is more or less a quiz of recognition. There is an information button that allows the student a refresher of that word. If the student gets one wrong, he can review it and it will pop up again until the student can complete all them. It will not proceed until all are correct.
• Scores will be listed on the Course screen and the student can repeat the lesson if he is not happy with the score.
• Students can review completed lessons but incomplete lessons will remain locked. 
• The online course is versatile and can be used on iOS, Android, PC or Mac.

The lesson screen shot example below shows how each word is presented in what my 15 year old student stated was in flash card format which she liked. Each screen allows the student to rehear the word and to see the definition:

After the short series of flash card type screens, a quiz follows to match the word with the picture. The pronunciation of the word accompanies each quiz question. My students, 15 and 11, both would have preferred longer time periods with the flash cards as well as smaller increments of words in between practice sessions. Luckily for them and myself, Roman Roads Media thought of everything and provides a training area to practice more. I can also track all progress and the grades received. 

There are 31 chapters in Picta Dicta Vocabulary Builder to learn from and the parent/teacher can set the learning level based on the student's skill level. The various exercises helps the student learn each word from Learn, Choose, Spell, Forms and Test Forms. The hand drawn illustrations are simple which was the purpose to allow students to comprehend them faster.  I believe this is a great program for those who have a Latin background or for a student that can pick and up and run with memory based learning programs. It's easy to follow and we all liked the flashcard component of each lesson. The pronunciation and definitions provided a well rounded manner in which to learn each word. I had to contact customer service once due to user error and they were fantastic in the speed in which they helped me and making me feel I was important to their program. Although I feel my students aren't quite ready for this program, I am going to look at the other programs such as Picta Dicta Ancient World as I think that one might be a better starter program for them.

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