Today I want to tell you about a product I had the privilege to review called The Bridge to the Latin Road.  I had been wanting an opportunity to try this product, and was so grateful the company permitted me to review it for them!

The Bridge to the Latin Road is book two in a series of books created by a company called Schola Publications.  The product they provide for the youngest students is called The Phonics Road, which gives the students a grounding in phonics, to provide the foundation for their further learning.  The second book, The Bridge to the Latin Road,  provides the framework for the "Journeyman, framing the structure.  The student, who has laid the foundation in The Bridge to Phonics, is ready to learn to build the English language the way a builder builds a house.

This study begins with the rough framing, an introduction to various parts of speech  and parts of a sentence with Grammar Rule Tunes.  These simple tunes help the students remember various sentence components.  Some of the students may have already been introduced to the various parts of grammar, so there may be some review in the early weeks.  Students who have had very little Grammar will be very quickly be brought up to speed, with plenty of opportunity to practice.

The creater, Barbara Beers, communicates in the program that a word is not a part of speech unless it is used in a sentence, so the students will look at words in the context of sentences, and how the various words within the sentence relate to one another.

The program emphasizes dictation, which provides a great opportunity for the student to coordinate his spelling, writing, and thinking skills with each phrase or sentence he writes.  For the student new to dictation, writing from dictation may take some practice.  His ears will need to have time to take in the information, his mind to think about what to write, his hand to form the letters. Then his eyes will interpret the formations as he speaks the words back to himself.  This excercise creates a tremendous coordination within the mind.  With practice, the student's mind begins to see the word phrases as units which are used together to express a thought.

DVDs provided walk the parent through the steps required to use The Bridge to the Latin Road.  Specific instructions are given to assist the parent who is new to dictating.  Lessons are described for the parent/teacher on six DVDs that are included in the Teacher's Guide.  The lessons are spelled out week by week, day by day. 

The first ten weeks lay a gramatical framework, after which Latin roots begin to be introduced.  The building analogy continues, as this year the student is called the "Journeyman", and the skills they acquire are referred to as their building on their foundation as you challenge him to "add roofing support and framing design to his building.  This year we begin to add the beams, girders, and struts that support  our structure through the building structure with scaffolding", which is referring to sentence diagramming.

In addition to continuing practice work in grammar with Grammar Tunes and Framing Keys, they will learn designing keys this year through what is being called "Designing Codes", which refers to learning the meanings and functions of the common prefixes and suffixes which are added to base words.  And the first finishing instruction begins as we learn the Latin meanings of many base words and add our prefixes and suffixes to them.

These key components expand the students ability to spell more complicated English words.  Students are introduced to the importance of a good English dictionary, which includes the Latin roots to words they will be using in their sentences.  This is the year for your student to become comfortable using his dictionary.  The parent is walked through the process, to be equipped to explain the various parts of the dicitonary entries.

The CD series has a substantial introduction section, followed by weekly instructions on the day by day activity for the teacher to walk the student through.  Do not be deceived; this is a teacher-intensive program.  That being said, I believe that, while being extemely cerebral, this is a program that a willing parent can tackle, and walk their student through, thus giving them an excellent foundation to prepare them for higher education. [An added benefit is that an education in Latin is an excellent background to equip a student to score well on SAT testing for college!]

I believe that any parent who wants to can utilize this excellent program.  While it will be a little challenging, because the parent will need to prepare each week by watching the dvd for the week, it does not require an excessive amount of daily work.  It is, in that respect, Charlotte Mason friendly, because it is little by little, step by step, incrementally building a foundation towards an education in Latin, which Charlotte Mason recommends, as do many classical programs.
 
Because of family life issues right now, I haven't introduced this program to my son's schedule yet, but I am looking foward to implementing it when things settle down a bit.  What things, you may ask?... Well, that will have to be a completely different entry sometime in the future...