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. The imagery doesn’t go into detail within the lessons. However, certain "journeyman" terms are used for grammar concepts.

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. The teacher notebook looks the same as the student's, except the pages are the answer keys. Also, the student's pages only have writing on one side, whereas the teacher's pages have writing on both sides.  I think this makes room for the lesson plans and DVDs to be stored.

In front are the lesson plans. In front of that are the DVDs for each week (for the teacher). There are usually only 4 days of lessons in each week. There are 36 weeks of lessons.

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.

Then he marks and labels, using his red pencil for some special parts. Marking is done differently with different programs. I marked one way in high school, another way with A Beka, and yet a bit differently with the Bridge.  Marking is basically identifying the part of speech of each word, usually with symbols. The value of the marking with the Bridge, is that it is the same marking that will be used in LRTEG when parsing sentences and working on translations. When dd and I started LRTEG some of this marking was new and took a little getting used to, although it was not a problem. It is now second nature to us. Here’s an example of a marked sentence and the diagramming underneath.

In our daily lesson, after ds marks the sentence, he reviews or learns to scaffold, or diagram that part of speech. Then we’ll usually go to the Sentences to Analyze section for more sentences to dictate, copy, mark and scaffold. I’ll dictate 3-6 sentences a day for him to copy, mark and scaffold, reinforcing the concepts he has learned. When scaffolding, the scaffolding tool (ruler) is used to make straight lines. However, my son prefers not to use this.   

The Design Codes are introduced later in the year and teaches Latin prefixes, bases and suffixes. There are vocabulary cards to move around (kinesthetic) to study these. (My son prefers not to use them. His learning style is to talk about everything he does!) There is a regular pencil for the base word, red pencil to copy the prefix and a blue pencil to copy the suffix. (My son does use the pencils!  Hooray!) A few prefixes, bases and suffixes are taught each time. Many of these he will see again in Latin. All of them he learns to use to form nouns or verbs in our daily language. The flash cards are meant to be manipulated to try to form the words from the prefixes and suffixes. He learns about assimilation, when a word part doesn’t match the flash card. This is usually because something like "ob-pose" was difficult to say so it assimilated into "op-pose." This answers the questions he always used to ask me about some of our English spelling rules not lining up! Then there are the word parts that don’t follow the rules because it changed through the French and got tweaked. Spelling has made a lot more sense studying language of origin!