ELEMENTARY LATIN
by Nancy Sattler
reviewed by Karen Koehler-Cesa at kcpub@world.att.net

(Karen provided helpful comments on my review
of Latin's Not So Tough, and mentioned that she
used the LNST program along with Nancy Sattler's
Elementary Latin.  I asked her to review the program
for this site.-- Susan Wise Bauer)

Elementary Latin, by Nancy Sattler
reviewed by Karen Koehler-Cesa
www.sattlerlatin.com
Or order from:
Inklings Book Shop
1206 Main St.
Lynchburg, VA 24504
www.InklingsBooks.com
434-845-2665

    I will say that *I*, in my limited Latin wisdom, think this program is a gold mine!  It is a program that can be used either just orally or written too.  So you can start as young as Kindergarten age (just oral).  If you have a younger and older together the older could do the written portion and youngers just oral.

    Nancy Sattler's blurb says: "An introduction to Latin for very young students, to be used orally grades K-2; or as a written workbook for grade 3.  Features: vocabulary lists with words of interest to young students: colors, numbers, body parts, furniture, family etc.; chants for memorizing verb endings and noun declensions; ditties which provide Latin phrases and sentences which can be used at home and in conversations; phonetic pronunciation guide for parents (classical); common songs translated into Latin, such as Old MacDonald, Happy Birthday, Brother Jacob, Itsy Bitsy Spider, etc."

    You can buy just the workbook, $15; the teacher's book (pronunciation guide, tests, answers, some teaching ideas), $15  [Susan's note: as of May 2001, the price of the new edition had risen to $28]; an audiocassette tape (fabulous, clear pronunciation...very catchy), $10; a videotape of lessons (extend a bit sometimes from the workbook), $15.  I have all four and recommend all, but buy in this order if budget doesn't allow all: Teacher's workbook, audiocassette tape, student workbook, videotape.

    I use this alongside Latin's Not So Tough, with ages 4-9.  The 4yo recites MANY of the chants, songs, etc.  In Kindergarten (next year) I'll require more with her.  The 7yo and 9yo are required to do all the chants and exercises; the 9yo is also in Book 3 of LNST.  Next year the 7yo (3rd grade) will have this EL in background before starting all the written work for LNST.   (Already, as we are doing the beginnings of grammar in LNST Book 3, the chants help a lot.)  I would recommend this and have recommended EL to others using any other program that doesn't have any chants with it).

    EL is an excellent adjunct to any program, in my opinion.  The chants include:
Noun chants: all declension endings (like 1st declension: a, ae, ae, am, a, ae, arum, is, as, is; and 2nd: us, i, o, um, o, i, orum is, os, is, etc.).  Nancy Sattler is SO catchy with the way she says these that they just soon roll off your tongue as if you'd been saying them all your life.  Yes, you'll wake up in the middle of the night and they're running through your head!.

    Verb chants:chants for the endings of verbs in present tense, imperfect tense, future, perfect tense, pluperfect, future perfect, passive voice.  These roll off your tongue even more easily than the noun ones.

    You do a few conjugations: amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant.  etc.

    You learn "songs": Brother Jacob, Old MacDonald, Happy Birthday, Itsy Bitsy Spider.  The value to these is that again, they roll off your tongue, but they help give a child the natural language of sentence structure so that later in prescriptive studies, they can refer back to what "sounds right" rather than just knowing the rules and figuring out which ending should be by rules alone.

    They learn "sets" of information: colors, furniture, numbers, more verbs, basic translations with these words, family words, animals, body parts, months of the year and lots of "ditties".  These are like catchy poems (unlike the songs above, these are unfamiliar to you, but again, provide language in context).

    Nancy provides deriviatives, too, which LNST does not.

    You need the student workbook ONLY if (a) you are going to expect the student to do a written portion to this program (unlikely if you are using it supplementally to another Latin program where the student is writing) and (b) you want them to do the writing and you don't want to take the time to alter the Teacher's manual page sufficiently to assign something to the student (the TM and SM are nearly the same but TM doesn't have blanks beside each potential assignment. TM also has phonetically written out how to pronounce EVERYTHING---handy!).  I own both, but have never used the SM.