Latin Primer I

Rating:
Summary: Needs a much better teacher's manual to be useful
Review: This primer offers a basic introduction to Latin vocabulary and to the inflected endings for noun declensions and verb conjugations (introduced as chants). However, the teacher's manual is not nearly as helpful as it could be -- even if I want to wait to explain a verb tense to my students, I should know what tense or declension the endings are for ... the manual often doesn't give you this information, nor does it give you the vocabulary list by week -- you need to look at the student version to get that. I also think the weekly worksheets could be more challenging, or at least clearly help the student to master one grammatical concept per week. While I had some familiarity with Latin prior to teaching this (I homeschool), I am learning along with my kids and this book was helpful only with vocabulary and derivatives. If you want your students to actually read and understand Latin, I suggest developing your own grammar lessons/exercises based on a combination of Wheelock and/or Latin Made Simple and then beginning the Cambridge Latin series, which is simple enough for most kids and the stories are interesting and amusing. Note: there are also several websites that offer simple Latin exercises keyed to Wheelock's chapters that can be simplified for children.

Rating:
Summary: Great for Elementary Students
Review: We are just finishing Latin Primer 1 for the year. It was our first experience with Latin. We did very well with it and while, yes, it is vocabulary heavy, with some simple noun/verb/adjective/adverb translating, it was enough for a 3rd grader who is still learning English grammar. It wasn't too overwhelming and he's excited with continuing Latin Primer II.
The only thing I would change in the Student Edition, is to preprint the weekly quotations on the weekly lists (like in the TE). This fits the Classical Education model it was written for.

Rating:
Summary: A waste of time and money
Review: What a disappointment! This was our first course in Latin and to get the full course you have to buy 3 books, the cassettes, and the videos. A lot of money, but being beginners, we were insecure and did it. We wasted a whole year on just rote memorization of Latin vocabulary lists you could have just as easily gotton off the internet. The only real value were the pronounciation tapes at about $ each. The teacher's manual is not user friendly and the order of the book as pertains to actual use is poor. The only grammar is memorization of chants which are given no explanation. After using this course we switched to Minimus adn learned more in the 12 weeks it took to finish that book than the whole previous year wasted on Latin Primer I. Save your money. Minimus was only $ compared to over $ for this one.