Latin
Latin is taught to all students in the Upper Level and Middle School. While students continue their study of Spanish, which they began at the Extended Day Level, Latin offers them a different type of learning experience. Learning a modern language like Spanish, involves the mastery of aural/oral skills and automatic, idiomatic responses that are part of real conversation in a language, as well as aspects of grammar and sentence construction. With the ancient language of Latin, however, our focus is on analyzing the way language works, how endings change with form and function. The discipline of studying Latin is a traditional and effective way of training students in reading, writing and thinking about their own language.
The Upper Level class uses the Cambridge Latin Course, a reading-based approach to learning the language that encourages the students' own discovery of the relationship between English and Latin, and dovetails with their study of English grammar. In preparation for learning the language, students read background material on Roman culture, study maps of the Roman Empire and discover which modern languages derive from Latin. Roman numerals, Greco-Roman mythology, Roman heroes, and the form of the typical southern Italian house are also covered. After vocabulary for family members and the house are introduced, along with basic verbs, students are able to read short, simple sentences and brief, illustrated stories. As students develop greater knowledge and sophistication with the grammar, they advance to more complex stories about the people who lived in Pompeii prior to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 ACE.
At the Middle School level we use EcceRomani, a high school course with a formal approach to Latin grammar, involving noun and verb endings to memorize , and aiming for a systematic understanding of verb tenses and the different forms of nouns. This offers a different approach that is accessible to continuing Latin students as well as to children new to the school who are studying Latin for the first time. Students study and master well-defined grammatical rules, and work to read more sophisticated texts as well as translate from English into Latin. After two years, successful students are ready to take the New York State Proficiency test in Latin (and earn one high school foreign language credit), and are prepared to enter Latin 2 in high school.
The Elizabeth Ann Clune Montessori School of Ithaca
120 East King Road, Ithaca, New York 14850
Phone: (607) 277-7335, Fax: (607) 277-0251, Email:
