![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
There was a discussion on Latinteach about a Latin class that was "dumbed down" for kids with IEP (individualized education plans--that is, special ed kids of one sort or another).
This person was volunteering the name of a person who has done much at the university level with LD students:
>Colorado State Univ does a lot with LD and foreign language. The head
>of the program is a Latinist whose name is escaping me....
[and I replied:]
Barbara Hill. Here's a flyer I designed with her material (the old flyer wasn't very attractive, I thought):
http://www.promotelatin.org/LatinforLDbrochure.pdf
[but here is from the original note, where the teacher is considering changing the course to a social studies course instead of recognizing that actually she has a wonderful opportunity to help these kids in general with their language skills in English and even Latin:]
Unfortunately, this course has become a
>dumping ground for kids - they know LL&C as the "dumb class" or "Latin
>for retards". I am looking to change the curriculum to more of a social
>studies-type course - reading in translation, etc, but still be able to
>do enough of the language for it to count as a foreign lanugage course
>(so kids who have difficulty in this can get FL credit).
> I am wondering if anyone out there has or knows of a similar course -
>Latin for low-level students, which might include great amounts of
>culture and history.
[and this was my long-winded reply which I thought was worth including here:]
We just call it Latin at my school. I would say 80% or more of my kids would fall into this category. They come with little academic preparedness and can do fine. The change you need is not in the material but in understanding the approach and what creates stumbling blocks for these students.
First and foremost, many students with learning disabilities have little to no phonemic awareness. Latin is good for them because pronunciation is consistent. Of course, you have to make certain you are aware of pronunciation and syllabification rules and that you apply them consistently yourself and ALWAYS use/write macrons. You don't need to require them of the students, but require them of yourself so that the students constantly see what they hear accurately and consistently, whether you are looking at the text, doing flashcards, or whatever. The difficulties in phonemic awareness are not only in letter pairs but in recognizing whole syllables. I was told once that current researchers think that if kids do not learn how to hear and see syllables at an early age that it is difficult to reprogram the brain--so these kids will have real difficulties if you don't build in a means for seeing all parts of the word. Be aware of this and make sure students say all syllables slowly and clearly.
You will need to increase the amount of oral Latin they are exposed to and required to say. This does not necessarily mean putting them on the spot, but you can certainly read a story TO them and then have them read it WITH you as you walk around the room, listening to make certain each student is reading.
I also assign 2 lines of text per stage (already typed out on a separate sheet in their folders) which we practice together for a minute or two at the beginning of class which they are then required to phone in and leave on my voicemail. I grade on a a simple rubric, and most students do well.
Warm-ups are a favorite tool of mine where I try to get the kids to stretch themselves and take the risks that most are afraid to take, esp if they have low self-esteem. I use warm-ups to get them to do things like sort "amazons" (1st decl), "dudes" (2nd) and "mixers" (3rd), having them set up a simple table and sort words like ancilla, servus, canis, mAtrem, vIllam, mercAtOrem, etc. I do the same with verbs from very early on, getting them to think about a-stem, e-stem and i-stem--there's plenty of time later to explain that there's a 3rd, 3rd -io and 4th conjugation.
I teach students how to do "rigorous reading"--circling endings of words so that they focus on the changes. I use in context vocab quizzes and take half off if they don't have plurals or "I" or "you" or whatever is required for the context. Some people think vocab quizzes should be straight vocab, but I find that with warning and practice, these vocab quizzes help develop that skill to pay attention to detail. I might add that when they do rigorous reading (circling endings, etc) that they also get a total of 2 points extra credit. They can get 5 more extra credit for English or Spanish derivatives, and, admittedly, if they can be bothered, 10 points for flashcards. Yes, that does sound excessive, doesn't it? Well, none of it is fluff. It all goes toward mastering the language, doesn't it? 2 points to build an attention to detail, 5 for connection with their own language(s), and 10 for true outside of class work, a skill they will need to develop later on for higher work in Latin. Besides, few go after all those points and parents think I'm more than reasonable when jr is failing AND they help jr work on his flashcards.
I encourage rigorous reading on tests and teach students to definitely write on the tests, to circle information, to write down mnemonic devices (this year's best is my infinitive cheer), etc, and I do give points here and there for what I consider "showing their work." When they begin to show their work more in the margins, they also begin to choose the right answers because they are informed and not guessing.
The difference in the QUALITY of the overall performance on tests has been amazing. Do I have a bunch of brilliant A students? No, of course not. But I also do NOT have anyone just not taking the test at all--no one is giving up before they begin, like a few years ago. It's a rare day when someone makes below a 60 on a test (ok, not really a bragging point) and the majority of my students pass every test. And I do have my fair share of A's.
When you teach them about context clues (which many of us would think was obvious but is NOT obvious to these students), you will find that they read the reading comp questions more closely AND they have a better chance at finding the answer in the text.
In addition to teaching rigorous reading and looking for context clues, I also hammer home good reading skills--prereading (title, any vocab below the story, forming some ideas from those and then reading the text in word order ALL BEFORE actually reading the questions. I teach them to check off the sentence they just found the answer in because my questions are all in order. This keeps them from jumping around in the passage. And most of all I TEACH THEM TO ASK FOR HELP AND NOT GIVE UP. That is critical.
I also use QUIA.com to review sections of the test. Yes, they do preview in this fashion about 3/4 of the test. (NOT the site passage mentioned above with the reading comp questions which are short answer.) When they are working one on one with the computer, I'm able to check people individually for mastery and do some spot teaching to explain the finer details which they might have missed. I see a lot of lightbulbs go on when we do the quia games and I won't be giving them up anytime soon.
Take a look at Blooms Taxonomy, and think about what is traditionally expected of top-notch Latin students--mainly memorization and synthesis/analysis. That is, the lowest level of cognitive skills plus the highest without the middle steps. Some kids just can't make this leap on their own and it's not their fault. Too many Latin teachers in the past have treated such students as inferior and not worth having in class if they could just do the "obvious"--put together that -am ending with the direct object. You will have to help the students make these connections, repeatedly hammering it home.
For instance, I use a reading card (left corner clipped--1/2 inch by 2 inch
rectangle) so that the kids are forced to just deal with the Latin as it comes along. So if a sentence starts with an accusative:
canem
the student must metaphrase "Someone verbed the dog." Having a metaphrasing framework gives the brain something to "hang" all these weird endings on.
And if you start using a reading card when the Latin is REALLY simple, then it is easier to slowly increase the difficulty and use the card effectively.
Cambridge is extremely good for these students because it does start slowly with very simple sentences and focusing on only a couple of grammatical concepts at a time. Ecce, in contrast, (and I'm not slamming Ecce, just pointing out a difference, O beloved colleagues who teach from Ecce) has a more sophisticated sentence structure from the very first story, including relative clauses, ablative of time when, appositives, etc--probably too much for students who somehow missed the boat on language development/phonemic awareness when in the very early grades. So be glad you have a textbook so keenly suited for this particular group of students.
Before you convince yourself that you've got a class that perhaps you wish you didn't have, consider how much you will grow as a teacher by having to figure out how to break it all down and reinforce the Latin so that everyone can learn.
Even the stupidest person in Rome could speak in Latin. It has nothing to do with intelligence, but everything to do with figuring out the best way to help a student aquire that language.
This person was volunteering the name of a person who has done much at the university level with LD students:
>Colorado State Univ does a lot with LD and foreign language. The head
>of the program is a Latinist whose name is escaping me....
[and I replied:]
Barbara Hill. Here's a flyer I designed with her material (the old flyer wasn't very attractive, I thought):
http://www.promotelatin.org/LatinforLDbrochure.pdf
[but here is from the original note, where the teacher is considering changing the course to a social studies course instead of recognizing that actually she has a wonderful opportunity to help these kids in general with their language skills in English and even Latin:]
Unfortunately, this course has become a
>dumping ground for kids - they know LL&C as the "dumb class" or "Latin
>for retards". I am looking to change the curriculum to more of a social
>studies-type course - reading in translation, etc, but still be able to
>do enough of the language for it to count as a foreign lanugage course
>(so kids who have difficulty in this can get FL credit).
> I am wondering if anyone out there has or knows of a similar course -
>Latin for low-level students, which might include great amounts of
>culture and history.
[and this was my long-winded reply which I thought was worth including here:]
We just call it Latin at my school. I would say 80% or more of my kids would fall into this category. They come with little academic preparedness and can do fine. The change you need is not in the material but in understanding the approach and what creates stumbling blocks for these students.
First and foremost, many students with learning disabilities have little to no phonemic awareness. Latin is good for them because pronunciation is consistent. Of course, you have to make certain you are aware of pronunciation and syllabification rules and that you apply them consistently yourself and ALWAYS use/write macrons. You don't need to require them of the students, but require them of yourself so that the students constantly see what they hear accurately and consistently, whether you are looking at the text, doing flashcards, or whatever. The difficulties in phonemic awareness are not only in letter pairs but in recognizing whole syllables. I was told once that current researchers think that if kids do not learn how to hear and see syllables at an early age that it is difficult to reprogram the brain--so these kids will have real difficulties if you don't build in a means for seeing all parts of the word. Be aware of this and make sure students say all syllables slowly and clearly.
You will need to increase the amount of oral Latin they are exposed to and required to say. This does not necessarily mean putting them on the spot, but you can certainly read a story TO them and then have them read it WITH you as you walk around the room, listening to make certain each student is reading.
I also assign 2 lines of text per stage (already typed out on a separate sheet in their folders) which we practice together for a minute or two at the beginning of class which they are then required to phone in and leave on my voicemail. I grade on a a simple rubric, and most students do well.
Warm-ups are a favorite tool of mine where I try to get the kids to stretch themselves and take the risks that most are afraid to take, esp if they have low self-esteem. I use warm-ups to get them to do things like sort "amazons" (1st decl), "dudes" (2nd) and "mixers" (3rd), having them set up a simple table and sort words like ancilla, servus, canis, mAtrem, vIllam, mercAtOrem, etc. I do the same with verbs from very early on, getting them to think about a-stem, e-stem and i-stem--there's plenty of time later to explain that there's a 3rd, 3rd -io and 4th conjugation.
I teach students how to do "rigorous reading"--circling endings of words so that they focus on the changes. I use in context vocab quizzes and take half off if they don't have plurals or "I" or "you" or whatever is required for the context. Some people think vocab quizzes should be straight vocab, but I find that with warning and practice, these vocab quizzes help develop that skill to pay attention to detail. I might add that when they do rigorous reading (circling endings, etc) that they also get a total of 2 points extra credit. They can get 5 more extra credit for English or Spanish derivatives, and, admittedly, if they can be bothered, 10 points for flashcards. Yes, that does sound excessive, doesn't it? Well, none of it is fluff. It all goes toward mastering the language, doesn't it? 2 points to build an attention to detail, 5 for connection with their own language(s), and 10 for true outside of class work, a skill they will need to develop later on for higher work in Latin. Besides, few go after all those points and parents think I'm more than reasonable when jr is failing AND they help jr work on his flashcards.
I encourage rigorous reading on tests and teach students to definitely write on the tests, to circle information, to write down mnemonic devices (this year's best is my infinitive cheer), etc, and I do give points here and there for what I consider "showing their work." When they begin to show their work more in the margins, they also begin to choose the right answers because they are informed and not guessing.
The difference in the QUALITY of the overall performance on tests has been amazing. Do I have a bunch of brilliant A students? No, of course not. But I also do NOT have anyone just not taking the test at all--no one is giving up before they begin, like a few years ago. It's a rare day when someone makes below a 60 on a test (ok, not really a bragging point) and the majority of my students pass every test. And I do have my fair share of A's.
When you teach them about context clues (which many of us would think was obvious but is NOT obvious to these students), you will find that they read the reading comp questions more closely AND they have a better chance at finding the answer in the text.
In addition to teaching rigorous reading and looking for context clues, I also hammer home good reading skills--prereading (title, any vocab below the story, forming some ideas from those and then reading the text in word order ALL BEFORE actually reading the questions. I teach them to check off the sentence they just found the answer in because my questions are all in order. This keeps them from jumping around in the passage. And most of all I TEACH THEM TO ASK FOR HELP AND NOT GIVE UP. That is critical.
I also use QUIA.com to review sections of the test. Yes, they do preview in this fashion about 3/4 of the test. (NOT the site passage mentioned above with the reading comp questions which are short answer.) When they are working one on one with the computer, I'm able to check people individually for mastery and do some spot teaching to explain the finer details which they might have missed. I see a lot of lightbulbs go on when we do the quia games and I won't be giving them up anytime soon.
Take a look at Blooms Taxonomy, and think about what is traditionally expected of top-notch Latin students--mainly memorization and synthesis/analysis. That is, the lowest level of cognitive skills plus the highest without the middle steps. Some kids just can't make this leap on their own and it's not their fault. Too many Latin teachers in the past have treated such students as inferior and not worth having in class if they could just do the "obvious"--put together that -am ending with the direct object. You will have to help the students make these connections, repeatedly hammering it home.
For instance, I use a reading card (left corner clipped--1/2 inch by 2 inch
rectangle) so that the kids are forced to just deal with the Latin as it comes along. So if a sentence starts with an accusative:
canem
the student must metaphrase "Someone verbed the dog." Having a metaphrasing framework gives the brain something to "hang" all these weird endings on.
And if you start using a reading card when the Latin is REALLY simple, then it is easier to slowly increase the difficulty and use the card effectively.
Cambridge is extremely good for these students because it does start slowly with very simple sentences and focusing on only a couple of grammatical concepts at a time. Ecce, in contrast, (and I'm not slamming Ecce, just pointing out a difference, O beloved colleagues who teach from Ecce) has a more sophisticated sentence structure from the very first story, including relative clauses, ablative of time when, appositives, etc--probably too much for students who somehow missed the boat on language development/phonemic awareness when in the very early grades. So be glad you have a textbook so keenly suited for this particular group of students.
Before you convince yourself that you've got a class that perhaps you wish you didn't have, consider how much you will grow as a teacher by having to figure out how to break it all down and reinforce the Latin so that everyone can learn.
Even the stupidest person in Rome could speak in Latin. It has nothing to do with intelligence, but everything to do with figuring out the best way to help a student aquire that language.
