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(Re)Capturing the Joy of Reading

(for yourself & your students)

Use good, consistent pronunciation.
Heighten awareness of inflectional endings and function.
Break down barriers to building a mental representation of the language.
Learn / practice / model “Rules for Reading” Latin.
Develop expectations when reading.
Read extensively (not just intensively) with joy!

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Can you say it? Can you sing it?

Do you know how to pronounce your Latin alphabet? �litterae dīcuntur: ��

�(scīsne carmen ābēcēdārium? Video created by Ellie Arnold.)

a = ā

b = bē

c = cē

d = dē

e = ē

f = ef

g = gē

h = hā

i = ī

k = cā

l = el

m = em

n = en

o = ō

p = pē

q = cū

r = er

s = es

t = tē

v = ū

x = ix

y = ypsīlon

z = zēta

vōcālēs sunt A, E, I, O, V, Y cēterae sunt cōnsōnantēs. (etiam I et V cōnsōnantēs sunt.)

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The alphabet is cute but is it necessary?

If speaking entirely in Latin during class, be able to spell words to students when asked.

“Ō Magistra, quō modō dīcitur ‘canem’?” �“scrībitur per cā ā en ē em.”

Use it to label groups or objects in the room.
Play Latin hangman (pātibulum) and raise awareness �of sound and spelling by requiring “correpta” (short) �or “prōdūcta” (long) with vowels. (You can also �review body parts as you draw the person.)

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Cicero isn’t here �to whisper in your ear…

YOU, the teacher, are the primary source of aural input, thus YOU must insure that your pronunciation and syllabification are solid.
Learn macra by being exact in your pronunciation, by hearing & internalizing them. Include macra on everything you do if possible.
When meeting a new vocabulary item in context, make sure to say the word aloud, fixing the sound in your mind.
Teach pronunciation & syllabification to your students (but don’t put a grade on it)—this allows students a chance to feel more confident in fixing new vocabulary met on their own.

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Reading Aloud & Often

The main language input students have in Latin classes is the textbook. Don’t let it be silent—Latin was never meant to be read silently, but always aloud!

For short stories (Note how much they will hear from you!):

Preread whole story to students, then ask simple questions about who is in it, and any little bits of storyline that they may have gathered.
Read sentence by sentence, while working through the story for deeper comprehension. Reread to consolidate, especially with particularly difficult sentences.
Postread all together with students afterwards.

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Reading Aloud & Often

For longer passages (especially with AP):

Reread at least part of previous day’s reading, either by yourself or chorally.
Preread at least part of current passage to students.
Read sentence by sentence, while working through the passage for deeper comprehension. Reread to consolidate, especially with particularly difficult sentences.
Spiral & reread paragraph by paragraph, building & consolidating meaning.
Postread all together with students afterwards, if time.

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Now if students would

just actually see the endings…

It’s not their fault. The brain impulsively wants to make meaning as swiftly as possible—thus jumping to root meaning of vocabulary before understanding sentence structure.

�Sometimes the brain needs help to be retrained in order to truly acquire (not just understand) Latin word order and inflection. Luckily there are a few things we can do to help students retrain their brains:

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Metaphrasing

The two most basic underlying sentence patterns are nom + acc + verb & nom + dat + acc + verb. Simple metaphrasing consists of a basic place-holding sentence for the brain for these patterns:

Someone verbed something (to someone).

(NOM) (ACC) (DAT)

servus – The slave verbed something (to someone).

servum – Someone verbed the slave (to someone).

(servō – Someone verbed something to the slave.)

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Practical Applications: Warm-Ups

multōs servōs > Someone verbed many slaves to someone.
mercātor > The merchant verbed something to someone.
latrōnibus > Someone verbed something to the robbers.
ālae *> The wings verbed something to someone. / Someone verbed something to the wing (unlikely).

Passage: mercātor ōlim cum merce pretiōsā Arabiam trānsībat…. multōs servōs quoque habēbat, quī mercem custōdiēbant….mercātor servīque latrōnibus ācriter resistēbant, sed latrōnēs tandem servōs superāvērunt…. subitō mōnstrum terribile in caelō appāruit; ālae longiōrēs erant quam rēmī, unguēs maiōrēs quam hastae. (“mercātor Arabs” CLC Unit 2 100).

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Practical Applications: Warm-Ups�Focus on Participles as Chunks

mīlitēs, gladiīs hastīsque armātī, > The soldiers, armed with swords and spears, verbed someone.�
statuam meam, ā fabrō Britannicō factam, > Someone verbed my statue, made by a British craftsman, to someone.�
senex, amulētum aureum tenēns, > The old man, holding the golden amulet, verbed something to someone.

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But is -ēs Nominative or Accusative? How can I tell?

Ambiguity in a highly inflectional language can be daunting to a learner and throw up mental road blocks to input and thus to developing a mental representation of Latin as a real language to be read from left to right. �

“The attempt to articulate and explain a complete list of such commonsense [disambiguation] tactics, can only clarify our largely subconscious reading techniques,” (Daniel McCaffrey: “Resolving Ambiguous Forms in Latin,” Texas Classics in Action, Summer 2002)

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(see handout, p 10)

For instance, an unambiguous noun with an ambiguous noun competing for subject/object slot, consider the noun in question to be the other case:

urbēs puella
urbēs puellās
puella urbēs
puellās urbēs

If the ambiguous noun is joined by a coordinating conjunction with an unambiguous noun, it’s the same case.

puellās et matrēs*�

* Of course, you must be sure you know what et is really connection (not clauses as opposed to just a pair of words, for instance).

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Focusing on Form: Reading cards

�“Focus on form is not grammar teaching, but focus on form is any external force (external to the learner) that tries to bring that learner’s attention to formal properties of language during meaning-based communicative events or activities.” (Bill VanPatten, “Tea with BVP” podcast, Episode 25 – Principle 6: Focus on Form)

Reading cards are tools (an external force) that can help students break through mental blocks concerning Latin word order.
Early use of a reading card can prevent students from developing detrimental “hunt and peck” translation methods as opposed to learning to truly read Latin from left to right.

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But my students hate rules!

Ok, then consider these are more like guidelines for getting the most out of your reading. These are from Latin: How to Read it Fluently by B. Dexter Hoyos.�

Rule 1 A new sentence or passage should be read through completely, several times if necessary, so as to see all its words in context.�

Rule 2 As you read, register mentally the ending of every word so as to recognise how the words in the sentence relate to one another.

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Rule 3 Recognise the way in which the sentence is structured (its Main Clause(s), subordinate clauses and phrases). Read them in sequence to achieve this recognition and re-read the sentence as often as necessary, without translating it.�

Rule 4 Now look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary; and once you know what all the words can mean, re-read the Latin to improve your grasp of the context and so clarify what the words in this sentence do mean.�

Rule 5 If translating, translate only when you have seen exactly how the sentence works and what it means. SUB-RULE Do not translate in order to find out what the sentence means. Understand first, then translate.

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Rule 6 a. Once a subordinate clause or phrase is begun, it must be completed syntactically before the rest of the sentence can proceed.

b. When one subordinate construction embraces another, the embraced one must be completed before the embracing one can proceed.

c. A Main Clause must be completed before another Main Clause can start.

Rule 7 Normally the words most emphasised by the author are placed at the beginning and end, and all the words in between contribute to the overall sense, including those forming an embraced or dependent word-group. A word-group can be shown by linking its first and last words by an “arch” line.

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Rule 8 The words within two or more word-groups are never mixed up together: “arches” do not cut across one another. But an “arch” structure can contain one or more interior “arches”; that is, embraced word-groups.�

Rule 9 All the actions in a sentence are narrated in the order in which they occurred.�

Rule 10 Analytical sentences are written with phrases and clauses in the order that is most logical to the author. The sequence of thought is signposted by the placing of word-groups and key words.

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L1 reading abilities include:

Identifying the main ideas
Drawing inferences as appropriate
Connecting main ideas with supporting ideas
Focusing selectively on key information
Learning from new information presented in texts
Integrating information across a text and across texts
Evaluating information in relation to background knowledge and in relation to other texts

(p.134)

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Major requirements for becoming a fluent reader:

grammar knowledge
main-idea comprehension
strategic reading
awareness of discourse structure
vocabulary knowledge

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‘Linguistic Distance’

⮊

‘Linguistic Processing Interference’

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Learners automatically transfer from L1 to L2

⮊

Two language systems going on in the mind simultaneously when reading

⮊

‘dual language processing’ is inevitable

Linguistic Processing Interference

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visual word-recognition processes
phonological processing
syntactic information
set goals
use reading strategies
apply some level of metacognitive awareness
working memory system:

long-term for background information
pattern recognition
beginning to end of sentence…esp. in Latin!

SIMILARITIES: All readers make use of:

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Alphabetic/non-alphabetic
Morphology may be encoded in orthography

e.g. “affixes/stem-form changes can indicate semantic and grammatical changes”

Different languages privilege one set of reading strategies over another

e.g. English simple in morphology, word order does everything

DIFFERENCES/DISTANCE:

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Orthographic Depth Hypothesis

English ‘deep orthography language’ – e.g. head, heard, heat. Letter to sound mapping is irregular. ‘The most opaque alphabetic orthography.’
cf. Latin: ‘Shallow orthography’ ⮊ easy to teach letter-to-sound correspondence
Readers need phonological awareness for word recognition
…but in a language with shallow orthography, ease of reading out loud isn’t a good predictor of reading abilities.

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Greater informational density per word ⮊ slower reading rate than English
Involves unpacking and processing each part – need morphological awareness
“Attend to the words endings very carefully to understand the intended meaning”…
Reading time difference between L1 and L2 strong predictors of reading difficulties

EVEN MORE ON DIFFERENCES/DISTANCE:

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EVEN MORE ON DIFFERENCES/DISTANCE:

L1 reading skills may not transfer well

AND

“L1 processes will always be present at some level because L2 reading involves reading with a dual language system.” (p. 126)
“L1 processes will cause interference with L2 syntactic processing.” (p.126)

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IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING:

“Orthographic, phonological, and morphological patterns for a given L2 need to be practiced consistently and learned well.” (p.128)
Explicit L2 reading instruction is necessary and important (p.150).
L2 learners need to learn to work explicitly to…override automatic L1 skills. (p.150)
Metalinguistic awareness can feed back into understanding L1 better.
Need extensive reading – regularly scheduled through the week. (See Ch. 15)

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