Home School High School Latin- Can Parents Teach What They Don't Know? By Lee Binz

Many home school moms express disbelief when I tell them we taught Latin in our homeschooling. It is possible if you do it one step at a time. Even if you don't speak Latin casually around the dinner table, you are capable of doing this! Teaching Latin is like following complicated directions in a recipe.

The reason is the great curriculum that is available for home schoolers. Home school curriculum generally assumes that the parents don't necessarily have a background in the subject, so it is designed to be self-teaching. Self-teaching is a valuable life skill that we want to encourage in our teens.

Teens who learn to teach themselves in high school are better prepared for college life. In college, professors assume students can read and distill large quantities of information without a lot of hand-holding. Self-teaching curriculum gives students the responsibility to figure things out, using the tools at hand. Mom and dad take a step back and let their child work through the issues.

We used Latin Road, and they assume that 1) you're homeschooling and 2) the teacher is a mom who doesn't know Latin. We looked at Wheellocks' Latin and couldn't even BEGIN the first chapter in that one. I believe that Latin Road is for 5th and up, but you'd have to check the website.

We were afraid when we started Latin! I would look at the book and, well, it was all Greek to me! But we kept plugging away and we eventually "got it."

Now, looking back having graduated two sons from home school, Latin was a great idea. My oldest son loved it because he is mathematically minded and Latin is a very logical, mathematical language. My youngest son took his three years of Latin and was able to place into Junior year Latin in the university. He has continued to take Latin every quarter throughout his undergraduate career. The skills they developed in learning Latin on their own served them well in all their college studies - not just Latin.

Latin is a great subject for home schoolers. You don't need to be afraid of it at all! In addition to being the basis of many other languages, choosing a self-teaching Latin curriculum can provide benefits well beyond high school.

Learning Latin was a great way to prepare our kids for college. Failing to aim for college is one of "The 5 Biggest Mistakes Parents Make When Homeschooling High School." Learn how to avoid all 5 mistakes in my free e-mail mini-course.

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Lee Binz, The HomeScholar, is a home school high school expert. Both her two boys earned full-tuition scholarships at their first choice university. Learn how she did it on TheHomeScholar.com.