Latin for Americans Level 1 Student Edition | 
| Author: Mcgraw-hill
Publisher: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill
Category: Book
Buy New: $82.00
New (13) Used (10) from $52.80
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 17933
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 9
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 560
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.7
Dimensions (in): 9.9 x 8 x 0.7
ISBN: 007828175X
Dewey Decimal Number: 400
EAN: 9780078281754
ASIN: 007828175X
Publication Date: August 15, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
This text introduces students to Latin with a carefully paced and logical presentation. Vocabulary, derivatives, and grammar are explained clearly and reinforced with group and paired activities and practice assessments. Culture is brought to life with colorful photos and the Glimpses of Roman Life feature.
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| Customer Reviews:
 LFA no way! August 5, 2008
Having taught Latin for several years now and having been required to use this text, I can recommend precious little about it. Why does this text irk me? Let me tell you...
1. First off, the title - all my students felt like having a book with "...for Americans" in the title implied that Americans had to have a special, "dumbed-down" version of a text in order for them to grasp the concepts within. Can you imagine a "Economics for Americans" text ever being made?
2. The text itself has not changed substantially in several decades. My students and I both groaned and chuckled at a story used in the last half of the text that asked if they had heard of the Cold War! I realize that Roman history is ancient, but surely reference to culture in the last ten to fifteen years might just motivate kids to start making connections between their lives and those of the Romans.
3. The stories themselves vary from description of slaves working in a field and finding a frog in a water jar to discussions of war, Roman households, and summaries of the Aeneid. In theory this sounds wonderful: in practice, there is no connection between chapters, nothing that grips the imagination of the students and makes them want to continue reading and learning about the Romans, let alone the Latin language. And if there is, it is not continued throughout - each chapter feels hermetically sealed ("well you've learned about Roman footwear, kids, so now we move on to its natural continuation, Caesar's invasion of Gaul...").
4. Yes, it is nice to have a text in color; yes, some of the illustrations have been updated, and there are many color photos of Rome and Roman ruins. Pretty pictures, however, do not a Latin grammar make.
5. Online support for the text is minimal at best. I spent a good part of my free time as a teacher creating activities for my students to do at home on Quia.com.
6. The workbook associated with the text is hit-or-miss at best. Some chapters are good and really cement the concepts learned - others are just there to occupy space and students' time.
7. The inefficiency of the ordering and grouping of chapters is maddening. The first semester of Latin I at my school was too easy, the second too hard. My greatest disgust with the book was that, teaching about a lesson a week puts the kids at learning the relative pronoun (a pretty tough topic for students) right at the end of the year. When they came back for Latin II, they had of course not really learned the relative pronoun, which means teaching that concept twice, as well as reviewing for weeks at a time to get them back up to speed. Going any slower in this text means that the kids have to learn from the same god-awful text for three years in a row - yes, that's right, it takes about two years to finish this book, and that is with review in the second year. By the end of year 2, teacher and students wanted to never see this text again.
OK, I have ranted enough. Please, if you are considering a Latin text, consider one of the reading-based approaches such as Ecce Romani, the Cambridge and Oxford courses, Lingua Latina etc. If you are someone who has already had some Latin and wants to review it, perhaps this text will be your cup of tea (I would still recommend Wheelock's Latin for that). And McGraw-Hill, you are fooling no one - get off your keyster and either re-tool LFA or go with a better text!
 AWSOME LATIN TEXT BOOK!! November 7, 2006
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I am in 8th grade and am currently using this Latin textbook. It is far better then the book I used in 6th grade Jenny's First Year Latin. I like the way the textbook is broken up in to Units and then into lessons. Every lesson has a short story to go along with the vocab list relating to an event in Roman history. The unit reveiws before a test are great. The only negative about this book, is that sometimes they thow in some concepts you dont know yet. But overall this book is great! And the workbook is also great that comes with it
Excellent Latin Textbook May 22, 2004
23 out of 24 found this review helpful
This textbook does an excellent job of explaining Latin. It teaches vocabulary, grammar, culture, etc. The pictures in the book are excellent. It is an easy to understand textbook. It is the best Latin textbook on the market today. I took Latin thirty years ago (1970-1973) and Using Latin books 1, 2 and 3 by Annabel Horn, John Flagg Gummere and Margaret Forbes were the textbooks used in my classes. These books were published by Scott Foresman and Company and went out of print when the authors died. They were last published in 1961 (Book 1), 1963(Book 2) and 1968 (Book 3). These were very good books also but Latin for Americans is very similar in content to the Using Latin textbooks.. My son who took Latin two years ago in high school used Latin for Americans by B L Ullman, Charles Henderson and Norman E. Henry and he benefited very much from the textbooks. I purchased all three of these books because they are the best. Latin for Americans was originally published in 1941 and the latest edition which is the 9th edition was published in 2003. These are GREAT books!
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