Updated to add: lots of useful links & recommendations for both
Latin and Greek materials are popping up in the comments—don't miss 'em!
Wasn’t Jane learning Greek at one point (or maybe she is
still)? I searched the archives and didn’t see anything. When you have
a moment could you please share what she used? My 11yo daughter is just
dying to learn Greek and I’m starting my search for a
program/book/guide here. Thanks so much!
It was Rose who was (and remains, in intermittent flares) on fire for Greek a few years back. She made her way through the first two levels of Hey, Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek
and quite enjoyed them. As I recall, Jane too whipped through the
primer to learn the Greek alphabet. Both girls liked the format of the
Hey Andrew materials, which were very, very simple and bare
bones. (The first levels focused primarily on mastering the alphabet.)
Looking at the website now, I see they've redesigned the covers but the
interior page samples look the same.
I would say that I was happy with Hey Andrew as a gentle
introduction to the alphabet, with one large caveat (and this is rather
delicate, and I hope won't sound insensitive—bear in mind that I'm the
mother of a five-year-old with only semi-intelligible speech, so I
really am sensitive to the challenges of speech impediments): the
pronunciation CD that came with the workbooks was voiced by a speaker
with a pronounced lisp. And for a foreign language program, that really
is a bit of a problem. I had to keep correcting Rose's pronunciation of
"epthilon," and "thigma," for example. At first I wondered if the
classical Greek S-sound really was meant to be a TH, but the speaker
lisped in English as well, so I think it was just an aspect of her
manner of speaking.
Jane has so enjoyed Classical Academic Press's Latin for Children materials that I'm quite eager to get a look at their new Greek for Children
series when it comes out. Mind you, CAP's program is extremely
workbooky and therefore quite out of character with our unschooly,
loosy-goosy, CM-inspired but not CM-structured atmosphere, but our
language studies have been a consistently fun and challenging pursuit
over the last several years, and absent an immersion experience (which
I cannot provide for Greek or Latin!), a kind of methodical, steady
study is pretty much the only way to gain absence [edited: "gain absence"?? I plead preggo brain] master a new language.
Our path to Latin works for us. (Rose actually prefers the
even-more-schooly structure of Memoria Press's Latina Christiana
program, so that's what she uses, and Jane uses LFC. Beanie absorbs by
exposure to the vocab CDs the other girls listen to. For that matter,
so do I!)
Hope this helps at least as a starting point, Kathy. If anyone else
has a more substantive review of Greek materials, please do chime in or
link to a post!
P.S. Here's a fun video from Steve Demme: Learn the Greek Alphabet in Ten Minutes.
Related posts:
What the Tide Brought In
All Roads Lead to Greece