A Greek Alphabetarion: A Primer for Teaching How to Read, Write & Pronounce Ancient & Biblical Greek [Paperback]

This program was developed by Harvey Bluedorn who along with his wife Laurie authored Teaching the Trivium. Having encouraged parents in the wisdom to consider teaching Greek, Mr. Bluedorn now provides us a venue to do so.

This program is designed so that a parent can easily and systematically begin to teach and learn Greek alongside their young children. An older child can easily go through the program at his own pace. The text is clear, well laid out and includes a valuable pronunciation CD. After completing this course one can continue a more in depth study of Greek with Mr. Bluedorn's Homeschool Greek program.

I have been using this as a supplement for homeschooling Greek. Rather than skim over the important process of learning the Greek alphabet, this set is entirely devoted to the learning of the Greek system of writing. I recommend it to anyone interested in developing a thorough understanding of the Fundamentals of the language.

My only nit is that there are not enough reading passages, but perhaps this is too much to ask for in such a compact set.

I recently purchased this book along with the Greek Alphabet Flash Cards, and Greek Alphabet Banner to use in teaching my children Greek. I love the way that Mr. Bluedorn has set up this language program.

Mastering the sounds of the Greek alphabet is truly the most practical way of beginning language study. I was saddened to see that Matt (review above) does not see the value of this book. It is not simply an alphabet book, it also teaches the phonetic code of Greek. The sounds the letters make. It uses a similar teaching system to the Spalding method (The Writing Road to Reading) and to Wanda Sanseri's method which is an Orton/Spalding based program called: Spell to Write and Read.

The reason that we have an epidemic of dyslexia in America today is because children are not taught the phonetic code of the English langauge. They are taught whole-language/sight reading methods and can often read only books containing the small number of words that they have been taught. When you teach the phonetic code of a language first children can sound out any word that they have not previously read and will read and comprehend at a much higher level. (For more information on this topic go to my amazon.com review of Spell to Write and Read.) The same will be true of children who are first taught the phonetic code of Greek. They will eventually read and comprehend Greek at a much higher level than their counterparts who were taught a few Greek words by sight.

Since I already teach my children with Spell to Write and Read and they are familiar with this system of learning, it should be relatively easy to add on this program. First we will master all the sounds of the Greek alphabet, then I will check my children's understanding by giving them Greek phonogram quizzes (a la Spell to Write and Read), and then we can work into spelling simple Greek words. Reading Greek will be the next natural step.

Though I feel challenged by the idea of studying Greek, having this well laid out system by Mr. Bluedorn gives me hope and the tools I need to dig in and start learning.

I highly recommend that you also purchase the Greek Alphabet Flash Cards and the Greek Alphabet Banner to go along with this book and CD. We have already placed our Greek Alphabet Banner in our kitchen and it is quite beautiful and draws our children into a curiosity about these "strange letters." Curiosity is the first step to learning!

I am also looking forward to purchasing Mr. Bluedorn's Greek Copy book that will be available later this summer.

Britta McColl

Morning Star Learning

www.morningstarlearning.com