Vocabulary Vine... words from the roots program

[This Busy Mom]

I just stumbled across this program called The Vocabulary Vine (http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/latin.htm) . I've been looking for something for my oldest, and this looks interesting. I like the "no fluff" and easy to implement aspects.

Has anyone heard of this or seen it? It's very affordable. I like what the author had to say on another message board about why teaching the roots is a good idea before jumping into a full blown vocabulary program (makes it easier for them).

[threecubs]

I know nothing about it, but it looks really neat! I bookmarked it to look into later for my oldest. Thanks for posting about it! :)

[Cindy]

Haven't seen this one either, but I am definitely in favor of teaching word roots :tu

[ArmsOfLove]

don't know anything about it, but I know Spelling Power is a great one. I'd like to learn more about this one though :)

[This Busy Mom]

Spelling Power's gathering dust here... just not us, and I haven't gotten rid of it because it was autographed by a little blond person that's no longer with me, so I haven't felt led to part with it yet.

My ds will be "graduating" from The Writing Road to Reading in a few months... and I want to fill the gap with vocabulary. He's a natural speller, anyways, and only spent a year in the WRTR program. I got it for my dd who was showing strong signs of ADD and dyslexia (and it helped her out amazingly well). I think some kids need more help with eye tracking direction and just the fact that words and letters move from left to right. She needed a lot of reinforcement with that (she started reading much better when I gave her a piece of paper to keep track of what line she was on in a book or else she was all over the place).

Anways... I've been perusing vocabulary programs... and didn't know where to go with it except I wanted to do something with him along the lines of a classic roots program. I found Vocabulary from Classical Roots from EPS (I think... I'm not positive). They have a vocabulary set for 5th & 6th graders now, but after looking into it more, I think we need a program like the OP above before we jump into a workbook based program like the Vocabulary from Classical Roots (he'd pick that up in 6th or 7th grade). I also have English from Classical Roots, but I didn't like that it didn't come with a lot of explanation on how to implement it. The above book does, and has suggestions for games and such (and it's cheap). Rainbow Resource has some other similar programs, but I think I just need to pick one now instead of continuing to overwhelm myself ;) .

Now to find him some kind of geography program he can work on independently (I was looking at Rod & Staff's 5th grade program but I don't know if it's more geography or history and we're doing something else for history).

[This Busy Mom]

I just ordered Vocabulary Vine. Everything we need to get going plus shipping was just over $20 (ok, except for the index cards). I haven't seen the program yet, but the author sent me a big long email about how to use it all, and her phone number... I think I'm going to like the program.

It's the same reason I went with Writing Road to Reading along with Jay Patterson's Reading Works (it's a guide for using WRTR). He and his wife bent over backwards to help me figure out what I needed and offered to help whenever I needed it, and I don't regret buying it one bit.

[Cindy]

I look forward to hearing how you like the program. How old is your child?