Latin is the basis for 85% of the English language. Latin is still used in science, medicine and legal fields. Gin Latin will help all people with their reading comprehension skills.
Gin Latin is currently at the graphic artist and will then go to the printer. The decks contain 100 cards for the master deck. The master deck contains only the prefixes, roots or suffixes with their meanings.
The word deck contains 100 words with their meanings and and at the bottom is the list of prefix, root or suffixes. I designed it to have many words with multiple plays. Like, promotion-can be played on the pro, meaning for, motus, meaning move and -tion, meaning state or quality of. My reading room friend, Dorothy, requested I add syllabic breaks and pronunciations, which I did. The 200 card deck is very comprehensive.
A few days ago I was playing a demo of a new game I'm designing with a mom of one of Troy's friends. His dad was watching us and said, "Isn't Latin a dead language?
Why would anyone buy your game?" My answer was "Learning Latin helps your English skills."
Even a little Latin makes a kid/teen/person feel smart. Feeling smart makes kids feel good about themselves. I think low self esteem leads to juvenile delinquency.
A few summers ago I was helping one of Troy's friends' little brother with his reading. He was ten at the time and HATED reading. We played a game of Gin Latin and he was so sour grapes about it. As a sub, I have a thick skin and did not take it personally. After the game was over he played super soakers with Teddy. An hour later he came in and much to my surprise he yelled, "Let's play again!" True story.
Last year one of Troy's friends was over after school and I asked him to play the demo version of Gin Latin. He did not seem impressed, until he beat the pants off me.
Then he said, "This is so addicting!"
One of my new scout's mom played the demo with me last spring. She is a brilliant nurse and had just taken her GRE test. She turned to me and said, "Gretchen, I am so mad at you. If I had played this BEFORE the GRE I would have had such an easy time with the vocabulary section." She is one of the smartest people I know too.
English is a very difficult language. As a substitute
teacher for five years, I have been in ESL and ELL rooms with teenagers
trying to learn English. I began to see the
complexities and beauty of the English language that I took for granted.
I am dedicating Gin Latin to the memory of my high school Latin teacher, Gail Ingle.
She was the Latin, ESL, English and Junior Classical League adviser at Roosevelt High School in Seattle when I was there from 1973 and 1975. Her kindness and enthusiasm was infectious and she still is my role model even though she is in heaven.