Reading in a Multisensory Environment: The Visual Latin Reading Library

What does it mean to read Latin? The challenges of finding classical texts that are accessible and comprehensible for third- and fourth-year Latin students are well known. Even at this level, few students have the lexical, syntactic, and generic knowledge to comfortably read canonical texts with a degree of facility (Gruber-Miller and Mulligan 2022). This question becomes even more vexed when attempting to find suitable readings for beginning readers. How can teachers find novice and intermediate level Latin texts that are easy to read without frequent recourse to a dictionary?

This presentation reports on beginning Latin students’ response to the Visual Latin Reading Library, a multisensory, digital anthology of stories. The VLRL takes familiar myths, fables, folktales, children’s stories, and short films, and re-tells these stories in easy Latin, using illustrations and audio recordings to help the beginning reader comprehend the story. The library includes student and teacher created, adapted, and authentic texts from the entire history of Latin literature (Standards for Classical Language Learning 8). Throughout these stories, students explore issues of gender, race, ethnicity, status, and ability—then and now—to help them advance their intercultural competence. The Visual Latin Reading Library is designed to increase Latin students’ motivation to read and to create pathways for students at the High Novice and Low Intermediate proficiency levels to become more proficient readers. The VLRL is a free, open access, digital library suitable for students at the Middle School, High School, and College/University levels.

Two guiding approaches undergird the VLRL. First, the VLRL emphasizes principles of an extensive reading approach in writing and designing stories (Day and Bamford; Piazza). In contrast to intensive reading (the approach most students take to reading classical authors), an extensive reading approach emphasizes:

1. A positive attitude toward reading
2. A focus on meaning rather than grammar
3. Gaining confidence in their reading
4. Increasing motivation to read
5. Sheltering vocabulary

Extensive reading has been shown to create positive attitudes and motivation for reading, improve vocabulary growth, and develop language and literacy skills (Grabe).

Second, the VLRL follows a multiliteracies approach to reading. Most classical texts pay little attention to design, format, paragraphing, headings, images, sound and voice. A multisensory and multiliteracies approach recognizes that reading does not take place in a vacuum. In a digital world, texts are organized in smaller chunks and interwoven with images, video, realia, and audio. Furthermore, a multiliteracies approach assumes that readers are part of a reading community in which readers comment on stories, revise them, and respond to them through textual borrowing and remix practices (Allen and Paesani; Lankshear and Knobel; New London Group).

The study of student engagement with the VLRL attempts to answer three research questions: 1) does the VLRL motivate students to read Latin texts? 2) does the VLRL increase student knowledge of Latin vocabulary? And 3) does the VLRL improve student confidence in their ability to read Latin texts?