Many students do not develop the vocabulary necessary to read well in their own language because they have not been given the tools to attack the incredibly large number of English words. The advantage of beginning Latin in the third grade is that we give our students the tools to decode these big words just when they begin to encounter them, instead of five years later. Even though this is a word they will not encounter soon they seem to enjoy saying it. They are becoming comfortable with big words because, after all, most of them come from Latin, and they re not so scary after all. Students begin to see Latin roots in words everywhere and tell their parents about the new words they encounter and where they come from.
Parents are thrilled and students develop confidence.
Students need this key while they are still young enough to be excited about words and while they are rapidly developing vocabulary through their new skill of reading. Another reason to begin Latin in grades 3-4 is that students at this age still find memorizing an enjoyable task, something not usually true of students in high school. Much of the vocabulary and forms of Latin can be learned in grades 3-6. OK, so Latin is good for vocabulary development. Why not just study 100 Latin and Greek roots, and be done with it.