Dear Latin Novella Authors

Previously I had written a blog post to Novice-Level novella authors, praising them for why I felt successful reading their novice low/mid Spanish novellas. This one is now directed to Latin novella authors.

Dear Latin Novella Authors,

10 years have passed since the first Latin novellas Brando Brown Canem Vult and Pluto: Fabula Amoris came out. Since 2016, a great number of Latin novellas have since been published - I love that finally Latin novellas are on the scene! Thank you for writing these much needed readings which greatly support the acquisition of the Latin language. Krashen writes:

“More speaking or writing does not result in more language or literacy development, but more reading does.”

However, Latin authors, I have one request: we need more Latin novellas truly written for emerging/novice low level readers. We are leaving out a huge portion of our Latin student population. While many Latin teachers may feel that we need more upper-level novellas, hear me out.

My foundational argument is this: although our beginning Latin 1 students may be advanced readers of English, they are only emerging readers of Latin (not even novice yet). A huge false assumption which we Latin teachers have is that when we begin to introduce readings to our Latin 1 students at the beginning of first semester, our students should be able to read them. The reality, however, is:

1. many of our students do NOT possess a high reading level when they come to our Latin 1 classes due to having come through the balanced literacy approach and never actually learning to read or due to not being a native speaker of English.
2. one's reading level in one's primary reading language does NOT transfer immediately to reading in another language. It is not a 1:1 exchange. This includes the ability to decode words when reading. To say that a student who can read X number of words/minute in English should then be able to read that same number of words/minute in Latin is faulty. In the Winter 2026 edition of The Language Educator (ACTFL's magazine), in its article, "Leveraging the Science of Reading Research for Multilingual Success in Dual Language Immersion Programs," Budke and Showers note that we must "acknowledge that transfer between foundational skills in English and the partner language is not automatic and many phonemes and graphemes require explicit instruction."

In the beginning, level 1 students are dealing with a lot at once when reading Latin: they are still familiarizing themselves with how the Latin language appears as a written language, the sounds which the letters represent, the inflected nature of the language, that the verb usually appears at the end of the sentence, and that these words have a meaning attached to them.

In addition, what we think is level-appropriate readings for emerging/novice-level readers is actually not in reality. Latin textbooks have "told" us what are "level-appropriate" readings for Latin 1, but Latin 1 textbook readings are not aligned with any true acquisition theory but rather with a race to get students to translate classical literature by the 3rd year. 

Aspects of emerging/novice-low target language readings are:

• short sentences, with each primarily focusing on one idea
• predictable sentence patterns
• limited vocabulary AND grammatical structures (now is not the time to introduce "shelter vocabulary but not grammar")
• repeated use of sentences
• sentences are not written as paragraphs but rather as individual lines
• high usage of English cognates and proper nouns so that readers can then focus on the target language words
• pictures to aid students in their comprehension (I do feel a bit uneasy with this though due to how much "look at the pictures" played a role in balanced literacy and how students struggled to read when the pictures disappeared)

How often do we find our students never developing their Latin reading skills, because they are rather focusing their attention on stopping at every single word in a sentence to decode it? That does not develop reading.

Some of you may be saying, "Well, my Latin 1 students can read Latin right away with no problems." If that is you, go forth and prosper. However, I have students who STRUGGLE to read in English, let alone another language. I want these students to feel successful in reading Latin which is developmentally-appropriate in their Latin acquisition process.

I encourage you to check out Adam Giedd's Confidence Readers in Spanish. I began reading them in my quest to read novice-level Spanish. Along with Margarita Perez Garcia, both of these authors have a great understanding of what emerging/novice-level readers of Spanish need. They also are masters at creating compelling plots with limited vocabulary!

Many Latin teachers use novellas for Free Voluntary Reading (FVR), and this is to be applauded. Nation and Wang (2020) write, "The single most important way that a teacher could improve their language program would be to include extensive reading." A key feature of pleasure reading is that we tend to read materials which are BELOW our reading level. I always use the examples that People Magazine is written at an 8th grade reading level and that most newspaper articles are written at a 10th grade reading level. When we read for pleasure BELOW our frustration level of reading, our reading fluency will increase. (The converse is true: if we wish to increase our reading comprehension, we should read ABOVE our frustration level of reading). Therefore, even advanced readers of Latin will benefit from reading emerging/novice level Latin readings!  

And so you do not think that I am not practicing what I say here, I have written about 8-10 drafts of emerging/novice-low, "Confidence Readers" in Latin for which I just need to get on the ball and start shopping around to novella publishers.

Keith