Initial reading

In Latin or Greek lessons, initial reading is the name given to the first original reading after completing the textbook work.

Between textbook work and initial reading, there can still be transitional reading, in which the transition from undemanding textbook Latin to original Latin texts ("reading shock"), which the students often find difficult, is to be bridged and facilitated with the help of short, mostly adapted and thus very simple Latin texts .

The following applies in detail

• for Latin lessons: Caesar's Commentarii de bello Gallico are often read . In the last few decades, however, the attempt to replace Caesar with other texts (e.g. Erasmus , Terenz , Eutropius ) has become increasingly evident in specialist Latin didactics . The more recent curricula (e.g. Latin SI curriculum in North Rhine-Westphalia) also contain suggestions for transitional reading, e.g. B. Stories from the Disciplina clericalis by Petrus Alfonsi or the travelogue Mundus Novus by Amerigo Vespucci .

• for Greek lessons: Suitable starting readings are e.g. B. the anabasis of Xenophon , the dialogues of Lukian or the New Testament .