New Understandings, New Offers

in 2019, I began offering a LEXinar on Latin Palatals™, the patterns that are ridiculously taught as the morpheme-butchering nonsense of *<-sion, -ture, cial>, and the like. I had taught a wide range of students, both children and adults, how Latin Palatals work both diachronically and synchronically, and I put together a LEXinar to help other people teach them too. The understanding that I share in this LEXinar demonstrates respect for Occam’s Razor, or Lex Parsimoniae, the scientific Principle of Parsimony that requires us to be stingy with our explanations, and to not multiple entities unnecessarily.

For example, it’s inelegant to posit, as many advanced phonics programs do when they attempt to “teach morphology,” a morphemic inventory that includes not only an <-ous> suffix and a connecting <-i->, but also an *<-ious>, a *<-cious>, and a *<-tious>! Phonicky attempts at “morphology” typically involve teaching some list of morphemes rather than studying English orthographic morphology as a system, but my Latin Palatals LEXinar demonstrates clearly not only how the orthographic morphology of Latin Palatals works, but also how the orthographic phonology works in these families.

Well, since the early offerings of this course, one of my teacher friends has been patiently asking and reminding me to make posters of the LEX Latin Palatals concepts for her classroom. I said I would; then COVID came and it fell down the list of creative priorities. But now that my dissertation is completed and handed in, I’m revisiting the requests I’ve had from clients in the past and adding new products to my store. This includes the new LEX Latin Palatals™ Posters, a 12″ x 18″ set of six durable, flexible cardstock placards with graphics and examples supporting the understanding from the Latin Palatals LEXinar.

But wait! There’s more! I’ve also developed a small, 5.5″ x 4.25″ Latin Palatals™ Study Deck as well! The Study Deck and Poster content is identical; only the size differs, and the Study Deck also includes an information / instruction card that does not come with the posters.

The LEX Latin Palatals™ Posters, and the Latin Palatals™ Study Deck are both available in the store NOW, and they go to press Monday. I expect to get all new orders for both products placed by August 15th shipped before Labor Day (September 5th). Any LEX Latin Palatals resources will be discounted when purchased together, including the Latin Palatals™ LEXinar.

Later this fall, I will also be announcing a new Latin class, the Latin Anatomy™ LEXinar, as part of my Classics Series. Additional discount bundles will become available then, so there will be multiple ways to save.

Finally, also going to press next week is a 2022 Supplement to the landmark 2018 3rd Edition LEX Grapheme Deck, featuring six new cards with infinite new understandings. Four of the cards are brand new to the deck, based on new orthographic linguistic research, and the other two are meant to replace cards already in the 2018 deck to represent an updated, more accurate understanding.The LEX Grapheme Deck 3.1 Supplement comes with a green information / instruction card to complement the instruction cards already in the 2018 deck. All seven cards fit right into the LEX Grapheme Deck carton. If you already own the Grapheme Deck, you already got it at price lower than the discounted cost in the bundle. The new Supplements will also ship by Labor Day.

I have even more exciting plans in the works, including a whole new business separate from LEX, but linked to the same evolving, evidence-based understanding of  all that English orthography has to offer.