Carpe diem, or seize the day, should be the slogan for children at the Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club in Champaign, who are ambitiously learning Latin.

Since Sep. 27, the Champaign organization has been incorporating Latin into their curriculum to improve reading, vocabulary and comprehension abilities.

Kay Neal, the instructor of the Latin curriculum, said she started off teaching two fifth-grade boys and now has seven students that she is working with.

“It’s such a useful tool for learning English grammar,” Neal said. “The grammatical analysis makes you more aware of how you’re learning a language . It’s something everyone should have in their arsenal.”

Neal’s goal of this program was to expose lower-income students to the language, proving that any student can learn Latin.

With her designing her own curriculum, she said she wants to prove if someone else can adequately learn the language from her guidebooks. The curriculum consists of a children’s book, which only has Latin text and has lessons about modern-day children, and a guidebook for the parent.

“The people that I want to reach have no interest in becoming closer to Roman culture,” she said. “They care about seeing results in the students’ schoolwork.”

These Latin stories talk about families, pets and siblings to make the stories accessible, she added.

Neal said she realizes the importance of learning any foreign language and the positive results it can produce.

“I don’t want to play the Latin trumpet so loud that I’m drowning out other languages ,” she said. “All language is about getting a thought from my head to your head and vice versa.”

However, she said she believes English-speaking students should start with Latin because it provides a window on the language.

Raquel Levy, sophomore in LAS, said she finds the program positive, yet a bit unexpected.

“I think it’s fantastic — a bit surprising — but I think it’s fantastic that they are going to get exposure to such a rich language that I know nothing about,” Levy said. “I guess the pros are that Latin is mother tongue of most languages, so I’ve heard that when you study Latin it increases your proficiency in vocabulary and just about everything else.

Debarah McFarland, director of program services at the Boys and Girls Club, said Latin helps students understand English in a much better fashion, remembering the movie Akeelah and the Bee, where the main character learns words for the big spelling bee competition. The majority of the words Akeela had difficulty with had Latin roots, McFarland said.

“A lot of our root words come from Latin so that also helps the kids understand words and comprehend it,” McFarland said. “And maybe it even helps them retain it a little better.”

McFarland said she hopes the program impacts the community at large because it seems to be working for the students, and it is making the parents appreciative as well for such a positive program.

“Whatever Kay is doing, it’s working, because the kids are not running from the class,” McFarland said. “They’re running to her class.”