I was fascinated to stumble across this project today by
. The basic idea seems to be to invert the process of learning such that instead of introducing graded reading of texts once a given corpus of grammar and vocabulary has been learnt, the student is introduced to texts first, which are then used as the primary way of learning vocabulary and grammar.
James has started a mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/graded-reader and is making his code available at http://code.google.com/p/graded-reader/. Whilst it looks like these resources have not been updated for a couple of months, I very much hope his fascinating work continues.
Has anyone had any experience of this kind of inductive study method for language learning?
SamMarsh.net 
The initial presentation is certainly well thought-out and polished. And it would seem to have a lot of value. I did pick up an old fashioned, type-written version of this kind of thing second hand (it’s somewhere in the depths of my office now) and as good as this approach is, I think that if you’ve studied a language before coming to Greek, the traditional method (perhaps with this as an accompaniment somehow) would still be the best way to proceed. But for other types of learners and for a non-academic, perhaps church-based course maybe this could be an exciting development – I look forward to seeing the results here.
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When I did first year Greek, we used an introductory course by Wm. Morrice, developed for Durham university – this involved doing both the first four chapters of Mark’s Gospel, and introductory grammar, side by side. I found this pretty good as a way into Greek – you’re immediately seeing how it works in practice.
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I also wonder how early you can usefully begin to memorise scripture as an aid to getting familar with the text. I’ve been impressed to read Matthew Montonini’s thoughts on memorising Philippians and will watch his progress with interest…
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