Have you ever wondered how Montessori guides teach children about language?  Parents are often astounded when they observe children learning to read and write at a young age in our school.  What’s the secret?

There’s no secret - we’re happy to share our methods!  Read on to learn more about our approach, how we align our teaching with a child’snatural development, and what the progression looks like as children get older.

Early Language Activities

Children’s language development begins long before they enter the classroom.  Dr. Montessori asserted that children from birth to age 6 were in the age of the Absorbent

Mind.  During this developmental time childrencan learn language simply by living around others who are using language. Montessori classrooms incorporate both spoken and written language into the environment to further enrich this early learning.

In our toddler and primary classrooms, we expose children to songs and poems so that they may hear and experience language in a fun and playful way that is appealing.  We encourage parents to do the same!  Share poems from your childhood with your children and discover new ones together. Sing your favorite songs from when you were little or enjoy kid-friendly tunes from musicians such as Raffi, the Okee Dokee Brothers or Tom Chapin.

Montessori Guides introduce children to as much vocabulary as possible in their early years.  This may start with naming objects around the classroom and will expand to include specialized nomenclature. Children learn the names of the continents, plant and animal names, and specific terms that apply to areas of their interest.These vocabulary words are spoken and shown in written form.

Writing

As you may have guessed, writing starts earlier in Montessori classrooms than in many other settings. Consider the goal of writing: to visually communicate one’s ideas with others using standardized symbols. To do this, you need to be able to isolate sounds/letters and attach meaning to them. This is separateskill from the ability to hold a pencil and form strings of letters, words, and sentences on a piece of paper, which is penmanship.

 Once a child can recognize most of the letters and associate the correct phonetic sound with each letter, they can begin to use a material called the Moveable Alphabet. This material is exactly what it sounds like, the Moveable Alphabet is a box containing sorted wooden letters.  Children lay the letters out on a mat or table to write words, and eventually sentences.At this stage we do not expect children to conform to conventional spelling, but rather we allow what is often referred to as inventive spelling.  “I love my mom” may look like “I luv mi mom”.

Montessori classrooms use many materials to help children strengthen their finger muscles in preparation for the physical act of handwriting beginning at age 3, or arguably even earlier.  This might also be referred to as the “pincer grip”. Our experience has taught us that most children are ready to express themselves in writing before they are ready to start writing in the traditional sense with a pencil. That pencil-to-paper writing usually starts in kindergarten, though it varies with individual children.

Reading

One beautiful material that you have likely seen is called the Sandpaper Letters. The letters are used to teach both reading and writing. 

 It’s important to note that when Montessori Guides begin teaching children about letters, our focus is on the sounds the letters make and not their names.  This means we do not teach the alphabet song, because knowing the names of letters isn’t helpful in learning how to read. Children will easily learn the names of the letters along the way. That’s not to say there is no value in such learning; it will certainly come in handy when learning to alphabetize, or when talking about letters when they are a bit older. If you want to continue the work we do in our classrooms, consider using a letter’s most used sound. Refer to the chart below for the English phonetic alphabet.

An example: when a Montessori child learns to spell cat, they will say, “k-ah-t” rather than “see-ay-tee”.

 Object Boxes are used to help children learn to read as well. A box labeled with the letter p may contain tiny toy versions of a pig, pot, pin, etc.  Eventually, children can match the objects with written label cards.

 Much of our reading work is done while teaching children other subjects. For example, if they are learning about mammals, they will read lots of text at their level about mammals. 

 There are also several great books series used by many Montessorians, including Miss Rhonda’s Readers (created by a Montessori guide) and Bob Books. Flyleaf Publishing has the most beautiful reading series’, we highly recommend these. It is important to provide a variety of early reading books for budding readers. Young children are often able to memorize text, and if they have been exposed to the same books at home and school over and over, it can be difficult for Guides to have an accurate observation of the child’s true decoding skills. Check with your child’s Guide if you’re curious or would like some advice on what books to read at home.

 Card materials are also used as children progress, allowing guides to help children isolate specific sounds and blends. One series of cards/lessons may focus on the various ways to make a long a sound. One color of cards displays words containing ai, another will contain ay, and yet another will teach children about words with the silent e.

Word Study

This area of study includes a wide variety of skills and begins once a child has begun to read; some of the earlier lessons are given during the final (kindergarten) year of primary, but many are given during the first two years of lower elementary. The Guide will give the child a lesson teaching the skill. In the days and weeks following, children practice the skill independently using special card materials. The skills include:

●     Classification

●     Alphabetizing

●     Compound words

●     Synonyms

●     Antonyms

●     Prefixes

●     Suffixes

Grammar

Grammar is taught early and in what we call a spiraling curriculum; that is, we circle back on the same content as the child gets older, building on previous knowledge and giving more depth to their understanding. Parts of speech are taught in a very specific order, and each one has a corresponding symbol that children use in many activities.

 Beginning in the final year of primary (typically what is the child’s Kindergarten year), children typically learn about nouns, articles, and verbs, as well as their corresponding symbols. This helps the child to understand the core parts of our sentences and gives them an introduction to grammar in a way that is interesting and visual.

 Sometime during that final year in primary or the first year of lower elementary, children are introduced to grammar through what we call the Function of Words. Traditionally, a model of a farm, complete with animals, is used to guide children through the process.  Again, they begin by learning that nouns are naming words, and they name each animal and feature of the farm.  They then go on to learn the corresponding articles, followed by all other parts of speech, including adjectives, verbs, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections.

 Once a child has learned the functions of words, they will move on to the Montessori Grammar Command Cards.  Knowing that children learn by doing, these cards give children specific directions to physically follow so that they may experience the words for themselves. For example: a card could say “Clap your hands.” The child would read the card and clap their hands. This is a very popular activity as the children love to act out the various commands.

 Another classic Montessori activity involves the use of Colored Wooden Grammar Boxes.  Children use cards to recreate sentences, word by word, and sort the words by various parts of speech.

 There are many extensions to grammar work that Montessori children enjoy. Some will write their own sentences and use colored pencils to label each word with its corresponding grammar symbol. Others enjoy using Grammar Strips: a material that shows a series of grammar symbols which students must use a guide to write a sentence with that pattern. For example: Article, Adjective, Noun, Very, Adverb: The beautiful butterfly flew slowly.

Sentence Analysis

Going beyond grammar, elementary-aged children learn to analyze sentences. This begins simply with subjects, verbs, direct, and indirect objects. As children get older and have a better grasp on language, the work extends considerably.

Children in upper elementary classes learn about complex sentence structures. This includes structures like predicate adjectives and nominatives, attributive adjectives, various types of phrases and clauses, and more.

Story – Telling and Creative Writing

Children are encouraged to express themselves through story telling from a very young age. Even in our Toddler Community the adults model story telling for the children. This is a loved activity and skill for children and the Guides. Children learn that stories have a beginning, middle and end and how to share stories in an engaging way. When children begin to write with the Moveable Alphabet and then on paper, creative writing comes naturally at the level of the child’s development. It often happens that children begin to write their own stories and even short chapter books in their final year in Children’s House. The ability to express your ideas, dreams, inventions, and interests are a true gift of the Montessori language experience.