Montessori had a different approach from the traditional method in teaching children writing and reading. The concept of writing comes before reading. The preparation for reading and writing begins with the Practical Life exercises. With these exercises, the children develop the control of movement and eye-hand coordination, which will aid him in writing. The left to right concept in the Practical Life exercises prepares the child in writing and reading. The scooping and pouring exercises, lacing, buttoning, polishing etc. all involve precise movement of the hand and body leading to coordination of sight and muscle control.
The Sensorial Materials further expand the preparation. The pink tower, the geometric cabinet, the geometric solids, the sound cylinders, the metal insets, the matching of objects, the colour tablets etc. develop the child’s perceptual abilities, visual and auditory discrimination, and his ability to classify and compare. In addition, the child’s motor skills are refined through handling the material, e.g. holding the knobbed cylinders with the thumb, the index and middle fingers; the child is indirectly being prepared to hold a pencil. The tracing of form such as geometric cabinet shape trains the eye for exactness of shapes, tracing the outline of a shape the muscles of the hand and fingers is to prepare him for forming letters. All of these are necessary for written language. “The direct preparation for writing also consists in exercises of the movements of the hands.” (Montessori’s Own Handbook, pg. 139).
Vocabulary enrichment is an important part of language. In the Montessori environment, everything has a name. “The need for new word is strongly felt by young children. He must have developed an enriched vocabulary and the concept that things have names, an appreciation of the exactness of word meaning and definitions, and a realization that words can be grouped into classifications. He must understand that words have function and that their position in sentence is important.” (Montessori: A Modern Approach, pg. 123).
From the Practical Life exercises, the child learns vocabulary such as bowl, cup, tray, lock, napkin, button, frame, peg, and all other words that can be seen in our environment. In grace and courtesy exercises, the child is taught an acceptable form in dealing with other children and he is given language that is needed in different social encounters.
Formal language lessons are also taught with the sensorial materials after the child has become more confident in working with a particular material. Using the three period lesson (naming, recognition, the pronunciation of the word), the child comes to know many word very thoroughly, such as large, small; thick, thin; long, short; dark, light; rough, smooth; heavy, light; hot, cold; and the names of many colours and geometrical forms. The language that is learnt from sensorial material gives the child the key to describe qualities of what he sees and experiences in his environment.
In the cultural lesson, the child is introduced to models and pictures of all forms of culture. He also learns the names of animals, plants, and name of places and other interesting topics. The child learns about weather, continents, culture of others region or country, nature, and all others cultural subjects. The cards in cultural lesson are classified to encourage the concept of internal classification. Many games are also played, in addition to the usage of vocabulary from didactic materials. There are also many picture card matching games that enrich vocabulary, cards of animal, artists, reptiles, plant life, geometric shapes.
“The children absorb the vocabulary that goes with these cards because he is still in his sensitive period for language. If he does not learn it now, he will have to learn later and that will have far less appeal to him.” (Montessori: A Modern Approach, pg. 126).
After preparation through Practical Life, Sensorial, Language and Cultural exercises, the directress can begin introducing activities more directly related to written language. The child is introduced to sandpaper letters. Instead of teaching him the names of the letter, the directress sounds out the letters. For example, to teach ‘s’, the child is taught the sound of letter ‘m’, which is ‘sss’. Sometimes the teacher can make connection with the word ‘snake’ which begins with ‘sss’. This way, the child easily grabs the idea. While learning the sound, the child also traces the sandpaper to attain a muscular memory of the shape of the letters. It is an exercise by which the child applies his previous experiences with the touch boards. And the teacher teaches the sound using the three period lesson. At the same time, the child is introduced to another equipment, the metal insets. It is designed to contribute to the development of mechanical writing skill. It consists of blue metal or plastic frames with pink insets of several geometric and curved shapes. The child traces the frame with one coloured pencil, making a geometrical shape. And with another coloured pencil, the child draws horizontal lines inside the shape until it is completely covered. This exercises aims to give the child necessary control of his hand movements in preparation for writing beautifully.
After learning several letters, word-building exercises using the Large Moveable Alphabet (LMA) will be introduced. It contains plastic letters of the alphabet. The LMA enables the child to put symbol and sound together. The teacher first sounds out single letters such as “mmm”, then moves on to three-letter phonetic word such as “pig” and asks the child to pick up letters of the sounds that she make.
After numerous exercises with the LMA, the teacher will then introduce the phonetic object game, or what we usually called ‘pink boxes’. It involves a small box of three-letter phonetic objects such as pig, pin, cup, mug, etc. First the child uses the object or pictures and make up the word of the object with LMA, which is concrete learning. After the child has understood what he is working with, the teacher then introduces him to the object or picture boxes with nametags, which is abstract learning. The child must match nametags to its corresponding object or picture. The more the children work with this object and picture material, the more they are stimulated to explore language.
Continuing, the child learns longer phonetic words using the ‘blue boxes’, which contain blend words such as flag, lamp, clamp, etc. Thereafter, phonograms are introduced through the object game. The teacher will explain that sometimes, when letters sit together they make a different sound. Two boxes of Small Movable Alphabets (SMA) , one yellow, and one green are used in this exercise. At this stage, Montessori saw a distinctly different stage appear, when the child was able to read words quickly and easily enough to understand a sentence.
After the child starts reading, classified picture cards are introduced, for example, in the culture section, pictures of mammals or reptiles, after which continuing to parts of the reptile, parts of a mammal, etc. By this time, the child should be able to read a book and thus, there should always be a special place in the room for reading, a comfortable and attractive spot with an atmosphere that promotes reading.
At a later stage, the child will begin to explore by means of equipment, of which function words are exhibited. Equipment that is used traditionally in a Montessori classroom is a complete model farm with all of its component parts. Small labels are made for each object in the model. Teacher begins teaching phonetic reading – grammar; including the noun, the adjectives, and the verbs. Games are also used to explore the function of words. “Continued exercises serve to give forceful impressions that lead the child to notice the importance of each item in a sentence. Not only the meaning of each word, but its position in the phrase or sentence.” (Montessori: A Modern Approach, pg. 16).
Montessori’s methods make full use of the child’s sensitive period of language by creating an environment that aids this development. In the Montessori environment, the child is constantly exposed to information, through formal lessons, conversations and games; preparing him and thus, making it possible for the child to start creative writing and reading at a young age.
Bibliography
Montessori, M. The Absorbent Mind Clio Press Oxford, 2003
Montessori, M. The Discovery of The Child Clio Press Oxford, 2003
Montessori M. Dr. Montessori’s Own Handbook Shocken Books New York
Lillard, P.P. Montessori: A Modern Approach New York, Shocken Books, 1988
Hainstock, E.G. The Essential Montessori New York, New American Library,1986
