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| Sandpaper letters |
When the child enters the Primary at three years old, she will be exposed to
a rich spoken language experience--listening to stories and poems, singing
songs and working with classified vocabulary cards that help develop her spoken
language skills.
In addition, general
conversations with peers are also beneficial and enriching because of the
mixed-ages of the children. When it comes
to reading, the most important thing to keep in mind is that we don't teach
it. That's not to say that the children
don't learn to read--they do. How they
get to that point is what makes the Montessori approach to reading
different.
In the
beginning, there is a great deal of 'indirect preparation' for reading as work
is done with the Practical Life and Sensorial materials. These very important activities, like
polishing, washing tables, folding cloths, sorting, matching, grading, etc. ,
along with a rich spoken language environment allow the child to eventually
"explode into reading." What we actually do, is
teach the child keys to reading which allow her to discover that she can
read. Believe me, this is not as easy as
it sounds, which is why it is important for both home and school to be
supporting the child through this journey of discovery.
Some of the
materials that we use to help your child explode into reading include the Sound
Games (a box of assorted objects that are used to help the child identify
beginning, ending and middle sounds), Sandpaper Letters(cursive or print
letters cut out of sandpaper and mounted on a board) and the Moveable Alphabet
(cut out letters in a box organized from a to z).
The Sandpaper
Letters help her link individual sounds to their corresponding letter symbols
and we begin working with them once she demonstrates an awareness of sounds and
is able to link a particular sound to a given object. For example, bat begins with 'b'.
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| Child working with the Moveable Alphabet |
As soon as
he is able to consistently link the sound with the symbol, we begin working
with the Moveable Alphabet, which helps him transition from analyzing
individual sounds (like p, o, t) to synthesizing an unknown word (p, o, t says
pot).
The expectation is not for him to
be able to read the word, but just for him to synthesize words based on the
sounds that he knows are in that word.
We spend a lot of time working with the Moveable Alphabet, starting with
writing three letter words (fan), to four-letter words (stop), to more complex
words (pumpkin, basket), to short phrases (hot pan, red box) and eventually to writing sentences and then stories.
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| Phonetic Reading Cards |
As we know,
there is a huge difference between deciphering one word and reading a story
book. The point at which the child is
able to synthesize words is where begin introducing the keys to reading. These keys include the phonetic sounds (or
the short vowel sounds and consonants--the alphabet); and the phonograms (or
digraphs--two or more letters that combine to make one sound.) For example, -oa makes the sound
"o" (long vowel sound). The phonetic
sounds (which are included in our Sandpaper Letters), along with the phonogram
sounds, cover about 85% of the words in the English language; and we teach them
very methodically to the children. The
remaining words belong in the category of words that do not follow any
particular rules of pronunciation, which Montessori calls puzzle words, and
these the child will memorize.
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| Sentences symbolized with Grammar Symbols |
Additional
keys to reading that we teach include reading classification--materials that
give the child lots of practice reading and include grammar and the grammar
symbols and sentence analysis. Reading
Classification activities call the child's attention to the fact that there are
different functions that words play in different phrases. For instance, the word sitting, in the
phrase: the sitting cow, sitting functions as an adjective because it is describing the
cow and differentiating it from among a group of cows. Symbolizing the phrases helps the child
identify the functions of the word and give meaning to what is being read: the word cow is a noun, the is an article and sitting is the adjective.
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| Sentence Analysis chart |
Sentence
analysis activities give the child practice with understanding the meaning of a
sentence by looking at the relationship between the parts of a sentence. For example, for the sentence: Mary chopped
the lettuce, the child gains an understanding that Mary is the direct object
because she performed the action; chopped is the action or the predicate/verb;
and the lettuce is the indirect object because it was acted upon. Armed with
these keys, the child could mechanically read any word--we call this
deciphering. However, there is more to reading than just deciphering the
word. This something more that we are
looking for the child to demonstrate, is what Montessori calls, total reading. By this, she means that the child understands
all she reads and is developing a deep comprehension or awareness of the person
behind the words--- conveyed through context or simply in the style of
writing. In any event, when she reads
aloud with expression and feeling, we can say that she has arrived at the point
of total reading. From that point on,
the sky is the limit!
For a child,
reading a story book is much more difficult than reading individual words, and
each child gets to this place in their own time. It is important that as adults, we try not to
rush him through this process, nor skip any of the steps.
As parents,
we can support our children through this process by engaging them in fun
activities that heighten their awareness of sounds and the relationships between
sounds and letters. We also need to
model good reading, choosing books that have a rich and varied vocabulary, and
using words the child does not hear everyday.
In addition, we should create an environment that fosters reading,
providing books, games, movement activities, songs, rhymes and plenty of
conversation to encourage his "explosion into reading."
Rhonda Lucas-Sabater is an AMI Auxiliary Trainer at the Primary (3-6) level. She is the mother of five Montessori children and the co-founder of a public charter Montessori school in Washington, DC. She is also AMI trained at the Assistants to Infancy (O-3), Primary (3-6), and Elementary (6-12) levels and is an AMI certified Adolescent guide.
