Our Family and the Montessori Approach

Last year, our son started Montessori preschool at age three. I have tried to learn as much as I can about the Montessori approach to language and reading. It differs in key ways from how reading and writing are taught in most mainstream school settings in our country.

Our son’s preschool is not my first introduction to Montessori. I attended Montessori preschool many moons ago, though I confess I don’t have many distinct memories of it. (I do remember having the general freedom to do the activities and lessons I wanted to do, which suited my personality just fine.)

When I was in high school, my mother, who was already a teacher, completed her Montessori certification for ages 6 – 9. I’ve learned many things in conversation with her about the Montessori approach for older children, and some basic principles that transferred to preschool aged children.

Once our son started to do traditional Montessori language activities in the classroom, I wanted to make sure I was supporting this type of language learning at home too.

Related Post: Six Lessons About Parenting I’ve Learned from My Child’s Montessori School

Why I Prefer the Montessori Approach to the Alphabet

Sounds Before Letter Names

By far, the thing that makes the most sense to me about the Montessori approach to language is that the child begins by learning the sounds the alphabet makes, not the names of the letters.

For example, when I point to the letter “d” at the beginning of my son’s name, I tell him that his name starts with “da,” rather than telling him the name of the letter D.

When children learn to read, they need to know what sounds the letters make in order to form them into words. To prepare them for that task, Montessori students learn the sounds before the letter name. Later, they can learn the names of the letters to aid with spelling.

Related Post: Best Montessori Toys for 5 and 6 Year Olds

Lower Case Before Upper Case Letters

Another important aspect of Montessori language is starting with lowercase letters. Remember, when reading, a child is going to encounter lowercase letters much more often in books and other texts than uppercase.

On that note, why is it so hard to find alphabet books with lowercase letters? Fortunately my mother is making my son an personalized alphabet book for Christmas and she’ll be doing it in lowercase.

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Sensory Experiences

Montessori lessons also allow preschool-aged children to have sensory experiences of many different things, including letters. In Montessori classrooms, children trace sandpaper letters as they make the sound of the letter. This is so they can hear how the letter sounds at the same time that they feel how it is shaped, allowing them to more fully absorb the lesson.

In this post, I share 3 simple language activities you can do at home that are based on Montessori principles.

Related Post: Peace Education, the Montessori Way

Simple, Inexpensive Montessori-Inspired Language Activities To Do At Home

Montessori Beginning Sounds Basket

I am not the most motivated mama when it’s come to intentionally preparing lessons at home for our son. However, one thing that he and I both enjoy are beginning sound baskets.

These are easy to put together with toys, books, and other objects you have around the house. For about a week, I keep out a basket with a magnetic letter, and items that began with that letter. I also select a book that used the letter often.

Items to include:

• Animal ABC ring flash cards (pictured above)
• Safari Ltd. Toob animals (small plastic animals pictured above. These are very realistic and perfect for all kinds of at home learning and play activities.)
• Magnetic letters
• If you want a huge assortment of language objects, this set from Montessori Services is excellent. Almost all the beginning sounds are represented, and the objects have been selected because of being phonetic.

To introduce the basket to our son, I’d show him the letter and say the sound several times, and ask him if he’d like to say it. Then I introduced each item one at a time; for example “this is a pig. Pig starts with “pa.” Of course he also wants to play with the objects, which is encouraged. As we read the book, I stop to emphasize the words that use the letter featured in the sound basket.

Related Post: Our Montessori Inspired Peace Corner

Montessori Classified Cards

We also sometimes work with classified cards. These are pairs of pictures, one with a name label attached to the picture. and one which has a label that is kept separate from the picture. They are presented to the child as a part of a series of related items, such as fruits, farm animals, or insects.

For a two to three year old, the activity can be used to simply expand their language skills by learning the names of new animals or objects. As the children match objects, they are strengthening mental skills that will be needed for reading, math, and science.

Once children have developed more awareness of sounds, the classified cards can also be used for an “I spy” activity. For example, tell your child, “I spy an animal that starts with ‘ba.’ Can you show me the animal whose name starts with ‘ba’?”

Once children begin reading, the child can find the matching label that goes with the unlabeled card in the pair.

If you’re willing to do some research, there are many sources for inexpensive or free classified cards. Especially if you’re going to be working with more than one child, you may want to consider purchasing sets from the wide variety offered by Montessori Services.

Salt Writing Tray

Letting your child practice writing letters in a shallow tray (like this one) filled with salt is an easy, inexpensive way to learn letters through touch and hearing at the same time.

Over the summer break, I selected one letter at a time for our son to practice at a time. I invited him to trace the letter on a card, while making the sound. He then practiced writing the letter in salt. (Usually there’s quite a bit of playing with the salt as well.)

At our son’s school, the children learn cursive writing first, so we’ve used the salt tray to practice writing cursive letters. It works equally well with print letters!

For more Montessori language lessons (plus math, practical life, and sensorial lessons), I highly recommend Teach Me to Do It Myself by Maja Pitamic!

Related Post: Comparison was stealing my parenting joy (how Montessori helped).

What do you think about the Montessori approach to learning letters? Share your thoughts in the comments!