“Our care of the child should be governed, not by the desire to make her learn things, but by the endeavor always to keep burning within her that light which is called intelligence.” ~Maria Montessori

Children have a natural fascination with words, which enables them to begin reading and writing before the age they are traditionally taught. When the child is at the greatest point of interest for language development, the materials in the Montessori classroom allows the teacher to take advantage of this time. Writing begins as soon as the child shows an interest in the spelling of words or in the learning of the sandpaper letters. Writing, or the construction of words with the moveable letters, will almost always proceed reading in a Montessori environment.

Once the child has learned the sandpaper letters, they are then ready to make words with the moveable alphabet. They start out building three letter words of different objects with a short vowel sound. The child will spend a considerable amount of time on the moveable alphabet and building the three letter words. They then can move on to building 4-letter words with blends. The child is now realizing that they can go back over the words they are spelling and pronounce the words. However, this step is not really reading. Reading implies an understanding of words which someone has constructed and this step happens when they are able to match a set of objects with a set of cards on which the names of the objects are already printed. At this point, the child must read the card in order to match the correct card with the correct picture. We can continue to develop language skills with the introduction of noun cards and command cards, which are verbs. These cards allow the child to read a command and complete the command like run, jog or jump.

Moveable Alphabet

The moveable alphabet is then used to create words that include phonograms. The phonograms are a blend of two or more letters that produce a single sound. The children continue to build on spelling and reading these words in a variety of ways.

Gradually the child learns sight words, and words with 2 or three syllables by doing many reading exercises that offer a variety of monotonous repetition. There are many books that help to develop their reading skills and are interesting to the children. It is important to remember that the age at which a child reads is not important, but rather in their readiness to read. If the child is forced at the wrong time or too early, then the child will get discouraged. The wonderful freedom within the Montessori classroom allows the child to be guided by their own interest, which determines their own progress. Reading is the most important key to future learning.