An Overview: The Montessori Language Curriculum

I am happy and proud to say that I have completed the summer portion of the Montessori Certification program at the Houston Montessori Center! Yay!

I am very excited to apply all of the knowledge I have learned into the creation of Ladybird Montessori School! This is such an exciting time for my family and me! I am thrilled to share my love for education and the Montessori method with you as well!

I had promised some language and math posts a few weeks ago. Due to lack of time, I had to put off the posts until now. Over the next few days I will post about the Montessori Language and Math curriculum.

Today I will do an overview of Oral Language Development, Phonics, Writing, Handwriting, and Reading. This is just an overview, so I will not be showing every work found in the language area of the classroom. I am doing an overview to explain how the lessons build upon one another. A child does not receive a new lesson until he or she has mastered the previous concept taught. This ensures that a child is ready to learn everything being taught. There are no holes or gaps in the learning process, which eliminates a great deal of frustration children often encounter in traditional schools.

In the Montessori classroom, children are not taught their letters first. Teaching a child letters first is actually counter productive. A letter is abstract. It is a symbol. Children need to learn everything concrete first, before they can understand it in the abstract. Oral Language Development provides many concrete opportunities to develop a foundation for language arts. In a Montessori classroom the children learn a variety of songs, poems, rhymes, and finger plays. Poetry is very important because it uses rhythm, meter, and rhyme in a form not commonly used in stories.

One of the first lessons a child will receive in the Language area is an object to object work, which is usually the fruit basket. The child will be given a lesson matching wooden or plastic fruit to real fruit. The child will get to taste all of the real fruit, which is a fun sensory experience. After the object to object lesson, the child will have an object to card lesson (which is a bit more abstract), where the child matches the wooden fruit to a picture of the fruit.

The child will have a lesson on a variety of works that strengthen the child's ability to match objects that:

• are the same
• go together
• same and different
• are opposite
• object to ground
• patterning with objects 

The image below is an example of an object to card work using tools.

Below is an example of a patterning work.

The work moves from concrete to abstract, meaning it moves from objects (3-D) to cards and pictures (2-D).

Below is a picture of an environment card matching work.

The child will also have lessons in sequencing. Below is a picture of a sequencing work of a boy brushing his teeth.

Once the child has a solid foundation in Oral Language Development, the child will be ready for Phonics lessons.

The first lesson in Phonics is the "I Spy" game. The teacher will first play the game with objects in the room. For example, "I spy something in the vase that begins with the sound "f". The child would say, "You spy a flower!" The I Spy game would then move to concrete objects that are a small replica of the actual objects. For example, small items found in doll houses such as cups, bowls, a bed, a tub, etc.

Below is a picture of items that might be found in an "I Spy" object box.

Once the child can identify objects that begin with the 3 sounds found in the first sandpaper letter box, the child will have a lesson on the three sounds in the first sandpaper letter box. The child will be introduced to the symbol by tracing it and saying the sound it makes. The child will not be asked to identify the letters name at this point. The name of the letter is abstract and serves no purpose at this stage in the learning process.

Once the child can identify the symbols by the sound they represent, the child will match the symbols to objects that begin with the sound.

 After the child knows enough beginning sounds, the teacher will bridge the sandpaper letters to the moveable alphabet. This lesson is a bridge into the Writing curriculum. Some examples of lessons with the moveable alphabet are pictured below.

 The child will also be receiving lessons on 3 letter (and then 4-5 letter phonetic words when ready) phonetic words, ending sounds, rhyming, sight words, and booklets during this time. Some examples of work are pictured below.

 Rhyming

 End Sounds

Phonetic Object Box - Secret Message

Commands

Reading Booklet

Around the time the above lessons are happening with the moveable alphabet and phonetic word building, the child will also have his/her first lesson with the Metal Insets. The Metal Insets help a child develop beautiful handwriting.

Some additional handwriting lessons are with the cornmeal tray, chalkboards, and paper. We move from unlined to lined. We do not use dry erase boards in an Early Childhood classroom. They do not provide a sensory experience when writing. Chalk on a chalkboard and pencil on paper make a sound and feeling for the child as he or she writes.

After the child is reading three and four letter words in phrases and sentences, he or she will move on to middle sounds and phonograms. During this time the child will also be doing works in reading sentences, matching rhyming pictures to words, etc. Some examples of works a child will be doing to master these concepts are pictured below.

Examples of lessons found in a language area of a Montessori classroom can go on and on. I did not post any pictures of the Readers, but once the child is reading 3 and 4 letter phonetic words the child will begin reading with the Lead Guide/Teacher using a variety of different Easy Readers/Books. When the child is ready, books will be sent home on a nightly basis so that parents can enjoy listening to their child read.

The language area is always changing and evolving to meet the needs of the children in the classroom. Each child is on his or her own journey through the work. Some children need more time, while others move quickly and need more challenging work. That is the beauty of Montessori. Every child learns at his or her own pace by receiving one-on-one lessons from the Lead Guide/Teacher in the classroom. There are no holes in the learning process, everything moves from concrete to abstract, and children are always provided with work that is challenging, yet doable (due to the foundation from the previous work mastered) for the child.

I will publish a post on Grammar in the Monessori Early Childhood Classroom later this week.