Montessori Homeschool Curriculum Reading Program

The Montessori method of teaching reading is focused on indirect preparation.

Pre-reading activities are offered to children to help them develop the skills needed to read.

Once children have all of the component skills, then they will discover for themselves that they have the ability to read.

Children learn to read at their own pace.

Effort is made to observe children to assess where they are in the process of learning to read.

This helps you choose activities that will offer just the right amount of challenge.

Although there is no pressure to get a child to start reading by a certain age, most children who learn to read the Montessori way will begin to sound out words when they are around 4.5 to 5 years old.

Because the Montessori method of teaching reading requires a lot of observation to offer individualized activities, any potential concerns with language processing are often identified early.

Teaching reading the Montessori way follows a speech-to-print approach.

Spoken language is the foundation for written language.

That's why the first step to teach reading the Montessori way is helping a child hear the speech sounds (phonemes) in spoken words.

Then those phonemes are associated with the graphic symbol using letter sound correspondence activities.

It is understood that language is a system of arbitrary auditory sounds and associated graphic symbols that are agreed upon by people of a specific culture to represent ideas.

In spoken language, the sounds are combined in a certain agreed upon way. In written language, the graphic symbols represent the sounds and they are combined in a certain agreed upon way.

The Montessori method to teach reading is a letter sounds first approach so the focus is on learning letter sound correspondence.

Children learning to read the Montessori way will first learn letter sounds instead of letter names or both letter sounds and names at the same time.

That's because the next step in the process of learning to read is to invite children to write words using a moveable alphabet using their knowledge of letter sound correspondence.

Knowledge of letter names can get in the way of word building.

Letter names are also unhelpful when children are ready later on to begin decoding words using sound-letter correspondence.

Encoding comes before decoding for children learning to read the Montessori way.

Encoding is the act of expressing your own thoughts in written form.

To write a word with a pencil or a moveable alphabet, your child needs to segment the word into its individual speech sounds, find the letters that represent those phonemes and then build the word by putting the letters in a row.

Reading is a decoding process.

To read a word, your child needs to recall the speech sound that each letter represents, say each phoneme and blend them in the right order to hear the whole word and understand its meaning.

Writing comes before reading because it's much easier to encode words than it is to decode words.

In the beginning of learning to read, before decoding becomes automatic, this "sounding it out" process of pulling apart each word and putting it back together again is a lot more work than writing your own thoughts!

You already know your own thoughts when you write them. Reading requires your child to work towards the unknown. When words are written by another person, you can only understand the thought once you read the words.

When children learn to read the Montessori way, they absorb the idea that reading is silent communication.

Language facilitates communication in the present moment and over time. We get access to information and ideas from other people through reading.

Your child will learn that they can know what you are thinking, without you saying it, when you write your thoughts on paper and your child reads it.

You'll need 4 Montessori materials when you choose to teach reading the Montessori way.

You can buy these materials from a Montessori online store, or you can make these materials yourself.

Some homeschooling families use a mix of purchased and DIY Montessori materials for teaching reading.

Montessori language objects are used as props when playing sound games to help your child hear the speech sounds in spoken words.

It's like playing "I Spy" except that instead of inviting your child to look for something that's a certain color, you'll ask your child to look for Montessori language objects that start with a speech sound that you say.

This activity develops phonemic awareness.

Montessori sandpaper letters are used to help your child build visual, auditory and muscle memory of the graphic symbols that represent speech sounds.

Tracing print or cursive Montessori sandpaper letters with two fingers also helps your child develop the tripod grip for holding a pencil.

Your child will have fun matching Montessori language objects with the sandpaper letters to reinforce memory of letter sound correspondence.

A Montessori moveable alphabet is used to develop encoding skills.

Children use their existing phonics knowledge to put sounds (letters) in a row to build words using a print or cursive Montessori moveable alphabet.

Words on labels or cards are used for reading practice to develop decoding skills.

The first reading activity in the learning sequence uses language objects to match with words that you'll write to create labels for your child to decode.

Reading practice is scaffolded.

Words that can be decoded using knowledge of a-z letter sounds comes first and then words with digraphs such as sh, ee, ai, ch etc are introduced.

A child starts with reading words, then phrases and then sentences.

The Montessori method for teaching reading is based on phonics.

Children learn the code between speech sounds and letter symbols. This is also called letter sound correspondence.

Teaching phonics the Montessori way initially focuses on learning a-z letter sounds, but then common digraphs (two letters that represent a single sound) are introduced.

When teaching phonics, it's important that children get the experience of using their phonics knowledge so they understand what they are working towards.

Once your child can say the letter sound when shown many of the sandpaper letters, then you'll model how to put sounds in a row to build words using a Montessori moveable alphabet.

Work with the sandpaper letters continues as a separate activity at a different time to continue expanding phonics knowledge.

Meanwhile, the process of word building will also reinforce existing phonics knowledge and offer opportunities to learn more a-z letter sounds and digraphs.

Usually within about 6 months of practice with encoding using the Montessori moveable alphabet, your child will realize that any words that are written can then be read.

Children will continue to learn advanced phonics once they begin reading lists of words that feature a digraph.

At that time, the different spellings for the same phoneme are introduced.

Awareness of speech sounds (phonemes) in spoken words comes first.

Then a child is shown what a phoneme looks like using a cursive or print Montessori sandpaper letter.

It depends on which style you want your child to learn first for later handwriting.

Montessori sandpaper letters are introduced via a 3-period lesson that includes any 3 letters at a time.

Children learn to associate the sandpaper letters with only the short vowel sounds and the hard consonant sounds. Other sound spellings will be introduced later on in the context of learning digraphs.

Only the lowercase letters are explicitly taught during the preschool and kindergarten years using sandpaper letters to best prepare a child for writing and reading books, which are mostly made up of lowercase letters.

Letter names are not mentioned during lessons with the Montessori sandpaper letters because they are not helpful for encoding and decoding.

The Montessori method of teaching the alphabet is very simplified and focused on what matters most for writing and reading.

That means that children are less likely to get confused between letter names and sounds or mix up uppercase and lowercase letters.