Object Intrigue

Learning to Read the Montessori Way

I love seeing the delight in children’s eyes when they behold the real, tiny objects we employ in Montessori to explore language. Most reading programs start children off with cards and pictures. (How boringly abstract! For some, how frustrating!)

But in Montessori, we begin exploring the sounds that make up our language by talking about miniscule, realistic-looking objects that 3-, 4- and 5-year-old children can hold in their hands and examine: A tiny cow, a little teacup, a miniature chair. Tenderly the children pass each object from one small hand to another. I swear, their eyes literally sparkle!

Pictured: Cow (ow); horn (or); scoop (oo); snail (ai); bench (ch); and bird (ir).

The students fall in love with these precious, little objects, which the teacher rotates each week in baskets, small boxes, and a shadow box. Each set of five or so objects has a purpose. Some help children experience a range of words that give them practice pronouncing nouns: glass, tree, button, dog. Some can be sounded out phonetically; others have a shared phonogram in common such as “ow” in cow, owl, and sow (female pig). Another grouping of objects might be those with double letters, like button, puppet, tassel, cotton ball, and apple.

Simultaneously, children learn the 26 symbols for phonetic sounds in our alphabet. They then begin to decode phonetically spelled words which can be “sounded out” and match words to sets of objects. At the same time, they might write and decode labels for things in their surroundings. (It is always fun to walk around a Primary classroom and notice a soggy ticket of paper by the sink that reads, “sink” in childish handwriting, “plant” next to a plant, and so on. They LOVE to write labels all day long in this phase!)

After children know the 26 sandpaper letters and can recognize their shapes with corresponding sounds, and have begun reading phonetically-spelled words with ease, the teacher introduces phonograms, such as ow, ch, sh, ai, oo, th, i, or igh. Children learn just a few at a time; this is an accumulating process that lasts for a year or longer. As they put a few more of the 70 or so phonograms in our language into use, the world of reading opens up exponentially! 

We still use little objects to guide children to notice phonograms, and they write labels and read labels to get lots of fun practice with various phonograms. Some phonogram spellings have two separate sounds to learn- oo can be the oo we recognize in spoon, loon, food and balloon, or it can be the oo we learn is in cook, book and look. Children often learn such words in logical sets.

There is one more category of words for children to cover when learning to read. (I love that Montessori keeps this so straightforward by pointing out that all English words fit into just 3 categories!) We call these puzzle words–commonly called sight words–because they puzzle our minds with their interesting spellings and sounds! Puzzle words are introduced on cards because they are very abstract and must be simply memorized to become part of a child’s repertoire: where, though, some, be, the, there, and so on. By this point, children are reading a lot and are eager to take on this challenge to keep going! They learn 3 new puzzle words at a time and memorize as many as they can. Suddenly, they can read almost anything.

As a child learns more and more puzzle words, Montessori teachers introduce the parts of speech. For example, we introduce categories of action words (verbs) and their descriptors (adverbs) through action games. In these, children read written commands the teacher writes for them: “Walk quietly across the room.” “Run softly to the math shelf!” “Tip-toe quickly to the sink.” Children have a wonderful time figuring out what these “messages” say and acting them out to show that they understand them. Often, they help each other to do this. So much fun!

Children simultaneously learn the role that each part of speech plays through games with the classroom’s tiny objects.  We introduce games that highlight the role of objects (nouns), for example, another for words that convey actions (verbs), and other games for words that describe actions, (adverbs), for those words that tell us where something is (prepositions) and those that connect (which are conjunctions). Most of these exercises culminate in games we play with a little pretend farm that comes with objects such as fences, trees, pastures and miniature farm animals.

The teacher might write: “A brown cow eats grass next to the white horse and the little pig.” The child searches through the basket of farm animals to find ones described and places them according to the description the teacher wrote. Children enjoy this as an interactive game, where the teacher writes something original on a slip of paper for each child. (She or he must be familiar with the options in the classroom’s farm collection!) The farm transforms as the objects are moved into different scenarios according to children’s responses to the messages they decode. The little farm becomes a very lively place indeed! Reading is fun, and it has purpose.

As the children grow older, they may use prepared cards so that they can do more and more reading independently from their teacher. By this time–around age six and about to graduate from the Primary level–students are truly reading from numerous sets of cards and books in the classroom. This stage is the abstract reading that most programs attempt to start with. A big difference that shows how the Montessori students came to this point is that they truly understand what they are reading because they have EXPERIENCED the language. Through actions and objects, they realize what the phrases mean when they read them, and their joy, confidence and engagement with reading is palpable.

What a great way to begin!

Thank you little cow, bird, horn, bench, scoop and snail!