🔅As a traditional classroom teacher, I supported phonemic awareness by teaching children the name of uppercase letters, typically alongside or as a precursor to lowercase letters. This was the norm. It’s what I was taught in college courses and was reinforced by the district scope and sequence. We sang the ABC song. We were proud if they knew it. We showed letters on the board and drilled its name and then introduced its sound. Oftentimes when shown the letter and asked the sound it makes, children would tell me the name. I’d ask again “what SOUND does it make?” Again, I would get the name. It was frustrating and difficult to feel we had spent so much time isolating each letter and they still didn’t remember.
🔅Then I discovered Montessori and studied its approach to language development. Wow... we were doing our best in the classroom, but it seemed to go against logic and the development of language acquisition. Unfortunately, I have found this to be true of many teaching methods in the traditional classroom. This is no fault of the teachers or administrators, rather the system. 🔅Lowercase sandpaper letters are one of the first materials introduced to children in Montessori classrooms to help develop sound association to letters. The tactile tool offers them the sensory experience to recall the sound of each letter. Note: I did not say the NAME, I said the SOUND of each letter. Also, re-read the title... I mentioned LOWERCASE. This is an important distinction between the Montessori method and traditional schooling. 🔅If you think about it, when we read print, what do we see more often? Lowercase letters or uppercase? Lowercase, right? So why do we begin by introducing uppercase letters to children? Secondly, when we read words and decode them (sound them out), do we say the name of the letter, or it’s sound? Sounds, right? Traditional instruction goes against the logical and phonetic sense of reading. This discovery was so enlightening, but made me feel foolish for not recognizing it before... 🔅Now with a 2.5 year old who is in the sensitive period for language, I am changing the norm. S has shown so much interest in letters so I am following her lead. I recently introduced the sandpaper letters. Letters are introduced in what is called the 3-Period lesson, which is explained in this post. My letters are not store bought; they were created using sheets of sandpaper on plastic dividers sheets. They may not be beautiful or perfectly symmetrical, but they serve their purpose. There are many DIY options for sandpaper letters just a Google search away. 🔅I wrote this blog post because I want to share the knowledge I have learned about language acquisition in children. There is so much more that goes into the development of language and application in Montessori philosophy, but this is where we are now in our journey. I will share more as S builds her letter knowledge. 🔅In this post I have shared a video of S practicing her letters. Note that she does not yet have the dexterity to trace the letters properly, but she has observed me and “copies” my movements. Despite that, she can recall the sound of these letters. She is very aware of these letters now in everyday print and shares her findings with us. As her letter sound knowledge builds, she will eventually be able to use that knowledge to begin building {more on this later} basic 3-4 letter words (typically CVC words) by using the letter sounds. If you want to know more, please feel free to send me a message and I will be happy to help you along this journey!
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September 2020
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