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Written language and child essay

According to Dr. Montessori, the evolution of language begins with the infant’s imigiate capacity to absorb fragments of speech that form the basis for further language development. The child first discovers that sounds have meaning and then isolates parts of speech. The child’s acquisition of oral skills occurs naturally, but opportunities for equivalent patterns of written language development must be provided by parents and teachers. The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in childhood when no one can teach them anything. (http//www. brainquotes. om/maria Montessori. html) Experiences gained from the Practical Life and Sensorial materials serve as a preparation for reading and writing. Children are given a phonetic basis for reading. The child hears the sound, sees the shape and through tracing, trains the muscles needed for writing. He or she is then ready to pursue an interest in words while cultivating writing skills at an individual pace. Through story telling, conversation and many other exercises, the child’s vocabulary grows. Eventually these preparatory activities culminate in a child beginning to write. Dr.

Montessori calls this an “ explosion” into writing. The preparation for enjoying the exploration of language in life begins before birth as the child responds to the voices he hears even in the womb. For success in language a child needs confidence that what she has to say is important, a desire to relate to others, real experience on which language is based, and the physical abilities necessary in reading and writing. There are several things that we can do to help. We can listen and talk to the child from birth on, not in baby talk, but with respect and with a rich vocabulary.

We can provide a stimulating environment, rich in sensorial experiences and in language, providing a wealth of experience, because language is meaningless if it is not based on experience. We can set an example and model precise language in our everyday activities with the child. If we share good literature, in the form of rhymes, songs, poetry and stories we will greatly increase the child’s love of language In any good language environment, in as many situations as possible, the teacher makes sure that experience precedes vocabulary and pictures of objects.

She will introduce real vegetables before vegetable cards, real actions before verb cards, real music before composer picture and labels, real shells before shell cards, and so on. At home parents can do the same thing—show the kitchen objects, the office or bathroom objects, and then give the opportunity to handle these objects and to learn the names. In this way the child learns that language is connected to the real world. VOCABULARY CARDS – SPEAKING In the Montessori classroom we will notice that there are many vocabulary books and cards.

It is natural that, during this intense interest in words, children be given pictures of everything—to practice and improve their new abilities. Dr. Montessori had written an order, such as i might have made by word of mouth. ” open the window,” “ come close to me”. (The secret of childhood, P. NO. 115) VOCABULARY CARDS – READING When a child first begins to recognize the sounds of letters in groups—words—he is doing this silently in his head. Saying these words aloud complicates the process, especially if someone is listening.

So a child is not asked to read aloud in the beginning. To provide practice with this new, exciting single-word skill, give the child pictures and labels for objects for which he already knows the names. He reads each label and matches it to the picture. Then, if the names of the objects have been written on the back of the picture cards, the child can turn the pictures over to see if he has placed the labels correctly. PRE-READING AND WRITING There are three main areas where we can help children prepare for reading and writing.

When the ground is well prepared over the years before reading and writing is attempted, acquiring these skills is very enjoyable. (1) Physical skills—balance, using the hands, coordination of eye-hand work, learning to concentrate and focus, recognizing sizes and shapes, working with knobbed puzzles, crayons and pencils, and practice in speaking. (2) Mental skills—absorbing and using language, learning the “ sounds” that each letter makes (not the ‘ names’ of the letter) and playing games to break up words into sounds—the “ I spy” game. 3) Social—living in homes where people talk at the table, sits down and has conversations, and read, instead of watching television or “ learning language” on a computer. READING AND WRITING Children should never be forced to read and write at a young age. But the tools to do so, when offered and their use shown, prepare and inspire many to read. This is the sensitive period in a child’s life for knowing the names of everything, including the sounds of letters, and for touching and feeling.

So we offer letters made of sandpaper to trace with their fingers while saying the sound. “ Once we have language at our disposal, we have a key which will unlock many doors” (http//www. daily Montessoriquotes. com) Children often spontaneously “ explode” into writing, which naturally appears several months before reading. Since 99% of written language is in lower case letters, you will be doing the child a favor to begin with these (“ a” and “ b,” not “ A” and “ B”), and with the sounds instead of the names of the letters.

To meet the child’s need to touch and feel, and to learn the names of objects in the environment, we use sandpaper letters. The child feels and says the sound, repeating many times. The traditional sandpaper letters used in the 3-6 class are very sturdy and expensive, but it is possible to make some at home, or for the child to trace letters in meal or sand. For those who were not ready physically to write with a pencil, but who were mentally ready, Dr. Montessori prepared cutout movable letters for their work. Similar movable alphabets are still used in schools today.

Language development in the young child: How a child learns to speak and understand the spoken word is a mysterious process. As long as a child is exposed to some language in his/her early life, s/he will almost always learn to speak. We don’t entirely understand why, but we know this to be true absent certain complications. We can do much to enrich these offerings, to give the child a greater wealth of words at her command, some degree of effort by the child. She must exert herself on the components of our language to build it for herself.

She must mount each of these steps: Step 1: Spoken Language: create an internal dictionary and practice using the words in it Step 2: Phonetic Awareness: learn the sounds within words and the sounds/symbols of our alphabet Step 3: Creating Words (Writing): learn to put those sounds/symbols together to make words Step 4: Reading: Learn to decode those sounds/symbols to decipher words ? Step1: Spoken language we prepare the environment We naturally focus on offering the child rich oral language experiences.

We must adjust the child’s environment, We trust that given the right environment, structure, the child is inherently capable of developing a strong, logical, ordered, and gracious voice. So, there is little direct teaching we do to support the child’s development of oral language. Our work in this regard is mostly indirect and it begins with the child’s surroundings for one of the most significant ways we can offer assistance is by providing the child with an organized and accessible environment. In order to do all this, we need to prepare a space for the child that accommodates his size, abilities, interests, and time table.

His space must give him opportunities to meet his basic needs without interference. There are a few simple things we can do to adapt ourselves to meet the child’s needs in this area. • Repeat new words when they are introduced (e. g. , this is a spoon, a spoon) • Annunciate carefully and speak slowly, at the child’s pace • Allow the child to sense your breath as you speak (i. e. , the child’s face or hands are near enough to your mouth that they have a tactile sensation of how much air leaves your mouth for different sounds) The 3-Period Lesson:

We can use the 3-period lesson to directly teach specific vocabulary for everything in the classroom and home environment. We use real objects, photos/illustrations, and miniatures to facilitate this. For example, we walk with the 3 year old around the classroom. o In period 1, we touch the pencil and say, “ This is the pencil, pencil. ” We touch the box and say, “ This is the box, box. ” We touch the tray and say, “ This is the tray, tray” o In period 2, we ask the child to identify the objects we name. We may say, “ Can you point to the tray? Can you show me the pencil?

Can you find the box? ” It is during this second period that most learning takes place. This is when the child’s body and mind are simultaneously engaged. So we must spend time here, before moving on to Period 3. o In Period 3, we point to each object in turn and ask, “ What is this? ” This is the most challenging part of the lesson because the child needs to find the correct word from all of the hundreds or thousands of words. ? Step 2: Phonetic Awareness Phonetic awareness begins with the child’s knowledge of sounds. The child must be able to hear the sounds in words.

We can help children hear individual sounds by: • Annunciating slowly and carefully • Encouraging the children to speak and pronounce words • Repeating new words • Singing songs • Reading books • Reciting poetry • Playing sound games like I Spy THE “ I SPY” GAME When the child has built up a knowledge of the names of objects by pictures, we can introduce the I Spy Game. We can pick up an object, a ball. Say “ I spy something in my hand that begins with b. ” (Make the shortest b sound, not the sound of the name of the letter bee). We can do this with several objects, maybe the same ones for weeks. Eventually we can use pictures for this game as well. Later we go on to sound out the ending sound “ Something that begins with p and ends with n” (pen), and finally the whole word. This is similar to spelling, but we say isolated sounds, not letters. Lamb would be sounded out as l-a-m. We are not teaching spelling, or reading, we are helping the child become aware of the sounds of language, and having fun, both very important for learning language.

We will be amazed at the ability of a child to later decode words when he has had this game as preparation A child can construct his own machinery and so learn to perception as many languages as he hears spoken about him. ( The absorbent mind P No. 119 The Symbols of Language In Montessori classrooms, there are two primary pedagogical materials used to teach children the sounds that each letter makes and how you can put those letters/sounds together to create words: the sandpaper letters and the movable alphabet.

The sandpaper letters allow children to physically trace the shape of each letter while they say its sound, not its name. The movable alphabet allows them to then put those symbols/sounds together to create words even before their hand can hold a pencil. ? Step 3: creating words (writing) When we think of writing, we think of putting pen to paper. But there is more to it than this. Before one can have success with writing by way of the hand, one must be able to build words in the mind. This is the intellectual component of writing.

It refers to the ability to put letters together to create a word. It can be done even if one has no muscular control of the hands. As such, this intellectual component of writing may develop even before the hand is able to hold a pencil. Our first work in aiding the young child to master writing is to prepare the mind for the work of writing. In order to create words in the mind, the child needs: 1. Self confidence 2. An organized mind (so he can express himself logically) 3. Knowledge of words to form complete sentences 4. Phonetic Awareness 5. The desire to write Step 4: Reading At some point, when the child’s needs for verbal language, for phonetic awareness, and for writing have been met, there is a magical event. The child reads his first word. Just as we can not make an infant take his first steps, this discovery is not something we as adults can make happen. It will occur on its own time table and for reasons that will remain mysterious. We can only prepare the child to make the discovery in all the ways, once this preparation is complete; we continue to find exciting ways to engage them in the language.

For most children who have been prepared as outlined in here, reading begins between the ages of 4 and 6. Once they read their first words, they generally don’t want to stop reading! We continue to guard their growing self-confidence by giving them more and more phonetic words to read. Then we slowly branch out into phonetic words that include phonograms/digraphs the pace of the child as we slowly branch out to non-phonetic words and then first-reader books. As the child gains confidence with individual words, we slowly branch out to phrases.

All of these lessons use phrases to ease the child into the more complex aspects of reading analysis Language materials are designed to enable the child to learn the shapes and phonic sounds of the letters in a way that is completely independent from his perfection of the muscular skill necessary for writing with control. At the same time special but separate materials are used to develop pencil control. In time the child realizes that he can combine the two skills to make words with a pencil. Dr. Montessori called this phenomenon the “ explosion into writing. The Montessori Language materials are extensive and comprehensive. They lead towards writing – or the construction of words -first with equipment such as the Large Movable Alphabet. Reading very naturally follows the word-building exercises. The exercises to work with Montessori language materials namely Insets, Sandpaper letters, Large Movable Alphabet are: • Pink Series – 3 letters phonic words o Objects and Pictures with LMA o Early Grammar • Blue Series – Longer phonic words containing consonants blends o Objects with LMA and words o Early Grammar (phonetic grammar) Green Series – Introduction to consonant digraphs, vowel digraphs, and other phonograms o Phonogram box, Small Movable Alphabet, Sentence Strip, Phonogram Reading Book • Later Grammar (non phonetic grammar)- Noun Boxes, Adjective Boxes, Verb Boxes, Singular/Plural Boxes, Preposition Box. Dr. Montessori designed the metal insets to provide appealing opportunities for young children to practice the component strokes of letters. Appalled by the tediousness of the early 20th century practice of requiring children to make rows and rows of straight and curved lines, she designed an alternative approach.

Dr. Montessori reasoned that tracing complete shapes would be more satisfying for young children and still provide opportunities to refine pencil control. Children of the 1990s often make booklet after booklet of ovals, pentagons, quatrefoils, and trapezoids. As they first trace the frame of the shape and later the more challenging free-standing metal shape, they are gaining fine motor control. Why provide children as young as three and four with opportunities to strengthen hand control in order to write? Isn’t this too young?

And don’t children learn to read before they write anyway? Montessori answered “ no” to both the second and the third questions. She observed children in the slums of early twentieth Rome writing on whatever surfaces (floors, chairs, table tops) they could. Rather than seeing this as misbehavior, Montessori interpreted children’s writing behavior quite literally. She recognized their strong interest in writing. Montessori countered the prevailing practice of teaching reading before writing by providing purposeful opportunities for children to write.

Sandpaper Letters and the Movable Alphabet Long before early childhood educators began talking about multi-sensory education. Montessori recognized that young children learn by touching, listening and looking. She reasoned that stroking a sandpaper letter while hearing the sound of the letter and simultaneously seeing its form provided children with multiple opportunities to learn the sound and the visual shape of each letter. Once children learned to associate sounds and forms of letters, Montessori searched for a way for them to compose words.

She had designed the metal insets to assist the development of children’s fine muscle control and the sandpaper letters to associate the sounds and forms of letters. How could children put these skills and concepts together to form words? Foreseeing struggles with pencil and paper, Montessori provided children with multiple sets of cut-out letters housed in a compartmentalized box. Children could then select individual letters to compose whatever words. Are children reading as they compose words with the movable alphabet? Usually they are encoding (writing) print without decoding (reading).

Montessori recognized writing as the process of sharing one’s own thoughts and reading as the more difficult process of interpreting the thoughts of others. INDIRECT AND DIRECT PREPARATION Process of Writing Writing can be divided into two parts (according to Dr Montessori): The muscular control to write and the intellect to know what to write. Accordingly the classroom is designed to specifically address these needs. Muscular control ? Indirect preparation – First the child is prepared indirectly to hold the pencil using a pincer grip.

This is emphasized in a number of lessons in practical life, sensorial and geography. Other lessons of touch (touch boards and temperature) help the child develop a heightened sensitivity to tactile impressions and this helps the child hold the pencil lightly to enable writing when needed. Finally, there are a number of practical life lessons which enable fine motor skills to enable control and Dr Montessori puts it ‘ a firm hand’. ? Direct preparation – The direct preparation for muscular control involves two materials – Metal insets and sandpaper letters.

Metal insets are geometric 2D shapes made of metal and placed in a square outer piece. The child uses these to draw boundaries inside which to practice using the pencil with control. First the child draws haphazardly and lines go beyond the edges, but with practice he begins to draw parallel lines which stay neatly within the boundary. These exercises serve to develop a control of the writing instrument in preparation for writing. The Sandpaper letters are tablets with letters made out of sand paper glued onto them.

The child feels the shape of the letter by rolling two fingers over the letter in the direction that he would write them. He does this while saying out the sound. This gives him a visual, tactile and auditory impression of the sound, again in preparation for writing. Development of the intellect Finally comes the building of the intellectual power to know what to write. Here Dr Montessori designed the moveable alphabet, which as the name suggests is a set of wooden or plastic alphabets. The vowels and consonants are in contrasting colors.

The child is encouraged to hear the sounds that form a particular word and as soon as he recognizes some letters using the sandpaper letters, he is shown how he can build those words using the moveable alphabet. Usually the child takes great interest in building and analyzing words one he has understood how to hear sounds. The actual writing often comes spontaneously to the child – It is important to note that after preparing the child as mentioned above the child will often spontaneously begin to write often with no assistance from the teacher. Also, often the child writes before he reads.

Process of Reading Reading as defined by Dr Montessori is “ the interpretation of an idea by means of graphic symbols”. By corollary therefore the child reads only when he is able to receive ideas from the written word. In comparison to writing, reading is purely intellectual work (possibly this is also the reason why it often develops after writing). In a Montessori classroom, first the child learns the sounds, then alphabet recognition, then builds words using the moveable alphabet and then moves onto language lessons directly aimed at developing reading.

Often, the child spontaneously bursts into reading when his mind is ready even without specific reading lessons. Preparation for reading – The background preparation for reading is extensive and well thought through like for other learning. First off, there is extensive preparation for left to right and top to bottom orientation. Lessons in practical life and sensorial particularly stress on this. Additionally, lessons in language also stress this orientation. For example matching pictures, opposites and a whole host of classification cards and vocabulary enrichment cards use this orientation.

The other preparation is that of general concentration and control. While this is less obvious in reading, an important preparation is for the child to be still and get engrossed in the subject he is reading about. The lessons of practical life are foundational in teaching this. For example take the lesson in table washing. When the child takes this on, first he gets engrossed in the circular movements to scrub, then in noticing the bubbles and finally needs to really stay focused to remember the otherwise long process to complete the cleaning.

The direct preparation for reading focuses on learning the sounds and building words. The sounds are learnt through sandpaper letters which the child moves two fingers on while saying the sound out. This gives the child the visual, auditory and muscular impression. The moveable alphabet is a tool to help the child practice sounding words and then building them even before he can write. One other skill is language development. The child n the Montessori classroom develops a rich vocabulary through spoken language and classification / enrichment cards.

Additionally, circle time, singing and group conversations help develop more control over grammar and understanding of the spoken word. Child’s full potential…. And of realizing our own along the way. Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone. ( http:// thinkexist. com/quote/maria _montessori/2. html) Many times all this preparation is enough to help the child spontaneously explode into reading. But sometimes, the teacher also gives the child direct lessons in reading. As per Dr Montessori – “ Experience has shown us that omposition should precede the rational reading of sentences just as writing precedes the reading of words. Further, reading that communicates ideas should be mental rather than vocal. Our intention with all of this work is to help children become masters of the spoken and written word, to realize what Dr. Montessori called Total Reading. We want children not only to be able to read and understand the words of others, but to realize their own voice, to trust in it, and to measure everything else against it. This is a much loftier goal than teaching a child to work with the mechanics of letters and phrases.

BIBLIOGARPHY | S. No. | Author | Name of the Book | Publication and Year of Publication | | 1 | Montessori , Maria | The absorbent mind | Kalashetra Publication, 11 th edition, 2006. | | 2 | Montessori , Maria | The secret of Childhood | Orient Blackswan Private Limited , Second edition , | | | | | 1998 | | 3 | http://www. brainquote. com/quote/maria_montessori. tml | | 4 | http://www. dailymontessori. com/maria-montessori-quotes/ | | 5 | http://thinkexist. com/quote/maria_montessori/2. html | . EXPLORING LANGUAGE Children love grammar. It is so exciting to realize that words written on a slip of paper can tell a child which object to choose, or that some words (verbs) mean to DO something, like “ smile,” “ hop,” or “ sit. ” Children love to enact them for each other and guess what the word says.

If we help our children with the physical preparation of the body and hands, listen carefully to our children when they talk to us, set an example of loving to read, and approach giving our children language with the same spirit of fun with which we play other games, we will be doing the most important things to prepare for a successful life of reading and writing . . LANGUAGE OF THE CHILD’S WORLD The most important specific vocabulary words, and the most useful to the child, are the names of the everyday objects in her home environment—clothing, kitchen objects, tools, toys, and so forth.

Your child will be thrilled to know the names and to be able to use them correctly. All we need to do is to use the correct names, and the precise language for everyday objects and activities, in the presence of the child. Then eventually, as she joins us more and more in conversation, the words of the child’s environment will be there. EXPERIENCE FIRST .. THE VOCABULARY OF THE WIDER ENVIRONMENT There is a rich and enjoyable vocabulary, and an interesting introduction to the structure of English available in poems, finger plays, songs, fables, stories, and even great literature that we can give to children of this age.

There is only so much time in a day for reading to children so we should make the best of these times by providing the best in literature and nonfiction that we can find. Even in these early years, we give the language as we present the objects and activities which lay the foundation for many future academic studies. As you look through the pages of Child of the World you will find many opportunities for enriching experience and vocabulary.

We can give the correct names for the toys a child plays with, the colors and shapes of blocks, the parts of a broom or mop, activities such as wash, sweep, pound, pour; adjectives such as hot and cold, loud and soft; in the Earth section the names of the planets, rocks and continents, or the parts of the electric circuit; in the Plant and Animal sections the names of flowers, the fruits and vegetables of the home, the colors of leaves in the fall, shells, fossils, animals of all kinds, and dinosaur models; in the People section the names of flags, coins, vehicles, famous people, countries and states; in the Music and Art sections the names of musical instruments f the world, famous paintings, artists and musician; and in the math section plane and solid shapes, counting systems in several languages, measurement terms. And this is just the beginning. Look around your own home and classroom for the elements that make your particular environments unique, and find the objects, activities, and vocabulary that you can share with children. . Above all, this work must be offered in a spirit of enjoyment and not imposed. Adults really have to forget the tedious process they might have gone through to learn to read, and to approach it in a spirit of fun and ease. The aim of Montessori language curriculum teaching guide book is to help a child develop abilities to communicate effectively.

Quotes The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything! Maria Montessori Read more: http://www. brainyquote. com/quotes/authors/m/maria_montessori. html#ixzz1i2ZKlVJD •   ) “ Once we have language at our disposal, we have a key which will unlock many doors”… Listen to Your Child; Crystal David. ” Language is the central point of difference between human species and all others. Language lies at the root of that transformation of the environment that we call civilization…. Language is an instrument of collective thought… and grows with human thought…. Hence, language is truly the expression of a kind of super intelligence. ….. The Absorbent Mind, Maria Montessori. Language Materials Language materials work to develop speaking and listening skills as well as writing and reading. Oral language activities happen every day and include games such as I Spy and Listen and Do, poems, literature and the sharing of true stories. The letters of the alphabet are presented individually as the child learns the sound and formation of each on a sensorial level, through the use of sandpaper letters, phonetic objects and related materials. Reading follows the child’s construction of words from individual sounds with the moveable alphabet quite naturally. child’s full potential… nd of realizing our own along the way. Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone. [pic] | Language Lessons  | | | Language is a crucial skill and our Montessori classroom has a great range of material for your child. In our classroom, the | | | child first develops a love for stories and then uses the material to spontaneously burst into writing and reading. Often when | | | you ask a Montessori child who taught him writing or reading, he will reply “ I taught myself”. | | | | |. ” The Discovery of the Child, page 239. |

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