How do you prepare the child for early literacy in a Montessori prepared environment?
"The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!"
Maria Montessori
Literacy is defined as the ability to read and write - the ability to read and write a particular language or two or even more. Preparing a child for early literacy simply means to facilitate the environment with language-based activities which can lead him/her to the gradual process recognition of letter, their formation, forming of simple words and construction of sentences.
"There are three major aspects of literacy; 1) the complex interrelationship of listening, talking, reading and writing. 2) the roots of literacy located in a general symbolizing development in infancy, and 3) the function fhte symbolizing power in the creation of meanings."
Language and Literacy in the Early Years by Marian R. Whitehead
Language is a system of communication which is composed of set of rules called 'grammar'. Language, at initial stages, is not learned by reading, writing or through grammar. It is absorbed by listening to sounds and voices in the immediate surroundings.
"Listening, talking reading and writing are the four modes of language".
Language and Literacy in the Early Years by Marian R. Whitehead
So, for preparing the child for early literacy is the teacher/facilitator's ability to create an environment and design the syllabus for initiating the process of,
- recognition of the beginning sound of the words spoken
- absorbing the vocabulary, formation of sentences and accent from the surroundings
- developing an ability to differentiate among words as names and actions
- listening to stories and nursery rhymes for the development of cognitive faculty
- learning to express his/her own feelings and share his/her ideas and experiences
- developing and refining the fine motor skills as a requisite for pre-writing faculty
Any flaw in form of lacking any of the above processes may cause troubles in streamlining child's further progress in the area of literacy. I would propose for myself to maintain a record of those children who are passing through the stage of preparation for Early Literacy.
"Writing and reading require instruction of some sort and require 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 sound/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."
Literacy Overview: Language Development in Young Child
Aims and Objectives
Aim: Preparing children for early literacy through language material
Objectives:
- to develop listening skills
- to build vocabulary and language skills
- to refine pronunciation
- to develop interest in books
- to develop memory skills
- to develop and refine fine motor skills
Indirect Objectives:
- Literacy is associated to all other areas of learning; namely, biology, zoology, astrology, botany, history, geography, geology, geometry, etc. It is literacy which enables a child to comprehend the concepts and ideas beyond their imagination and helps understanding the world and the relation between it's elements. I remember the saying of one of my mentor, "All English is hidden in letters A to Z, all Urdu is hidden in letters Alif to Ya and all Mathematics is hidden in number 1 to 9." So, preparing a child for literacy is to give him/her a confidence to explore the world on his/her own and develop feelings of ownership to the world.
Literacy in Pakistan
As the question is being asked in English, I presume that it requires to respond in English and that the term 'literacy' has also been used for English language only.
Urdu is the national language of Pakistan, as well as the main source of communication among its citizens and the neighboring countries. Despite of parents' top most concern of sending their children to school for learning English as a language and of the fact that most subjects from pre-school to higher level are taught in English; English still stands at the third place following the native languages after Urdu. The reason for that is quite obvious, English is being taught mostly by grammar and is not spoken at homes and on streets. Therefore, the children by the age of 2.5 are well-acquainted with either Urdu or their native language and take time in learning English and that is if they are admitted to a pre-school system at an early age.
The current educational system and the general attitude towards English that is it the only way towards progress, prosperity and honour, both have coordinated to crush creativity and learning behaviour in children. That has resulted in lacking reading, writing and speaking skills in both languages.
Planning
Language Skills:
Language skills are the base of literacy. Children absorb words and sentences form their environment. They even reflect accent, expressions and delivery of the adults in their immediate surroundings. It is the job of facilitator to constantly replenish the environment with felicitous methods and fresh ideas.
The first interaction between the child and the facilitator is always verbal on mostly one-on-one basis, therefore, the facilitator must be careful about his/her facial expressions, body language, the voice tone and the choice of words. A handshake with a smile on face followed by a gentle greeting and an offer to visit any of the attractions in the environment is a good stimulation for a child decide to stay there. The process of listening and absorbing words, sentences, grammar and accent begins from here. The congeniality usually leads to little question, usually, 'what is this?' and the facilitator keeps replying by naming the objects, 'This is a horse, this is magnifying glass, this is globe', etc. 'Responding to children's queries at right moments helps building a strong relation with them.
Preschoolers in Pakistan come from a non-English background, bearing that in my mind, the first thing that should be focused on before expecting them to respond in English is to build their vocabulary and enrich it with adjectives and prepositional phrases. Flash cards, book corner and outdoor activity time provide children with plenty of opportunities to learn new words and understand their link to the environment. For example, while presenting them the flash cards of sea animals and using the method of three period lessons, the child can learn the name of those animals and can visualize the difference between their physical structures. Children pick new words and repeat them.
Listening Skills:
The child does not start reading but from the moment when his/her parents or grandparents read stories, which are mostly fictional or when they share their experiences. So, when the child enters the Montessori environment, he/she is often familiar with imagining characters and events. What makes the Montessori environment different from home in regards to 'reading' is the book corner, where books are kept to serve certain purposes, such as, to invigorate child's interest in listening to stories, to introduce new thoughts, to build new vocabulary, to develop cognitive thinking, etc.
'Listening is imperative for speaking just as reading is indispensable for writing.' If I prepare the environment for supporting literacy on the basis of this principal of mine, the book corner will always be the first place to occupy my attention. Dr. Suess's 'The Cat in The Hat', 'One Fist Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish', 'If I ran the Zoo' and 'Yertle the Turltle' will be my first choice as these books attract children because of their colourful pictures, rhyming in short sentences and strange characters. Then the books about animals, places, juvenile picture dictionary, space, solar-system, pop-up books, literature books of Tom Sawyer, Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travel and many more - the purpose of a vast collection of books is to develop the child's listening skills and to refine his/her visualization of the text and pictures.
Literature:
While choosing the juvenile literature, this is important to select the books which enhance child's imagination of places and characters in the novel. For example, the novel of Robinson Crusoe tells the story of a man who accidentally landed on an island and learned to survived on his own for many years. The traveling of Ibn-Batuta describes his means of transportation from Morocco to China. Dr. Suess's books although contain concepts and characters that are beyond children's imagination, but children are yield to listening as they stories are described in short sentences, easy words and in rhyming. Most children enjoy rhyming rather than asking why Thing A and Thing B do things opposite the words said to them or how it is possible for the Little Who community to live on a speck and how a tiny speck serve as a planet to them.
Children's movies and educational videos also has strong influence on children's cognitive and intellectual development and to refine their senses. The ones I chose for my daughter when she was only six months old were Barney, Lamb Chop, Between the Loins and Sesame Street.
The facilitator should avoid to prolong explanation to keep children from losing interest in books and listening to stories. However, he/she should describe the things/objects in a novel or a story in context to geography, biology, history, mathematics and other areas of knowledge.
Phonics
I have developed a philosophy of my own for teaching phonics. It is that the world began with objects, those objects were given names, those names had the beginning sound, later on the middle and ending sounds were also being recognized as the part of the pronunciation, then letters were developed to give those a name. So, I introduce sound through objects, starting with the beginning sound. For example, show the child a real object or it's miniature or the picture and say the beginning sound, 'cu cu cup - this is a cup or f, f, flower - this is a flower'. Sometimes the words and sentences are spoken so speedily that the children cannot distinguish among their sound and repeat them all wrong. Like one of my nephews, when he was three plus called Pepsi - tepsi and Taxi - tapsi. So, what I do is to focus on the beginning sound of the objects way before introducing letters/alphabets to the children.
I consider this the first and the most important step towards literacy.
Some early childhood educational institutions usually introduce letters by sound instead of the names given to them. That confuses the child. Most children have a hard time for years to figure out the beginning sound of 'c' as 's' and they pronounce cycle, celebrate, certain with a 'k' sound. A four year old girl, Rahmah, read 'saw' with sound - sa e wa - and failed to pronounce it as 'saw'. Another child in Fourth Grade, Hassan, still pronounces all words beginning with 'c' as 'k'.
Similarly, children have problem while reading words merely through phonics - cat, pan, bag, wax, was, car, far - food, foot - ink, ice, island - gum, gem, etc.
Memory
Developing memory skills is also the part of Literacy curriculum which the facilitator must focus on. The simple procedure for that is to recall child's recent memory rather than reminding him/her what happened a day or a week ago. Three period lessons is the best strategy to start with and that can be applied not only during proper three-period lesson presentations but also when the child is busy at the farm table or colour table or nature table, or even having fun with 'I Spy Box'. The technique is to not to let the child feel that he/she is going through a process of learning.
Outdoor activities and circle time discussions do help in sharpening memory. A couple of children recall the incidents related to the topic or activity and share it with their fellows, that encourages other children to share their personal experiences. This practice aids children in developing sequences and link of events for writing debates, speeches, essays and stories.
Grammar
Grammar is a quintessential part of the early childhood curriculum and must be acknowledged in its due regards. As it has been mentioned earlier that listening is the key to speaking, the child repeats what he/she hears and listens to. The facilitators and adults in a Montessori should communicate with children in short sentences, should use easy-to-understand vocabulary along with verbal expressions at a steady pace. they should try to speak clear and in a moderate voice during presentations and class discussions. The facilitator can bring out their own planning to introduce grammar conveniently. For ESL children,few words and phrases can be selected on weekly basis and reinforce them throughout the week through different activities. Children at this age have no idea of tenses, the action word they learn, they speak it for all tenses. Instead of telling them that they are incorrect, just repeat the sentence in correct tense few times.
Language Material
Pink Series, Blue Series and Green Box are the three material for developing reading in three levels in a Montessori system.
Pink series is a set of 5 boxes and five books which consist of the words mostly in a consonant-vowel-consonant pattern. It is an introduction to words and sentences with easy three letter phonic words, such as, cup, bus, mat, bat, kid, lid, mop, top, etc. The sight words such as 'an' , 'the' , 'is' , 'you' are also introduced at this level to form sentences.
Blue series is a set of 5 boxes and five books which mostly comprised of four, five or six letter words with blends, such as, fr, cr, cl, br, ck, nk, ng, etc. More sight words, such as, have, were, was, are, are introduced to form sentences.
Theme box is a set of objects that represent a specific topic, such as, farm animals, grocery, sports, etc.
Teacher/facilitators make their own vocabulary cards for grammar, all colour coded, to distinguish among noun, verb, adjective, preposition and conjunction, for singular and plural activity and other language-based games.
Writing
Learning to draw strokes to develop and refine pre-writing skills are an essential part of early literacy. The child begins with scribbling on the scribbling board, slate or papers.
Pincer grip, flexibility of wrist and hand, eye-hand coordination and visual discrimination are the basic skills which need to be refined before giving the child any writing task. Sandpaper letters and Inset for Design serve to attain these requirements.
Sandpaper letters is the material which builds muscular impression of letters for writing by tracing them with index and middle finger. Inset for Design is the material which is designed aids the flexibility of wrist and hand and firm pincer grip. The child traces around the shapes - triangle, rectangle, square, circle, trapezium, pentagon, oval, ellipse, curve-linear triangle and quaterfoil - and learns to draw the strokes that are necessary for writing letters.
Large Movable Alphabets is a material which consists of a wooden box with compartments for 3-d letters, consonants in red and vowels in blue. This is the best material for initiating the process of visualizing the shapes of letters and to put them together to make words even before the child learns how to write them. The material contains more than one piece of each letter, so even if the child does not identify them by their name or sound, he/she can explore the material by matching them, putting them in line, finding similarities between b and d, p and q and n and u. At this point, the child can gradually grasp the sequence of letters, their sounds and making of three letter phonic words.
There are many exercises in the area of 'Activities of Everyday Living' and 'Sensorial' which help refining child's fine motor skills for writing, such as, cutting with a scissor, threading and sewing, dressing frames, knobbed cylinders, broad stairs, etc.
The child who passes through these initial undertakings would certainly develop skills that will help him/her reading and writing independently.
Language skills are the base of literacy. Children absorb words and sentences form their environment. They even reflect accent, expressions and delivery of the adults in their immediate surroundings. It is the job of facilitator to constantly replenish the environment with felicitous methods and fresh ideas.
The first interaction between the child and the facilitator is always verbal on mostly one-on-one basis, therefore, the facilitator must be careful about his/her facial expressions, body language, the voice tone and the choice of words. A handshake with a smile on face followed by a gentle greeting and an offer to visit any of the attractions in the environment is a good stimulation for a child decide to stay there. The process of listening and absorbing words, sentences, grammar and accent begins from here. The congeniality usually leads to little question, usually, 'what is this?' and the facilitator keeps replying by naming the objects, 'This is a horse, this is magnifying glass, this is globe', etc. 'Responding to children's queries at right moments helps building a strong relation with them.
Preschoolers in Pakistan come from a non-English background, bearing that in my mind, the first thing that should be focused on before expecting them to respond in English is to build their vocabulary and enrich it with adjectives and prepositional phrases. Flash cards, book corner and outdoor activity time provide children with plenty of opportunities to learn new words and understand their link to the environment. For example, while presenting them the flash cards of sea animals and using the method of three period lessons, the child can learn the name of those animals and can visualize the difference between their physical structures. Children pick new words and repeat them.
Listening Skills:
The child does not start reading but from the moment when his/her parents or grandparents read stories, which are mostly fictional or when they share their experiences. So, when the child enters the Montessori environment, he/she is often familiar with imagining characters and events. What makes the Montessori environment different from home in regards to 'reading' is the book corner, where books are kept to serve certain purposes, such as, to invigorate child's interest in listening to stories, to introduce new thoughts, to build new vocabulary, to develop cognitive thinking, etc.
'Listening is imperative for speaking just as reading is indispensable for writing.' If I prepare the environment for supporting literacy on the basis of this principal of mine, the book corner will always be the first place to occupy my attention. Dr. Suess's 'The Cat in The Hat', 'One Fist Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish', 'If I ran the Zoo' and 'Yertle the Turltle' will be my first choice as these books attract children because of their colourful pictures, rhyming in short sentences and strange characters. Then the books about animals, places, juvenile picture dictionary, space, solar-system, pop-up books, literature books of Tom Sawyer, Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travel and many more - the purpose of a vast collection of books is to develop the child's listening skills and to refine his/her visualization of the text and pictures.
Literature:
While choosing the juvenile literature, this is important to select the books which enhance child's imagination of places and characters in the novel. For example, the novel of Robinson Crusoe tells the story of a man who accidentally landed on an island and learned to survived on his own for many years. The traveling of Ibn-Batuta describes his means of transportation from Morocco to China. Dr. Suess's books although contain concepts and characters that are beyond children's imagination, but children are yield to listening as they stories are described in short sentences, easy words and in rhyming. Most children enjoy rhyming rather than asking why Thing A and Thing B do things opposite the words said to them or how it is possible for the Little Who community to live on a speck and how a tiny speck serve as a planet to them.
Children's movies and educational videos also has strong influence on children's cognitive and intellectual development and to refine their senses. The ones I chose for my daughter when she was only six months old were Barney, Lamb Chop, Between the Loins and Sesame Street.
The facilitator should avoid to prolong explanation to keep children from losing interest in books and listening to stories. However, he/she should describe the things/objects in a novel or a story in context to geography, biology, history, mathematics and other areas of knowledge.
Phonics
I have developed a philosophy of my own for teaching phonics. It is that the world began with objects, those objects were given names, those names had the beginning sound, later on the middle and ending sounds were also being recognized as the part of the pronunciation, then letters were developed to give those a name. So, I introduce sound through objects, starting with the beginning sound. For example, show the child a real object or it's miniature or the picture and say the beginning sound, 'cu cu cup - this is a cup or f, f, flower - this is a flower'. Sometimes the words and sentences are spoken so speedily that the children cannot distinguish among their sound and repeat them all wrong. Like one of my nephews, when he was three plus called Pepsi - tepsi and Taxi - tapsi. So, what I do is to focus on the beginning sound of the objects way before introducing letters/alphabets to the children.
I consider this the first and the most important step towards literacy.
Some early childhood educational institutions usually introduce letters by sound instead of the names given to them. That confuses the child. Most children have a hard time for years to figure out the beginning sound of 'c' as 's' and they pronounce cycle, celebrate, certain with a 'k' sound. A four year old girl, Rahmah, read 'saw' with sound - sa e wa - and failed to pronounce it as 'saw'. Another child in Fourth Grade, Hassan, still pronounces all words beginning with 'c' as 'k'.
Similarly, children have problem while reading words merely through phonics - cat, pan, bag, wax, was, car, far - food, foot - ink, ice, island - gum, gem, etc.
Memory
Developing memory skills is also the part of Literacy curriculum which the facilitator must focus on. The simple procedure for that is to recall child's recent memory rather than reminding him/her what happened a day or a week ago. Three period lessons is the best strategy to start with and that can be applied not only during proper three-period lesson presentations but also when the child is busy at the farm table or colour table or nature table, or even having fun with 'I Spy Box'. The technique is to not to let the child feel that he/she is going through a process of learning.
Outdoor activities and circle time discussions do help in sharpening memory. A couple of children recall the incidents related to the topic or activity and share it with their fellows, that encourages other children to share their personal experiences. This practice aids children in developing sequences and link of events for writing debates, speeches, essays and stories.
Grammar
Grammar is a quintessential part of the early childhood curriculum and must be acknowledged in its due regards. As it has been mentioned earlier that listening is the key to speaking, the child repeats what he/she hears and listens to. The facilitators and adults in a Montessori should communicate with children in short sentences, should use easy-to-understand vocabulary along with verbal expressions at a steady pace. they should try to speak clear and in a moderate voice during presentations and class discussions. The facilitator can bring out their own planning to introduce grammar conveniently. For ESL children,few words and phrases can be selected on weekly basis and reinforce them throughout the week through different activities. Children at this age have no idea of tenses, the action word they learn, they speak it for all tenses. Instead of telling them that they are incorrect, just repeat the sentence in correct tense few times.
Language Material
Pink Series, Blue Series and Green Box are the three material for developing reading in three levels in a Montessori system.
Pink series is a set of 5 boxes and five books which consist of the words mostly in a consonant-vowel-consonant pattern. It is an introduction to words and sentences with easy three letter phonic words, such as, cup, bus, mat, bat, kid, lid, mop, top, etc. The sight words such as 'an' , 'the' , 'is' , 'you' are also introduced at this level to form sentences.
Blue series is a set of 5 boxes and five books which mostly comprised of four, five or six letter words with blends, such as, fr, cr, cl, br, ck, nk, ng, etc. More sight words, such as, have, were, was, are, are introduced to form sentences.
Theme box is a set of objects that represent a specific topic, such as, farm animals, grocery, sports, etc.
Teacher/facilitators make their own vocabulary cards for grammar, all colour coded, to distinguish among noun, verb, adjective, preposition and conjunction, for singular and plural activity and other language-based games.
Writing
Learning to draw strokes to develop and refine pre-writing skills are an essential part of early literacy. The child begins with scribbling on the scribbling board, slate or papers.
Pincer grip, flexibility of wrist and hand, eye-hand coordination and visual discrimination are the basic skills which need to be refined before giving the child any writing task. Sandpaper letters and Inset for Design serve to attain these requirements.
Sandpaper letters is the material which builds muscular impression of letters for writing by tracing them with index and middle finger. Inset for Design is the material which is designed aids the flexibility of wrist and hand and firm pincer grip. The child traces around the shapes - triangle, rectangle, square, circle, trapezium, pentagon, oval, ellipse, curve-linear triangle and quaterfoil - and learns to draw the strokes that are necessary for writing letters.
Large Movable Alphabets is a material which consists of a wooden box with compartments for 3-d letters, consonants in red and vowels in blue. This is the best material for initiating the process of visualizing the shapes of letters and to put them together to make words even before the child learns how to write them. The material contains more than one piece of each letter, so even if the child does not identify them by their name or sound, he/she can explore the material by matching them, putting them in line, finding similarities between b and d, p and q and n and u. At this point, the child can gradually grasp the sequence of letters, their sounds and making of three letter phonic words.
There are many exercises in the area of 'Activities of Everyday Living' and 'Sensorial' which help refining child's fine motor skills for writing, such as, cutting with a scissor, threading and sewing, dressing frames, knobbed cylinders, broad stairs, etc.
The child who passes through these initial undertakings would certainly develop skills that will help him/her reading and writing independently.
