How to Help a Child Learn to Read in Montessori

Reading is an extremely exciting skill for children and they will be happy to spend a lot of time practicing. As a result, you need many varieties of lessons to help keep them engaged in their work.

The Montessori method of schooling is based around the ideas and theories of Italian scholar Maria Montessori. She believed that the best way for children to learn was in an exploratory environment that catered to their natural instinct to learn, interpret and engage that environment. Even if your child is not enrolled in a school with a Montessori curriculum, you can employ Montessori methods to help her learn valuable, early skills such as reading. Generally, you should not use all of these lessons at once, but rather spread them out over a period of days.

Things You'll Need

• Box of objects with three letter names
• Matching word cards to go with the objects
• Set of picture cards and matching word cards
• Word lists

Instructions

1. Sit with your child at a table. You should each be on the same side of the table so that you are looking at the lesson from the same perspective.

2. Line up the objects in the object box. As the two of you do so, name the objects. Do not start out with more than five objects. If it is unclear what an object is, make sure that you settle on the proper description before you continue. For example, a child may wish to call a cat a "kitty." Since you are teaching reading and the card will likely say "cat," it is important that you both know what kind of word you are looking for.

3. Give the child a word card. Tell her that the word on the card describes one of the objects in front of her, and that by saying the sounds of the letters the two of you will figure out what word it is. For example, you might have a plastic doll's leg and a card that reads "leg." The student should say the sounds of each individual letter in the word slowly, then increase the speed to make the word. The word may start out sounding like this: "Luh, Eh, Guh." Then as you push the sounds together it will begin to form "leg" and the student will be able to match it to the object by placing the card beneath the appropriate object.

4. Work through the stack of word cards and box of objects until each word is matched with an object. You will find that once you have done the lesson together, the child will often be able to repeat it on his own after just one demonstration. This will help with word recognition when he practices the lesson on his own.

5. 

   Do the same exercise that you did with the objects using the picture cards. As before, you will need to establish what each picture is before you begin, then work your way through the stack of pictures and matching stack of words using no more than five pictures at any one time.

6. Finish with word lists. Once a child has worked through the objects and picture cards, she can use word lists of the same or similar words to continue reinforcing the words that she has learned. Word lists are lists of words clearly written, one on each line, on a long card. The child can read the words to herself several times, then move on to another list or another lesson.

Tips & Warnings

• If your child is enrolled in a Montessori school, work with the instructor to make sure that you are using the reading lessons in a way that complements the work that your child is doing at school.

Resources

• Learn more about different types of montessori schools and lessons here.