Language Part 1
Today we begin a five part series on Language in the Montessori Classroom.
Acquisition of language skills begins long before a a child sets foot into school. The sound of the mother’s voices cues the ears and brain of a developing child to the lifelong interaction of the child listening to the human voice. As a preschool child enters a Montessori classroom, “the child’s own tools for language are vision, hearing and speech, as well as the skills necessary for writing and reading.”** The entire preschool classroom is set up for the student to develop their vocabulary by learning the objects in the environment, and various attribute words such as large, small, long, short, think and thin. Many of the attribute words are learned by the child manipulating materials in the sensorial area of the classroom (including the brown prisms, the red rods and the pink tower, just to name a few).
The practical life area of the classroom holds the key to the development of eye hand coordination and creating a lasting impression of doing work from the left to right, in the same way a child will learn to read from left to right. “Thus in scrubbing the table from left to right and back, the eyes are following the movement of the hands. The child needs to develop a good visual span.” “Preparation of the eyes and the hands is an important factor in the Montessori classroom. The use of the practical life material not only prepares the hands but the eyes also. Eyes follow the movement of the hands. In the practical life area, the child uses the whole arm, thus giving the movement necessary to prepare the arm for its role in handwriting.”**
“The repeated use of sorting exercises prepares the fine muscles of the child’s hand to hold a pencil but also prepares the eye to distinguish between like and unlike objects. This is a good preparation for reading in that reading is the recognition of like and unlike letters and words in the formation of language which is written.”**
**Montessori Research and Development @2006
Join us on Wednesday as we continue our look at Language in the Montessori classroom.