For teaching languages, it is necessary to know and understand the development of language. If the teacher masters this problematic, he/she is able to help and support pupils to develop their language skills to higher levels.
Children start to absorb the language just from the birth. First three months of their lives, they rely on lip-reading. In six months, they are able to repeat syllables, they babble. Three months later, the words become meaningful. When children reach the age of one year, they intentionally and consciously repeat the words. Later, the things get their names. Around 18 months, they begin to speak. At first, these are only words, then phrases, and at the age of two, sentences. Self-esteem and motivation play very important part in the language development. They can be supported by the prepared environment. If the children feel well about themselves, it will be reflected in everything they do in their lives.
According to Montessori, the child absorbs the language from his/her environment as a whole. The new-born baby is very sensitive and his/her brain is able to highly concentrate on the development of speech. The reason is that certain parts in brain fulfil the function of collecting words. The ears react on the spoken words. The sound is created. The creating of speech is not done on the conscious level. Human can absorb only through seeing and hearing. The best time for this process is in the period from 0 to 3 years, on the unconscious level. The child learns words in this way. The language is not the result of conscious work. The language development is a subconscious act (Montessori, 2003).
Developed language skills are important for building and enriching the basis of reading and writing. It can be reached during the early childhood by inspiring the pre-school child’s curiosity. The children love imitating the people around,
33 therefore it is important to be careful about the language we use when speaking to them (Hainstock, 2013).
2.5.2. Speech
Speech is the most important means of expressing feeling and thoughts. The speech and thinking are interconnected. It is the basis for communication with the environment and people around. The development of speech is held under the certain rules. The sensitive period for speaking is the birth to the age of three and half.
Montessori stresses two periods of the speech development. The first one is on the unconscious level. It is the explosion of words that are absorbed and classified. The first is sound, then syllable, later word, and finally sentences. The second period is the conscious phase. The child of the age 3 to 6 further classifies and creates the structures. He/she starts to express his/her thoughts, name things and completes the sentence structures. It is the sensitive period for language development.
When the child speaks, he/she learns to express his/her ideas in words. He/she needs the feeling of safety and self-confidence. The role of the teacher/parent is to encourage the child, prepare suitable environment that meets the child’s needs. Teacher and parents support the child’s language development through asking the questions, discussing, playing various language games.
Language Games
There are many language games that reinforce the children’s understanding and their competency in language. The well-known game “Simon Says” is an example of introduction to grammar. If the teacher asks children to jump, smile, clap hands, he uses verbs. He/she can ask them to walk fast, speak quietly, stand behind the table, put the bag on the chair, and stresses the use of adverbs and
34 prepositions. It should lead children to reinforce their understanding. It will make teacher to be aware of children’s competency in language.
At the beginning, it is more suitable to start the games through rhymes. Songs are used as a good introduction to phonemic awareness. It is necessary to introduce it in stages. The child begins to distinguish the sounds at the beginning of words, later at the end and in the middle of the words.
Memory games can help to strengthen a visual memory of words. Children can be given messages to pass on, or asked to do simple tasks. These activities refine the children’s memory skills.
Picture Lotto is good for visual discrimination. They can be designed to stress the rhymes, or the words beginning with the same sound.
These pre-literacy exercises are very important for further language development. The teachers/parents’ observation plays a crucial role. They can discover more about the children, their preparation for reading and writing. Then they are able to follow and satisfy the children’s individual needs in language development.
2.5.3. Writing
The sensitive period for writing starts around the age of three and half and lasts until four and half of the child’s age. The four-year child should be prepared for writing. It is the period of formation and development of movement.
Montessori claimed that writing was easier than reading for the child under the age of six. Around this age, the child’s hand becomes fixed. Bad habits will be difficult to correct.
She also says that all the children’s previous education is a preparation for writing, reading and number. The knowledge comes as an easy, spontaneous, and logical consequence of the preparation (Montessori, 1964).
In Montessori system everything starts just from the early childhood. Children go through the exercises of the Practical, Sensorial exercises and Creative activities.
35 Thanks to the practise with sensorial material, children learn how to manipulate with objects softly; they improve the hands and fingers motor skills, the co- ordination of eyes with hands. These indirect preparations for writing are reached by development and perfection of the senses such as sight, touch and hearing. Children learn a correct pincer grip, flexibility, lightness of touch, control of hand, co-ordination hand-eye. They strengthen their visual discrimination and memory. The mind and hand start to co-operate and be led by the will. Children become more concentrated, and heighten their self-esteem.
According to Montessori, writing consists of two elements: the motor mechanism and the intellect. She created two pieces of material for the mechanic mechanism. These are the insets for design and sandpaper letters. The insets for design prepare the child for writing. They hone the pencil grip and control with precision of movement with flexibility.
The sandpaper letters are used to training of writing the symbols. It is a perfect multi-sensory approach to learning. It supports a kinaesthetic perception of the letter shapes, and shows the relationship between the phonic sounds and the kinaesthetic impression. Thanks to the help of this material, children develop their memory of the letters and perfect their visual perception. They will learn direction when writing the letters.
For the intellect, she designed the large moveable alphabet. It offers the opportunity to “write” without proper writing. Children learn to create/build the words from the letters “cut out” letters. Thanks to the colour coded letters, the vowels are in blue colour and the consonants are red, children are able to distinguish the vowels and consonants.
2.5.4. Reading
The sensitive period for development of reading lasts from the age of four and half to the age of five and half. The child gets the information through the written
36 symbols, is able to understand them, and interpret the writer’s ideas. It is necessary to know the meaning of the words, their function, syntax, and understand them.
As stated in the section of writing, at first, the writing starts then reading. Writing is a mechanical process, reading is intellectual. Maria Montessori focused on developing both of them through the movable alphabet. When the child touches the letter, he/she prepares for writing, when he/she hears the teacher to pronounce them, he/she prepares for reading. Using this material activates the auditory, visual and kinaesthetic senses (Montessori, 1998).
Reading helps the development of thinking. The child loves learning new words until the age of three, later he/she is keen on discovering the language.
The phase before reading is speaking. Speaking is a sort of preparation for writing and writing is a preparation for reading. There are about two weeks between the changes in interests from writing to reading.
2.5.5. Early Literacy
This stage of language development leads the child from the basic phonetic words to complex words. Vocabulary becomes more difficult and varied. Child is introduced to the basic grammar rules a in a simple, understandable way.
Maria Montessori prepared three series for the development of literacy. She distinguished the early and later literacy. The early literacy contains two series and grammar introduction. They differ in colour, and level of complexity. The first one is “Pink series”. It is followed by more complex “Blue series” and the introduction to grammar. After mastering these basis series, the “Green series” can be introduced as a part of later literacy (Montessori Centre International, Literacy Skills, Module 9, 1998).
37 Pink series
Pink series is the basis of early literacy. It is the simplest one from all the series. The words used in this section are two- and three- letter phonic words. They follow the pattern of short vowel/consonant or consonant/short vowel/consonant. Some sight words are also introduced. Sight words are words which are non- decodable in the child’s reading development. They have to be learnt through the sight recognition. For better illustration, there are listed some of the sight words: a, an, the, and, he, if, of, I, in, is, that, to, was, look, we, like, come, day, dog, big, etc.
The pink series contains the materials such as Pink box 1, Pink box 2, Pink box 3, Pink picture card, Pink box 5, Pink box 5, Pink reading lists, Pink phrase strips, Pink sentence strips, Capital letters, and Pink level reading books.
Pink box 1
Pink box 1 is a set of six small objects representing two- and three-letter phonic words (such as cup, pig, rat, bag, hat, etc.). Children practise decoding these words into their constituent sounds, are provided to writing without the physical skills needed for writing, and prepare for reading and writing. They choose some objects, name them, find the appropriate letters from the Large movable alphabet and build these words.
Pink box 2
Pink box 2 contains six pictures representing three-letter phonic words (such as bug, mug, net, hen, etc.). The purpose of this activity is to build further words and go on in preparing for the process of writing and reading. Using the pictures and the Large movable alphabet, the same procedure is conducted as Pink box 1.
38 Pink box 3
Pink box 3 consists of six objects representing three-letter phonic words (such as pig, box, lid, pot, etc.) and six cards which correspond with the objects. It enables children the first word reading and provides them practice in sounding out and blending sounds.
Pink box 4
Pink box 4 contains six picture cards representing three-letter phonic words (such as pip, ten, fin, bin, etc.) and six word cards corresponding with the pictures. It offers further practice in reading and expands the children’s vocabulary.
Pink picture card is A4 size pink card with six to eight pictures in two rows. There are separate corresponding word cards. The purpose of this material is to provide children with further reading and enriching their vocabulary. The task is to match the pictures and appropriate words.
Pink box 5
Pink box 5 is sometimes called the “Mystery box”. It contains pieces of paper, folded in quarters. On each paper, there is written two- or three- letter word phonic word. The objectives of this material are further reading practice, developing the ability to read silently and with no contextual clue. It refines the memory skills. Words used in this box should be enjoyable and inspiring for children. It might be words like hop, pop, fan, mad, etc. Children choose one strip of paper, unfold it, read it silently, and refold it.
Sight words
Sight words, as mentioned above, are non-decodable words that have to be learnt through the sight recognition. These words should be learnt during the exposure of the pink series. The sight words are written or printed on the white cards, and are taught through the “Three Period Lesson”. The list of the most common sight
39 words is available on the Internet or in the book by McNally, and Murray, Key Words to Literacy.
Pink reading lists
Pink reading lists are lists of words (usually eight or ten) with a picture at the top of the card. It can be concentrated on the medial sound (i.e. all the words have the vowel “a”), or an initial or final consonant file. It is suitable to use the words that rhyme. This exercise follows the practice on Pink box 5 when the child is able to read words without contextual clues, and should help child to extend reading practice and vocabulary.
Pink phrase strips
Pink phrase strips are a great and important step for the child because he/she is going to read a string of words. He/she tries to be fluent, and read with comprehension.
Capital letters
The lecture about Capital letters can be taught during the pink series, too. When presenting this topic, capital sandpaper letters are used. Usually, they are introduced when they appear in the environment, or in the text in nursery rhymes, in the children’s names, in the calendar. The capital letters are also divided into groups for better memorizing and learning.
Pink sentence strips
Pink sentence strips are pink cards with a picture and corresponding sentence. They are used to increasing reading for meaning, and as an introduction to the structure of simple sentences. Children get to know that the sentences start with the capital letters and finish with a full-stop. The sentences can be structured as in the example: An ant can run. The bed is red. The pin is on the map. It is suitable to create sentences that the teacher can ask about, i.e., Can an ant run? Is the bed
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red? Children learn to respond. One variation of using these strips is to create a set of strips that are related. They can put in order to make a story. It supports the reading with comprehension and logical sequencing the sentences.
Pink level reading books
These books use the words from the pink series. The sight words are written on the cards and attached in envelope to these books. The child can study them before reading to get to know them. Children develop their reading skills and expand vocabulary. Usually, children read aloud and teacher listens to them. It is necessary to discuss the story before and after reading. It is a way how to get the information about the child’s ability to understand.
Example of the sentences in these books: Tom is five. Tom is a dog. It is black and white. Tom is sad. Tom lost a bone. Tom is happy. Tom found a bone.
Blue series
The blue series comes after the pink one. When the child masters the reading phrases and sentences from the pink series, he/she can be introduced to this higher level.
The sequence and principles are the same in both series. It starts with the box 1 and goes on through other boxes until the reading books. The difference is that the teacher helps the child to use the previously gained skills in process of creating the new skills. Children expand their vocabulary and knowledge about the language structure. It is done by systematically introducing new information a stage at a time. The new ones are double and triple blends, double consonants, “ng” and “nk” digraphs (and other consonant digraphs/ trigraphs, “sh”, “ch”, “tch”, “th”), and “schwa” vowel. These changes enable children to learn longer and more complex words.
41 Blue box 1
It is a box with words containing initial double blends. Words could be: tram, pram, frog, drum, etc. Using the Large movable alphabet and pronouncing the word, child connects the visual representation and hearing the blend. It should lead to better understanding and memorizing.
Blue box 2
In this box, the picture cards and the Large movable alphabet are presented. It can be focused on the final blend. The words such as milk, lamb, lamp, and fist might be used. Children are encouraged to find the rhyming words.
Blue box 3
This box focuses on reinforcement the initial and final blends. It can be conducted through reading the words from the boxes 1 and 2.
Blue box 4
The words with initial, final blends, triple blends, double consonants and some digraphs are found in this box, i.e., duck, lock, sock, trick, pack, etc. More times the child reads and sees the words, more easily he/she knows them and understands them.
Blue picture cards
The same principle as in the pink series is applied. It can be focused on multisyllabic and compound words, or words with the “schwa” vowel.
Blue box 5
It is an analogy to the Box 5 in the pink series. It should contain funny words for children.
42 Blue reading lists
These lists are used to practise reading the words from the blue series. It might be focused on double blends, triple blends, or the repetition of a blend, i.e., truck, trunk, trumpet, trust, etc.
Sight words
It is a repetition of the sight words from the pink series. New sight words containing digraphs/ trigraphs can be introduced.
Blue phrase strips
The presentation is done in the same way as in the pink series. However, children have more experience, can build and read more complex words. It is recommended to start from the simple phrases and go on to the more complex one.
Blue sentence strips
The strips contain words from the blue series. They again start from the simple sentences and progress to the complex ones.
Blue level reading
Children have enlarged their vocabulary and enriched their language skills. Now, they are able to read the books with the words from the pink and blue series.