What would you suggest for reading skill development at home?

[SomedayMom]

I have an almost 5 year old. This is his first year in Montessori. Per my other post, I was apparently concentrating on the wrong area. We had conferences the other day and he's doing well with his math and tends to gravitate towards the math and science type stuff (solar system, geography, etc.). He's doing fine with his writing and reading, but if he needs encouragement anywhere, that's the place.

So, I take the at home attitude of giving my children tools to learn and letting them be kids. I'm certainly not going to sign up my preschooler for Kumon (which is what one of my neighbors raves about...for preschool! and they used Montessori until early elementary but the dad couldnt stand the lack of homework...). I'm not really into sitting down and forcing him to do things. I think he spends enough time in school.

But he likes to play games and I'd like to get him some things that will reinforce what he's doing at school in a low pressure kind of way. What we'll do now is run through letter sounds in the car, playing and spelling with rhyming words in the car. He likes Starfall.com. He loves to be read to and he memorizes books and asks what certain words are. So he seems to want to work on reading, but I am really at a loss as to what else I can provide at home that complements what he does at school. I will say his teacher wants him to work on writing and tracing and we do (however, he seems to have inherited DH's lousy handwriting...)

So...I'm asking here

[babymommy2]

My 5 year old is not one who loves to sit down and practice writing, but he does love mazes, which are pretty good for finer control over the pencil, and he likes to tracing with color explosions(crayola). They are pricy though, 10$/pack and he can whip through the book pretty quick.

[ADirrim]

First of all, I really like the approach that you are taking- trying to provide him with some fun activities to choose at home that would complement his efforts at school without over-reacting and resorting to drilling or pressuring him (which is often very counterproductive- children come to feel that they aren't good at those activities and don't like them, so they practice them even less). The development of most children is not completely uniform (they may really concentrate and make significant gains in one area while appearing to have plateaued in another for a period of time), but it really does balance out in the end (and the Montessori guides will monitor this to ensure that the child receives adequate presentations in all curricular areas and that there are materials in the classroom which are appealing and appropriate to them in order to inspire the repetition necessary for improvement).

Being new to Montessori, he is probably at an initial disadvantage (depending upon what his previous preschool program included), and this is probably what the guide was getting at, but he sounds very bright and I have no doubt that he will come to it in his own time (it does not sound like a real deficiency).

In Montessori classrooms, children generally begin learning their sounds with the sandpaper letters beginning at age three (which is earlier than other methods). They learn the phonetic sounds associated with each letter, trace the letters, and play phonemic games with them; this works very well and the children learn them really easily at this age because they are in a sensitive period for learning language (and these lessons are naturally highly interesting to them). It is common to see children who enter Montessori classrooms later in the cycle are just a little past this sensitive period (they just don't seem as interested in tracing sandpaper letters and sorting phonemic objects) and they may prefer to do work in other curricular areas such as science (learning about the solar system) and cultural studies instead. I remember this really being discussed when I took my Montessori training, so it must be a pretty common phenomenon. Also, Montessori practical life and sensorial materials include a lot of activities for younger children which indirectly prepare for handwriting (by building hand eye coordination, hand strength, and developing the pincer grasp). As a result of this indirect preparation, combined with all of their practice tracing sandpaper letters (and learning to correctly form letters), writing tends to come more easily for children who have completed the Montessori cycle.

I am not exactly sure where your child is at, but here are some suggestions depending upon the skills you are trying to develop:

Phonemic Awareness/Learning Sounds: You state that you "run through letter sounds in the car" and play a lot of rhyming games. I- Spy can be a great game for this. "I spy something that starts with a 't' and rhymes with key. You can also play this game with miniatrues (get creative here and use a set that appeals to his interests) sorting them by beginning sounds or ending sounds (tricerotops starts with "t"). You could play games like giving him a letter of the alphabet and a magazine and set a kitchen timer; he could make a collage of as many things he could find in three minutes that start with that sound. You could also get some flash cards and play games like Memory (great for developing visual memory), or have him sit in front of you while you trace a letter on his back and he guesses what it is (great for developing kinaesthetic memory).

Writing- There can be lots of causes for handwriting issues (lack of hand strength, eye hand coordination, pencil grasp, or problems actually forming the letters). I would try to isolate the cause and remember that there are lots of indirect ways to improve this (working with clay/plastina and pop beads improves hand strength; sewing, beading, woodworking, and other manipulatives imrpove eye hand coordination and develop the pincer grasp), tracing or coloring works (develop pencil control). All of these things can be adapted to meet his interests- maybe a coloring book that appeals to some interest he has and a nice set of colroed pencils, sewing something that he is interested in, etc. If letter formation is the issue- consider mixing it up by allowing him to practice writing letters in a baking sheet filled with sand, on chalkboards, with a paintbrush, and with fingerpaints. Also, encourage him to "help out" by writing whenever possible (making menus/placeholders for dinner, to do lists, grocery lists, etc); depending upon his skill level you can also have him copy things you have written (a thank you note, poem, recipe, etc).

The book "Montessori Read and Write: A Parent's Guide to Literacy" is a good resource. It is full of activities that parents can do with their children that supplement Montessori classroom activities.

Hope that helps!
Abigail Miller
www.bloommontessori.com
www.bloommontessori.blogspot.com

[b_light]

Originally Posted by ADirrim

www.bloommontessori.blogspot.com

I added your blog to my bookmarks. But I had to tell you, that is the most beautiful setup I've seen! I LOVE the shelving, so so beautiful!

Somedaymom - I read your question a few days ago, and while reading some Montessori blogs, I came across this activity

http://mymontessorijourney.typepad.c...r-tracing.html

And it reminded me of your question since you mentioned tracing. Looked like a cute idea, and simple to find around the house.

[SomedayMom]

Thank you! Great ideas! We play I spy in the car all the time, so I can add that aspect to it.

Right now he loves to play "what letter makes this sound" There are some sounds he seems to have a hard time distinguishing (p and g in particular) whereas there are a lot of sounds that he has completely down. Like tonight we were mopping and I said, "we're mopping that starts with the mmmm sound, what letter is that..." and he could spell out M and O based on the sound, but P is hard for him. We ran through a lot of p words anyway and had a blast doing it.

He was in a traditional preschool before and he is at a point where he would have been traditional K ready. But it's so different. They were starting to work on letter sounds this summer before preK. It's so easy to see the benefits of Montessori now. I always thought it would be so wonderful, but it there was not a M school where we were living. My 2 year old is in their toddler program, so I'm excited to see how the whole process goes with him and feel a little guilty that DS1 didn't get the same experience.

[ADirrim]

[QUOTE=b_light;14576876]I added your blog to my bookmarks. But I had to tell you, that is the most beautiful setup I've seen! I LOVE the shelving, so so beautiful!

Thank you! I really appreciate that! I had my husband make them based off of photos of a Montessori school I visited in Bordeaux.