Montessori teachers, a literacy question

[Lousli]

Hi,
You probably already know me as the classroom assistant that just applied for AMI training. In the meantime though, I'd like to help my head teacher out with some things. We have some students that either did not attend Montessori at the 3-6 age range (we're 6-9) or didn't pick up on the literacy skills they needed as much as we hoped they would during the sensitive period. So now they aren't in that period, and we are trying to think of some alternate ways to teach literacy skills. We have a small group of students that are struggling with the key sounds (long vowel sounds, especially other than vowel consonant e) and with blends/digraphs/endings (ing, ck, nk, etc.) Any ideas for lessons, jobs, materials, that would be of help? Other than books, obviously. We've been doing a little word sorting but we need more than that.

[Lillianna]

Well, I don't know much about the specific materials used in the 6-9 class for reading fluency, but you may get some replies if you post this question on the teacher's net website. There are some elem. teachers there who may be able to help you: http://teachers.net/mentors/montessori/
Just curious about where your head teacher did her training, AMI? AMS? Other? It seems odd to me that she doesn't have lessons and materials to address these issues. Are they interested in flash cards? Does she have any function of word or sentence analysis materials? These activities would (indirectly) help the child to sort through some reading issues because the focus is not on reading, it's on labeling parts of speech/parts of a sentence. They are done in a group so the children can help one another with words they are unsure of. Any books we give to a beginning or unconfident reader would be very short and there are lots of them. So the child experiences lots of success, there is alot of repetition and no pressure. We also do lots of labeling of the environment. This is fun and a great way to include a variety of phonograms and puzzle words (ie: sink, refrigerator, washing machine, etc) In the 3-6 class there are many materials that address these concerns; Phonogram alphabets, booklets, puzzle words, reading classification - all of which have multiple exercises and extensions.

[Lousli]

Oh she has AMI training, and the materials. I think we're both feeling, esp with those that have already had 3 years or more of Montessori, that we might have to try some new approaches. We did just order a huge number of books in varying levels for our class, as well as some flashcards! We haven't tried labeling the environment yet, but I'll suggest that.