MONTESSORI TEACHER ALBUMS - Children's House (3-6) - Written Language Exercises

Written Language Exercises

The oral language is spoken, heard, and then disappears. The written language is here forever. There are many stages in the teaching of writing but in the end, the child will not only learn to write, but he will be on his way to reading. With what the child has learned from his Oral Language lessons and these new two tools, the child will have almost fulfilled the entirety of being fluent in his home language.

When the written language is taught to the child, the directress will always start with something the child knows. She will begin with the use of symbols that each represent a sound, otherwise known as the alphabet. Then the child will learn the keys of the written language such as grammar and syntax. Using the newly learned sounds, the child will be able to quickly put sounds together in a correct order to form a word that has meaning to him. For example, the sounds "h - a - t" will no longer just be individual sounds. The child will put the sounds together to form the word "hat".

Through the child's ability to write, he will become part of a civilization that can record their thoughts, history, and achievements. Writing is a social tool the child will use forever. Through writing the child will be able to communicate, to express himself, he will gain independence, and will develop socially.

Writing is not only a necessary tool in our society, it is building foundation for reading. Through the child's work with sounding out each sound in a word, he is indirectly preparing himself to the tools he will be using when he begins to read. When the child begins to use the Moveable Alphabet to create words from their sounds, he is directly preparing himself for reading. Once the child arrives are the point of reading, writing and reading begin to take a parallel road. To give the child the reward of how to preserve his thoughts and to later read about others' is a great privilege the directress has the honor of undertaking.