sound. Match your challenge to the child’s
ability; better too easy than too hard. If they
make an error, do not correct them. Instead,
move back to the first period. For example,
if they bring you the buh and you asked for
the mmmm just say, “You brought me the buh.”
Then, walk together back to the table and repeat
the first period.
Period 3: When you are 100 percent sure that
they know the sound, move on to the third
period. Point to a letter and say, “What sound
does this make?” This is the final test of their
knowledge. It may take a day or weeks before
they succeed at the third period. Don’t go here
too soon.
An entire Sandpaper Lesson should only take
a few minutes. Do not belabor it. Continue
for as long as the child is interested and leave
them wanting more!
Phonograms
After this first lesson (the presentation),
we can stretch right out to include one pink
consonant, one blue vowel, and one green
phonogram in every lesson! That’s right, very
young children can learn phonograms! (Phonograms
represent sounds of a single or multiple
letter group, i.e. e or augh.) In fact, it’s
really important to include the phonograms
at this early stage. For the young child, learning
that two letters makes a certain sound
is no different from learning that one letter
makes a certain sound.
We adults like to hold phonograms off until
later, but that is an error. The young child is
incredibly interested in learning about letters
and their sounds. We do them a disservice
by restricting them to single letters. Why?
Because in English you can’t make all of our
words with just the single letters of our alphabet!
You need s and h to make shoe. You need t
and h to make thunder. If we don’t teach them
the letters that go with those sounds, the child
will realize that s/he doesn't know part of our
language. This omission lays the ground for
the child feeling inferior or thinking that they
aren’t good with language.
By teaching phonograms at this early stage,
we prepare the child to start writing any word
they like with the Moveable Alphabet. For
more information on phonograms, see our
blog post Phonograms Made Easy. For more
information on the Movable Alphabet, scan
through our pedagogy blog for the different
articles we’ve written about it. (As an aside,
my graduate research at Harvard focused on
the Movable Alphabet and its use as an indicator
of developing literacy. If you’d like to go
deep, read my thesis. I find this subject area
fascinating.)
So, we use the three-period lesson as we trace
a letter’s shape, say its sound, think of words
that feature the sound, and challenge our students
to find the letters that make each sound.
Our goal is for them to recognize the sounds
that each letter makes. So, if we asked them,
“Can you find the lllll, they could go and find
the letter l Once they can do that, we can introduce
the Movable Alphabet (https://www.
maitrilearning.com/collections/movable-alphabets)
so that they can build words.
Additional Activities
Not every child just seamlessly moves from
the 3-period lesson to being able to recognize
all the sounds. They may resist having
lessons with us. They may comply but fly
quickly through the lesson to be “done with
it.” If you've added distance to the 3-period
lesson and they're still not motivated, don't
worry. There are many other activities we can
do with the Sandpaper Letters to rouse the
child's interest. You can read full details in
our Sandpaper Letter Lesson plan. But for
now, here’s a list to whet your whistle:
Knock-knock game
Trace the table/air
Sorting
Connections
Blindfolded trace
Link to the environment
You can start with the above activities once
a child can recognize (at the second period)
about half of the letter sounds. Inspire them
to play one of these sandpaper letter games
most days.
Remedial Lessons
With some children, even all of the above
activities are not enough. Even with practice,
they may mix up letters that they seemed to
know the previous day. They may not be interested
in tracing. It could be that they started
when they were a little past their sensitive
period (a time when they are physiologically
driven to trace letter shapes). It could be that
they have dyslexia. Or, it could just be that
their interests lie elsewhere. In any event, we
must help them persist so that they can learn
the letter shapes and sounds. You will have to
practice with them every day (just like brushing
their teeth). There are many options for
conducting these remedial lessons as shown
below. Keep each day’s practice light, short,
and fun. Repeat at least one letter every day.
Choose no more than three letters at a time.
Here is a list of possibilities. Again, you can
read the details in our Sandpaper Letter Lesson
plan.
Sand tray
Small group
Cued distance displays
Mystery bag with letters
Whatever you do, never use worksheets for
tracing or copying letters unless you are an
interventionist doing remedial work with an
older child. Tracing the letters on the table,
the air, sand tray, etc. requires the child to rely
on muscle memory to create the letter and
that is the key. Worksheets rely on drawing/
visual matching; it is a completely different
skill and uses different brain areas.
I hope you find this useful.
Julia Volkman, Maitri
Learning’s Founder
and President, has
been teaching children
and mentoring teachers in private
and public schools since 1997. She is a
recurrent teaching fellow for Harvard
University's Neuroscience of Learning/
Mind, Brain, Health, and Education
course (Extension School) and a
Montessori Mentor consulting with
public and private schools across the
nation. Ms. Volkman earned her AMI
3 to 6+ diploma from the Montreal
Montessori Training Centre, a bilingual
program. She earned her master's degree
from Harvard University.
www.maitrilearning.com/blogs/
montessori-pedagogy
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