How to Teach Reading the Montessori Way

Want to learn how to teach your child to read the Montessori way? There are 6 steps you need to follow!

1. Strengthen Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness is the ability to hear the individual sounds in a word and be able to manipulate them. This pre-reading skill is one of the most important factors to a child's reading success. It is estimated that at least 80% of poor readers lack phonological awareness skills.

There are a variety of sub categories in the phonological awareness umbrella. 

So how can we help our child strengthen this skill? Montessori uses fun hands on games and activities to practice these skills. 

To learn more about phonological awareness and how to teach it check out my blog post :Why is phonological awareness important?

2. Letter recognition with sandpaper letters.

When your child is developmentally ready and interested to learn letters, we teach letter recognition using the Montessori sandpaper letters. To learn what sandpaper letters are and how to use them see my blog post: What are Sandpaper letters?

When teaching letter recognition we typically teach lowercase letters and only the letter sounds using a Montessori 3 period lesson. To learn how to teach letters the Montessori way see my blog post: How Montessori teaches letters

3. Movable alphabet

Once your child knows their letter sounds they can start writing words with the Montessori Movable Alphabet. The movable alphabet is a box of loose wooden letters.

This is a crucial lesson to prepare for reading. It is the ultimate test of reading readiness. The child must be able to identify each sound in a word and it's correlated letter to write out a word. I teach how to use the Movable alphabet and give a free printable in my FREE Montessori Reading Masterclass

4. Phonetic reading

Once your child can successfully build words using the Movable alphabet they are ready to start reading simple phonetic words. Phonetic words are words that follow the most basic reading rules. These are words where the letters make the normal letter sound. For example in the word "cat" each letter makes the normal letter sound. An example of a simple word that is not phonetic would be "car" the "ar" together in the word make a different sound that follows rules the child has not learned yet.

The child must practice blending or sounding out simple words first before learning any additional phonics rules. To learn how to teach your child to read phonetic words check out my FREE Montessori Reading Masterclass

5. Long Vowels

Once the child has learned to read a variety of phonetic words, It is time to introduce long vowel sounds. This is when the vowels in the words say their name instead of their sound. For example in the word "cat" "a" says its sound so it is the short vowel sound. In the word "snake" the "a" says its name making it the long vowel sound. There are two rules that determine whether a vowel makes the short or long sound. 

-The silent e rule

-Vowel teams

The child must be taught both rules and be given appropriate words to practice this concept. In The Montessori Reading Academy I share exactly how to teach these concepts with a video demonstration and free printable activity, practice words and books.  

6. Phonograms 

Last step that we teach in the Montessori preschool classroom is phonograms. Phonograms are when two letters together make a new sound. For example in the word "blue" the letters "ue" make a new sound. There are a lot of phonogram combinations and sounds. The child must be taught all in a systematic and explicit way! This is why I highly recommend following a curriculum to ensure that you are teaching all necessary concept. 

Okay that was ALOT!! If you feel confident that you want to teach your child to read the Montessori way then I highly recommend watching my  FREE Montessori Reading Masterclass I go in depth into each step and actually show you how to present the lesson and give more FREE resources and printables! 

To watch the class now Click Here