09 May Fostering a love of reading in your child
When it comes to reading, the Montessori approach is a bit different to mainstream education. Montessori aims to teach reading and writing to children before they reach four years of age, and then, only if the child shows an interest in learning how.
Activities to get kids to read begin as early as six months, however, this doesn’t mean that an infant is taken through their ABCs and pushed to learn. Learning with the Montessori method is quite different, and the activities are formulated to engage motor skills, developing the pincer grip and strengthening hands. These exercises are also created so that they are performed from left to right, in the way that we read to begin developing muscle memory.
What provides the framework for teaching reading the Montessori way is an emphasis on phonics, visualisation and reading with comprehension. Kids get to have fun while they learn at their own pace and don’t have to compete with other children in order to keep up.
The entire approach is child-led. This gives them the space to explore reading in a more organic way. And when children do begin to show an interest in letters and words, you can display an alphabet poster or board in their room. Let them take it down when they fancy it, and don’t force them to sit and learn the letters. Their learning pace will unfold.
You can help to encourage their interest through engaging in story time with your child. This involves reading your child a story of their choice and letting them know that one the favourite parts of your dayis story time. Don’t force your child to sit through the story if they don’t want to. Stop when you see them losing interest.
Take the time during your story time sessions to cuddle and get close with your little one. This fosters a sense of wellbeing and aligns stories and reading with being in a safe, cosy and welcoming space.
A great way to get them interested in reading is getting them to interact with you while you read. Ask them questions about the story, or even the pictures in the book. Let them ask the questions they want to, and to make their own observations. Not only will this help to increase their vocabulary, it also strengthens their relationship with books and reading.
Let your child learn through play. This is a wonderful, no-pressure method to let them have fun and explore words and letters. A popular method is to keep letter baskets or buckets handy. These are baskets or buckets that contain a single letter of the alphabet, and several items associated with that letter. For example, a “B” basket may contained a bear plushie, a book and a picture of a baby. You can always change up the items to help your child learn new words.
Let your child decide which materials and items they want to use for these learning sessions.
Play time with other children is also as way to add to their vocabulary. Not only will your child learn how to be part of a team or friendship group, they will have fun, have time to socialise and quite possibly walk away having shared and learned some new words!
The Montessori method also seeks to introduce “real life” items to children before showing them pictures of these. For example, before showing them a picture of an apple, show them the actual apple. Let them hold it and play with it. This helps your child identify these items out in the world, and will also be able to associate the names of things with the things themselves.
Maria Montessori believed that children have the innate ability to read once their curiosity and interest is piqued. Our task, then, is to gently guide their curiosity and allow them to fall in love with written and spoken word in their own time.