The Montessori approach to help your child after the start of the school year

Toys, games and other Montessori supports that help your child in his learning

Are you a follower of the Montessori method? Do you want to offer little games to your child at home to help him understand what he is learning at school? On the occasion of the start of the school year, it’s time to take a look at his first lessons. From the great section of Kindergarten and CP, he will discover letters, graphemes, words, and numbers. There are many games, books, and boxes to help them progress, at their own pace, at home. Decryption with Charlotte Poussin, Montessori educator and member of the board of directors of AMF, Association Montessori de France.

Learn to read and write at any age

Maria Montessori wrote: “When he sees and recognizes, he reads.” When he touches, he writes. He thus initiates his consciousness through two actions which, in turn, will separate and constitute the two different processes of reading and writing. Charlotte Poussin, a Montessori educator, confirms: ” As soon as the child is attracted to letters, he is ready to learn to discover letters. And this, whatever his age “. Indeed, for her, it is essential to pay attention to this key moment when your child shows his curiosity for words. The Montessori educator explains that “some children who were not offered the opportunity to learn letters when they were sensitive to it, suddenly” you are too young “or” he would be bored in CP … “, Are often those who will have learning difficulties in reading, because it will be offered to them at a time when they are no longer interested”. For Charlotte Poussin, “when the child is ready, he often manifests it by naming or recognizing letters from those around him, or by recurring questions such as, ‘what is written on this box, on this poster? “. This is when the letters should be presented to him. “Some people then absorb the entire alphabet, others much more slowly, each at their own pace, but easily if it’s the right time, whatever the age”, details the Montessori educator.

Offer suitable equipment

Charlotte Poussin invites parents to focus first and foremost on the Montessori spirit, even more than on the material, because the associated philosophy must be well understood. Indeed, “it is not a matter of a support to illustrate a didactic demonstration, but of a starting point which, thanks to the manipulation, allows the child to appropriate the concepts while moving very gradually towards abstraction, by repeating the activity when he chooses it. The role of the adult is to suggest this activity, to present how it is done and then to let the child explore it by withdrawing, while remaining an observer », Indicates Charlotte Poussin. For example, for writing and reading there is the rough letter game which is an ideal sensory material for tackling the Montessori approach at home. It involves all the senses of the child! Sight to recognize the shapes of letters, hearing to hear sound, the touch of rough letters as well as the movement you make to draw letters. These tools specially designed by Maria Montessori allow the child to enter writing and reading. Maria Montessori wrote: “We do not need to know whether the child, in his further development, will first learn to read or write, which of these two paths will be easier for him. But it remains established that if this teaching is applied at the normal age, that is to say before 5 years, the small child will write before reading, while the already too developed child (6 years) will read before, engaging in difficult learning. “

Promote games!

Charlotte Poussin also explains: “Once we feel that the child is ready to start reading because he recognizes enough letters, we offer him a game without telling him in advance that we are going. “read”. We have small objects whose names are phonetic, that is to say where all the letters are pronounced without a complex such as FIL, SAC, MOTO for example. Then, one by one, we give the child small notes on which we write the name of an object and we present it as a secret to discover. Once he has deciphered all the words on his own, he is told that he has “read”. The main advantage is that it recognizes letters and associates several sounds together. Charlotte Poussin adds: “In the Montessori method for reading, we do not name the letters but their sound. Thus, in front of the word SAC for example, the fact of pronouncing the S “ssss”, the A “aaa” and the C “k” makes it possible to hear the word “bag” “. According to her, it is a way of approaching reading and writing in a playful way. For the numbers, it’s the same! We can make nursery rhymes in which we count, play counting objects chosen by the child and manipulate the rough numbers as for letters.

Discover without delay our selection of games, toys and other Montessori supports to help your child to familiarize himself with the first school learning very easily at home!