Trusting in Montessori!

I decided long ago that Montessori would suit my daughter and I in working towards learning to read and write.  The reasons being that I recognised that she needs structure but in a fluid manner where the lessons moulded to her instead of her being required to march to the lessons.  I also needed a structure to make me feel secure in approaching something that I had never done before!  I approach it differently than traditional Montessori methods in that I bring the materials to her rather than waiting for her to approach the materials as would happen in a Montessori classroom.  I do this because we are at home and it isn't set out as a classroom and therefore I draw her attention to them, presenting things in a way that suits her.  Through the last 18 months of my training I have developed the confidence to take the original materials and adapt them to suit our situation and these photos are an example of that!

We have been working on building CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words and I thought that it was time to introduce reading the words and matching them to the objects so I combined two of the box ideas and wrote out the words as I sat next to my daughter.  She wanted to try doing it and although I hadn't planned on this, it worked beautifully.  So I couldn't guess what word she was writing she was even sounding them out in her head then writing them for me.  Many of the letters were formed incorrectly and some of the vowel sounds were inaccurate but these two were spot on and I was so thrilled! We don't practice writing the letters out - I placed my trust in Montessori and that she would write when she was ready and here are beautifully written letters learned from following wooden letters with her fingers and memorising the feel and the sound of them!

It is so hard to trust that my daughter will learn to read and write and so hard to back off and not push things along at the pace they would be taken in school.  I have seen the value of little and often, seeing her build upon skills every day, as well as the value of leaving it alone for a few weeks and then being amazed by the leap in her capabilities.  I am gradually becoming more confident in my ability to guide her emerging skills. My goal? For her to read and write with the same joy and pleasure that she has in being read to!