Teaching letters and their sounds is truly an important part of learning to read.
When teaching sounds it is important to know the correct sounds of each letter. I know that prior to Montessori teaching I wasn't even aware of the correct sounds of some letters and I've still be learning to hone my skills in the last few years. Before teaching ensure you know the sounds of each letter of the alphabet. Find a list that relates to your country and vernacular.
In Montessori it has been traditional to teach the letter sound and only introduce the letter name once the child has the sound firmly in mind. Piasta, Purpura, & Wagner (2010, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology) found that children taught letter names and sounds together learned more sounds than children taught sounds only. In fact a 2000 meta-analysis of over 50 studies found that phonemic awareness instruction was almost twice as effective when letters were presented along with the sounds
So how can we grow these skills while holding onto Montessori pedagogy?
There are some traditional Montessori games and activities we can easily modify to help grow this vital knowledge.
Activities to help with sound knowledge.
Sound games: Bring three or four objects to the mat. For some children two may be plenty. Use your own judgement.
Introduce 3 contrasting sounds. Focus on singular sounds e.g. /s/ not digraphs like /ch/
Example: You could bring a pencil, crayon, book.
Point to each and give the name of each saying the word normally.
Repeat again this time exaggerating the starting sound in this fashion “This is a /pppp/ pencil. The name of the letter is P that makes the sound pppp.”
Ensure children look at your mouth when you make the starting sound.
Keep a list of the items you are using and remember to bring down the same items the next lesson.
After a few lessons ask the child/ren “Can someone tell me the object that starts with /cccc/.
When confident with the initial objects used you can add one or two more items to the collection that have different initial sounds to those on your tray. For example I might add a hat.
You can then start again with a complete new set of items.
ELKONIN OR SOUND BOXES
Elkonin boxes are a teaching tool used to help children develop phonemic awareness — the ability to hear and segment individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words.
Here’s how they work:
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The boxes are usually drawn as a row of squares.
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Each square represents one sound (not necessarily one letter) in a word- so a box could contain ch to represent the 'ch' sound in chip
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As students slowly pronounce a word, they push a token, chip, or write a letter into each box to show the sounds they hear.
You will need an Elkonin box template and counters/tokens/buttons. Use only short 3 or 4 letter words. Avoid using digraphs (ch/wh/th/ph/sh or r blends (or/a/er/ir/ur)) and keep to individual letters that each keep their own distinct sound.
NOTE: Some neurodivergent children might be particularly engaged with these if you ‘decorate’ the elkonin box sheet with one of the child’s favourite interests. This can be as simple as printing off a picture of the child’s interest and glueing it at the bottom of the page. Additionally some children may be more engaged if the tokens’ relate to their particular interest e.g. you could print off 20 D counters in the shape of a particular character.
Say a simple cvc word e.g. ‘cat’
Say to the child ‘We are going to break this word up into its sounds. Each time I hear a sound I am going to put a counter in a box’
Say /c/ - place a counter in the first box
Say /a/ - place a counter in the next box
Say /t/ - place a counter in the next box
Ask the child how many counters you have placed (3).
‘The word ‘cat’ has 3 sounds.
Repeat with other cvc words.
Once the child is very familiar with the activity ask them what the beginning sound is, then the end sound and then the middle sound. For some children this process will take a long time e.g. weeks.
DOES NOT START WITH
Give the child four pictures. Three of the pictures start with the same sound. One is ‘wrong’ the child places a peg on the ‘wrong’ card. This is a great shelf work that obviously works best once the child has had lots of adult interaction with listening and hearing initial sounds.
SANDPAPER LETTERS OR MATCHING SOUNDS TO LETTERS
Sandpaper letters were designed for children younger than 6. If you are learning letter formation and connection of sound to letter with children older than 6 sandpaper letters may not meet the developmental needs of students. The point at this stage is to make the connection of the sound or phoneme to the grapheme (the letter representation), In small batches of letters introduce the letter that matches the sounds.
As more sounds are introduced constantly revise the previous letters and their sounds.
For most students introducing two or three sounds at a time will be enough. Introduce the letter. Say its name and then tell the child the sound the letter makes ‘This is the letter s, it makes the sound /sssss/’ Check knowledge with a three period lesson.
For some children this is a lot of information to take in and can be quite ‘dry,’ songs and actions e.g. waving your arms around to be a snake that introduce the letters may be of particular benefit to some students. Check online for particular songs relevant to your country and culture that introduce particular sounds.
SUGGESTED BATCHES TO INTRODUCE LETTERS AND SOUNDS IN:
Set 1: s/a/t/i/p/n
Set 2: c/k/e/h/r/m/d
Set 3: g/o/u/l/f/b/y as a consonant e.g. in yawn
Set 4: q/j/z/w/v/x/y - as a vowel that makes the long e sound and y as a vowel that makes the long i sound as a vowel.
Have a set of small objects or pictures. Students can place the objects under the moveable alphabet letter that matches the sound. It is suggested the letters and objects be placed into batches that match the above sequence.
