Language is not taught

It is something that develops within the child, a faculty acquired simply by living around people that speak. “Children live with people who speak, so naturally they come to speak themselves.”

A child, in his early years, simply absorbs a language unconsciously. His mental mechanism is such that he is able to bring the totality of his mother tongue, with all its aspects, into a whole language and apply it with such ease.

The Montessori method provides the child with the words in order to help him better express himself, providing him with an environment of “speaking people”, and with the tools for intelligent and correct speech.

Using objects familiar to the child facilitates beginning reading. The child is given exercises with reading cards to provide opportunity for practice in reading. As the child goes on, he is presented with words with increasing difficulty. He is thus prepared for exercises like labeling objects in the environment and work with nomenclature cards.

The child is then presented with exercises that introduce him to the function of words in a sentence. Exercises in sentence analysis provide the child with the opportunity to practice identifying the functions of words and how they relate to each other in a sentence.

Word study exercises serve as a follow-up activity for words that he has previously learned. Language exercises prepare the child to move on to further work in grammar and syntax; progressing towards creative writing and total reading.