What’s new about phonics?

It was at the turn of the last century that Maria Montessori devised her materials for teaching children to read based solely on building phonic knowledge – the sounds made by letters. Yet according to much recent press coverage the present government would have us believe that the idea is entirely new – and even more bizarrely something to do with them!

Should they chance to read some of Maria Montessori’s prolific works or step inside a Montessori school such as Cherry Trees they would, perhaps, be astonished to see that a certain percentage of the population is, and has been for many years, benefiting from this brilliant system of teaching reading. However, it should also be apparent to them that in Montessori schools ‘phonics’ is not just about learning sounds. Montessori philosophy is to teach using all the senses. Thus the initial introduction to sounds is through a multi-sensory approach using sandpaper letters. Nursery children are shown how to trace a letter using their fingertips whilst saying the sound – making use of sight, hearing and touch and committing the experience to the muscular memory.

The child’s phonic knowledge is increased through the use of structured materials which offer him/her the experience of building regular short phonetic words and matching them to the appropriate objects. Only then does the child start work on the ‘reading’ boxes. The materials, which were devised by Maria Montessori herself, lead the child to recognising longer regular phonetic words before moving on to acquiring knowledge of diphthongs and digraphs.

For children to become successful readers it is vital that they are given the opportunity to acquire a sound knowledge of phonics at the earliest opportunity. The Montessori child starts his/her journey along this path whilst in the Nursery, or Children’s House and continues the development of this skill in the ensuing years.

At Cherry Trees School we continue to give our children the advantage of gaining reading skills at an early age by following the philosophy developed by Maria Montessori so many years ago.

Far from being a ‘new methodology’ the teaching of reading through the acquisition of phonic knowledge is tried and tested and, as proved by Cherry Trees pupils, is highly successful!