Building Words with the Moveable Alphabet and Objects

Vito is 43 months old.

I am so excited to share that we’ve finally started building words using our moveable alphabet!  I had fun working this with Mavi long time ago and I can’t believe I’m doing this again with Vito.  This is the part of Montessori language arts that I love the most, teaching kids how to read! In my previous post, I talked about how we are using objects and miniatures in learning about letter sounds which is essential in reading. 

Here are my checklist for readiness in reading (based on my experiences with my two kids)

1.  Knows 80% of the letter sound in the alphabet

2.  Pretends to read books.

3.  Pretends to read writings in banners and posters.

4.  Forming his own words using the alphabet.  His word doesn’t have to be readable.

In building words activities, I just followed the 3 lesson period.  I would first invite Vito to sit with me on the floor, and tell him we’ll play a game of making and reading words.  I would take our container of language objects, name each of the objects and place each one on the mat.  I would then show him how to compose the name of each object by making the letter sound and placing the name beside the object.  Once the word is formed, we would then read it together using the same process of making the letter sound and then “blend” it to say the word.  Then the two steps of the 3 lesson period follows:  “what’s this?” and “can you point/show me where is the…”.

Now I have 5 sets of language objects, each set has 6 items all in CVC words.  We are working on one vowel per week, so that means for week 1, we are working on cat, mat, pan, etc.

There are so many items and words you can use, but I will only work around on these sets so Vito and I can do a lot more of reading activities.

SET 1:  VOWEL ‘a’

SET 2:  VOWEL ‘e’

SET 3:  VOWEL ‘i’

SET 4:  VOWEL ‘o’

SET 5:  VOWEL ‘u’

We are currently in our 'vowel e’ week.  Once we’re half way through building words using language objects, I will try to introduce building words using picture cards.  If you don't have enough miniature objects you can also use picture cards for this activity. Sometimes picture cards are better if the child is becomming distracted with miniature objects.  Below is a list of my CVC 3-part cards.

• Montessori CVC Reading Cards Vowel A
• Montessori CVC Reading Cards Vowel E
• Montessori CVC Reading Cards Vowel I
• Montessori CVC Reading Cards Vowel O
• Montessori CVC Reading Cards Vowel U

For younger children who are not yet ready for this activity maybe it will be good to first do some sound games similar to the activity in this post, Beginning Letter Phonics Activity.

And that’s about it for now.  To know more about beginning reading and related activities, I highly recommend Montessori Read and Write and Basic Montessori by David Gettman.

Follow us on Facebook, Pinterest, Google Plus, Instagram or Twitter for updates!  More learning materials at Pinay Homeschooler Shop.

Pin this for later!