Why We Teach
To Develop a Strong Foundation of Language Skills
The purpose of our Lower Elementary language arts program is to ensure that our students are able to read fluently with joy, and write articulately with ease. Strong language arts skills are essential to all future learning. Between the ages of 6 and 9, children are moving from acquiring language, to mastering it. At LePort, we provide them with developmentally appropriate work to both learn key skills, and to apply them repeatedly, until they become internalized and second nature. Once internalized, their conscious, deliberate effort can be fully directed to the intellectual content of the material being written or read.
Our language arts program in Lower Elementary (Grades 1-3) has three main goals:
Writing mechanics mastery. To succeed in the higher grades, and to do well in life, students need to master the mechanics of writing—handwriting, spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar. To achieve such mastery, they need to practice these skills repeatedly. The goal is automaticity: only when a child can accomplish the mechanics of writing without deliberate thought can he fully free up his mind for deeper thinking and creative writing.
- Fluency in reading. Learning in the higher grades largely occurs through reading. Reading fluently and with clear comprehension is critical to success in school, and is the entry ticket for enjoyment of literature and reading for pleasure. Our students read constantly, to themselves, to their peers, to their teachers, and we equip them with the vocabulary and academic skills (such as dictionary usage) that enable them to be fluent readers by 3rd grade.
- Enjoyment of language arts. We believe that students learn best when they are internally motivated by what they do. That's why we offer a range of activities for our students, activities in which they apply what they learn in meaningful ways. From writing journals to our daily literature reading club, our goal is students who love to read and write, and who are confident in their ability to exercise these capacities.
How We Teach
Self-Paced Learning, Systematic Instruction and Detailed Feedback; A Multitude of Activities—and Lots of Opportunity to Apply Through "Work"
At first sight, our Lower Elementary (Grades 1-3) classroom looks similar to our preschool classroom: each is a large, open, bright space, framed by low open shelves stocked with educational materials for children to explore. There are a few key differences, however, in how the classrooms operate.
Our language arts program follows our overall approach to teaching:
We maintain children's interest by offering many interesting activities for whatever we teach. We don't expect students to complete worksheets day-after-day. Instead, we combine physical materials, such as movable card sets or grammar symbols, with drama (such as reading command cards); we teach spelling as students write, and as they edit their own and their peers' work.
- We teach skills sequentially, carefully building our students' knowledge step-by-step, breaking down skills into component parts that they can master. (For details, see the grammar example below.)
- Our program is self-paced. By the nature of the Montessori approach, our students work alone or in small groups. This allows each student to progress at her own pace: one student may spend more time on vocabulary, another on grammar, and another on reading comprehension. As we don't have grade levels, an advanced reader in first grade can join a second or third grade level book discussion. We also provide plenty of personal, interest-based choices—which essay theme to explore, which science topic to research, which supplementary novel to read, etc. Language thus doesn't become a boring chore, but an opportunity for exploring a child's own interests.
We provide plenty of personalized attention by our teachers. Our typical student-teacher ratiois 12:1. This enables us to edit every piece of writing a student does; to have each student read aloud to us; and to offer small group instruction in grammar. We never wait until amonthly quiz to see if students have grasped content! We know where each student is, every day, and tailor the student's next set of lessons to suit her individual needs.
- Our environment is designed to foster quality language work. Visit our classrooms, and you will see high-level writing and reading going on constantly. This open set-up enables students to see all the fascinating works they too can explore; the multi-age environment inspires our younger students to imitate their more advanced peers.
How Montessori Language uses multiple materials and a systematic approach: Grammar Example—The Adjective
Our Montessori grammar program introduces students to analyzing language by assigning symbols to each part of speech, and by communicating explicitly the role that words play. For example, when we introduce the concept adjective (after we teach noun and article), our teacher starts by describing something in the room (e.g. "a metal box"), and asks students to do the same (e.g. "a red sweater"). She then explains that adjectives describe which kind of noun we are talking about. She concretizes the role of article, noun and adjective by likening them to a family: the noun is the mother, the article is the baby (they always go together), and the adjective is like a little girl, who may or may not be with the mother.
Montessori uses the shape of a triangle to represent "the noun family"— a big, black triangle for the noun, a small, light blue triangle for the article, and a medium-sized, dark blue triangle for the adjective.
Once students have been introduced to a grammar concept, they practice using it with the Grammar Boxes. These boxes contain phrases (e.g. "the clear water"), and the words that make up the phrase on color-coded cards ("the" is light blue, for article, "clear" is dark blue, for adjective, and "water" is black, for noun) in color-coded compartments. The children take a phrase—then find the words in the appropriate compartment, and recreate the phrase from the appropriate cards. As the teacher presents this work, she illustrates it by having the students bring her the things the phrases describe (for example, a glass of clear water), further concretizing what the concepts mean. Last, she guides the children to place the appropriate grammar symbols above the cards—providing another visual clue, and creating a visual pattern for the phrase that helps students understand and retain what they learn.
Students practice each grammar concept at their own pace, until they master it. For example:
- They work through a series of five different Adjective Filing Boxes.
- They draw objects, and label them with the article/adjective/noun phrase, including drawing the appropriate symbols over the words.
- They write sentences with the article/adjective/noun phrase, including drawing the appropriate symbols over the words in the phrase.
- They write adjective lists to describe objects in the classroom, or in books they are reading.
- They integrate lessons across subjects—for example, using adjectives to describe different triangles in the geometry area of the classroom ("the small red obtuse-angled triangle").
Later grammar lessons build upon and connect to these early lessons. For example, when students analyze sentences, the attributive symbol is a triangle—a blue one for an adjective, a black one for a noun.
The sentence "Mom made Henry a sweet cake" would look like this with the Montessori sentence analysis symbols:
Using consistent symbols and colors and systematically analyzing words and sentences, makes grammar readily accessible to our students—and prepares them for the advanced study of grammar which will begin in 4th grade. It is a natural step to go from the graphical analysis in the Montessori classroom to the formal sentence diagramming methodology of the Upper Elementary and Junior High program.
What We Teach
Writing Mechanics, Reading Skills and Enjoyment of Literature
In our Lower Elementary classrooms, writing and reading are everywhere, and we invest in coaching each student one-on-one, every day. Our language arts program has six main components.
- Writing mechanics. Our goal is to graduate students who have become proficient in the basic process of writing. We teach neat, fluent handwriting (especially to students who join us from outside, without Montessori primary experience). Our students practice cursive writing from day one (asagainst the common public school practice of teaching block letters, and then re-training students to cursive in grade 3). As students start writing sentences, we introduce the mechanics of punctuation, capitalization, where to place sentences on the page, and how to construct well-written paragraphs.
- Word study, vocabulary development & spelling. Our students build their vocabularies and improve their spelling primarily through word study. By understanding common suffixes and prefixes, students are given a tool for interpreting and decoding a range of words. With our popular word building materials, students explore compound words and root words. After some basic practice with these materials, students apply what they've learned by thinking of their own words and using them inwriting.
Grammar. Grammar is the structure of language. At LePort, we present grammar simply and coherently, using a wide variety of activities that keep our students interested. We teach parts of speech (verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc.) and guide students to analyze sentences and understand the role of words within a sentence (subject, predicate, object, etc.)- Applied writing. Our children are motivated to learn and enjoy the opportunity to apply what they have learned in a wide variety of written forms. They may write daily journals, pen creative stories, write reports in history and science, and learn to write letters. They edit the work of their classmates, and their own. Throughout, our teachers review each piece of writing—providing immediate, tailored feedback to each child. We never just grade a piece of work and then have the child put it away; our children continuously correct their mistakes and actively learn from them.
Reading for skills. Once our students learn to decode words with ease (which they do quickly with our phonics-based program), we systematically build their comprehension skills. We show them how to use dictionaries to look up unfamiliar words, enabling them to build their own vocabulary lists. We use a systematic "Reading for Understanding" program, which allows each child to progress at her own pace, and guides her to read for meaning across a variety of subjects, from science to sports. As they read these passages, they learn vocabulary, comprehensions skills and fluency, all while acquiring a broad range of background knowledge essential for reading comprehension.
- Reading for content. Once students are readers, they read everywhere in our classrooms. They do research in history. They read science experiment instructions. They read about different cultures in geography. They learn that reading is a key means to discovering the answers to questions that are meaningful to them.
- Literature "book club." Much to the excitement of our students, we have introduced a "book club" into some of our elementary classrooms. Students read carefully chosen chapter books—no truncated excerpts here!—and have structured discussion groups several times a week. During these group sessions, students learn how to analyze a novel's plot, and discuss the key characters, and identify the theme or deeper meaning of what they read. Advanced students will also complete writing assignments on their books. This program optimally prepares our students for our Upper Elementary literature curriculum, all while demonstrating to them how much fun it is to read quality works of fiction.
What We Deliver
Proficient Writers and Readers, Who Love To Write and Read
Our Montessori language program enables our students to become proficient readers and to master the mechanics of writing fluently and with ease. More importantly, they love doing it: they readily write multi-page journal entries or creative stories—and enjoy reading both fiction and nonfiction texts.
By the end of 3rd grade, a typical LePort Montessori student:
Has mastered the mechanics of writing. She writes in neat cursive, with proper punctuation, capitalization and sentence and paragraph structure, and generally correct spelling.
- Understands and can apply the fundamentals of grammar. She has mastered the parts of speech, both conceptually (being able to describe their roles and uses) and practically, by using them correctly in her writing. She has acquired the tools that will make advanced grammar study in the higher grades easy for her.
- Has learned key academic skills related to written language—such as using a dictionary and thesaurus, taking research notes, editing her own work and that of others for spelling, punctuation and grammar.
- Is a fluent reader, who typically reads at a 4th grade level or higher. She is able to read and comprehend chapter books (for example, E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan, and Beverly Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle), as well as understand and draw information from non-fiction materials across all subject areas, from history to geography and science.
- Enjoys reading, and reads inside and outside of school for personal enjoyment.
| Example skills of a typical LePort 3rd grade graduate in language arts | Grade this skill is expected from public school students in California |
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