Montessori Schools Teach Cursive Writing
Montessori schools teach cursive
Cursive comes from the Latin word I hope I pronounced it well and that word means to run it is a style of
writing when all the letters in a word are connected and the pen doesn't lift
from the page, it is often called join up writing so how does it work in the
Montessori classroom how Montessori prepares children to write in cursive? So
in the Montessori classroom, children practice fine motor skills daily, through
the Montessori activities, through the practical life activities, they will
refine the fine and gross motor skills constantly and obviously those fine
motor skills will be useful for writing so through the practical life
activities. they will refine the arm and shoulders movements those big circulars
movements that are useful for writing.
Through activities like polishing wiping
the table pouring and lacing. all those kind of activities that you see usually
in the classroom will be useful for writing at a later stage. all those
activities obviously you can practice them at home. as well they also used to
do everything from left to right and from top to bottom that how you display
the activities on the table or you demonstrate the activities you always do
from left to right and top to bottom.
Obviously if you were in the Arabic
country, if you want to teach Arabic to your children you may present some of
the activities in a different way, because you want to teach your children
to write the Arabic way or the Japanese way. as well so that would be a different
kind of writing but obviously the Montessori education was developed in Italy and
with our Western alphabet. we do everything from left to right top to
bottom so there is a specific material that really directly prepare children to
form the - to trace the form of the alphabet before they are even interested
into writing the letters.
It is called the insets for design or metal insets. so
the insets for design material helps a child to master the movements that will
be necessary for writing and helps form the shape that will be used to form the
letters also called metal insets. they are 10 flat squares in each of which
rests a different cutout metal shapes identical - one of the shapes in the
geometric cabinet each cutout shape ore inset is blue and has a small knob
at its centre and each border or frame is pink so Maria Montessori said "when the child has begun exercises, he is sized with a desire to continues them and never tires of
drawing the outlines of the figures and then filling them in. Each child
suddenly becomes a possessor of a considerable number of drawings and
treasures them up in his own little drawer.
In this way, he organizes the
movement of writing which brings in to the management of pen so that will help
the child to master, how to hold the pen and how to draw and later on to write with a
pen holding the pen properly with his fingers and also you know in the
the classroom you also have many materials with a three-finger grip that obviously it really
helps children to develop this tripod grip. that is so useful to hold a pen so
all of that prepares the child for writing at a later stage without the child
knowing it. with the child just having fun with all the material and typically
you will see that the children in the Montessori classroom will imitate. the teacher
will want to write and they will do that even before they have a desire to
read and they will copy letters and sentences and words before they have
even a desire to read.
So now, how does it work in schools in mainstream
schools. so, here in Europe many children are taught cursive letters in schools
but generally it doesn't happen until they are six years old. because most
children in Europe don't go to school until six years old don't go to don't
have formal education until they're six years old. before that it's what we call
preschool and then going to play and be introduce you know to draw and
different kind of art activities but not formal writing.
Here in the UK, I can talk
about the UK so I would be interested to have your comments about maybe how it works
in the in North America because I don't know but here in the UK children go to
school at four years old as soon as they are 4. they will go in
September in school and they are told formally how to write from the beginning. so, in order to do that at that age when their fine motor skills are not as developed. we teach a simplified writing a simplified alphabet. so, we don't teach
cursive at four years old and after that is not required in the national
curriculum to teach cursive writing but more and more schools start to teach
cursive when the children are like nine years old, ten years old and older. it's
still, a skill that many schools will encourage but it's not mandatory within
the National Curriculum.
Now what are the benefits of cursive writing you may
wonder if the schools don't insist on teaching cursive why Montessori schools keep
doing that what are the benefits. what did we found out about
cursive writing that is so important for children and maybe you remember yourself. I've been told cursive because it was more popular you know 20 to 40 years ago
there are lots of benefits teaching cursive writing to children it
improves fine motor skills and allow children to write quicker. this also aids
learning because children can take more notes when they learn and listen to the
teacher. when they are able to write quickly in cursive and also the fluidity
of writing and pattern creation will help the child to remember the concept.
The fact that they can write in cursive will help them to remember the
concept so there is a connection between the action of writing down and
remembering the concepts that also what we discovered when we teach with the
sandpaper letters the children will remember the sound more easily because
they trace the letter. so, when you choose some materials to teach the alphabet to
your child or when you start to encourage your child to spell with
letters. you can choose cursive letters.
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| Montessori cursive letters |
In general the Montessori sandpaper
letters you will have the option to find the cursive letters. This set of tactile
Montessori cursive letters is from Little Star and it's a good place to
start when teaching your child cursive. it's a kind of an alternative to some
official sandpaper letters it's not sandpaper. The texture here is felt and I find that
some children do prefer felt and kind of react strongly to the sandpaper and find
that uncomfortable to touch. so if it's a case these tactile sandpaper letters are
great obviously, they're going to absorb
through the five senses because they're going to touch their letters and that
will help to understand and that will help to remember the sound of the letter. Should you teach your child cursive?
So finding material that is written in
cursive might be challenging because print is more easily available that
shouldn't prevent you to teach cursive writing because basically your child can
read in print and write in cursive. both are doable and it doesn't make the process
of writing or reading more complicated to have to read in print and to write in
cursive. obviously an important point for you would be to be consistent so maybe
double-check what kind of alphabet would be encouraged in school
what kind of font the school is going to choose. you have also the cursive print
and you have also the handwriting cursive. you have what we call the French cursive so you need to
kind of figure out what the school is going to teach your child.
Montessori sandpaper letters
Either if it's a
Montessori School you may be surprised that they teach print if your child goes
to mainstream you need to check what kind of print they're going to choose. what kind of font they're going to choose and obviously, if you homeschool you
can decide by yourself what you prefer to do but it's generally easier to learn cursive
when you are younger than to learn at a later stage. so I hope this article kind of gives you some insight about why it's important to teach cursive and how
to do it. check the blog post below for more links about all the studies I
kind of just slightly talked about. for more information about Montessori
thanks for watching and see you next time.
Good Article: How to start Montessori at Home
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