Montessori Preliminary Language Activities

Preliminary Activities

Preliminary Activities involves all the activities that will be carried out to help children to acquire language, use language and with phonemic awareness- knowledge of sounds with their corresponding objects or picture cards.

Language Foundation: Oral Language Developement

What is oral language development?

Oral language is essentially oral communication. It’s speaking, talking, listening, and verbal expression. It’s the way in which human beings communicate with each other.

Young children develop oral language easily while listening and participating in conversations with their parents, family members, teachers, siblings, and other kids. Even having simple informal conversation helps with oral language learning.

Young children develop language and learn about the world around them by:

listening to stories
singing
rhyming
learning new vocabulary words
expressing their feelings
interacting and talking with others
participating in various activities
observing others

Why is developing oral language important?

Developing oral language in the preschool age years is crucial. It lays the foundation for successful reading and writing for the years to come. Additionally, developing oral language is important because it helps develop:

self confidence
listening skills
comprehension
increased vocabulary
the ability to express oneself
observation skills
preparation for writing stories
ability to speak in complete sentences

Furthermore, oral language can help young children develop:

love of books and reading
a feeling of belonging
improved pronunciation and syntax while speaking
an ability to elaborate but also stay on subject

Enrichment of Vocabulary

This contains variety of language activities that helps children to acquire language directly and also build skills that will prepare them for reading and writing.

Naming Activities

Naming is so much fun and you can turn it into a game! You can start by telling your child that we are going to play the naming game. Go around the room and touch things and name what it is.

Walk over to the shelf, touch it and say “shelf.” Then touch the table and say “table” and so on. You’re basically showing your child that everything has a name, just like you have a name!

Then, you can get real small child-sized objects or pictures and give the children their names using the Three Period Lesson.

The Three Period Lesson is a technique used by Montessori guide to help children learn new vocabulary, sandpaper letters, colors, or other terminology. The three period lesson is broken down into three parts:

First Period: Association.

Say the name of the object while pointing to the object: “This is….”

Second Period: Recognition.

Say to your child, “Show me…” “Give me… ” “Pick up…” Put your elbow on…”

Third Period: Recall.

Ask your child, “What is this?”

Tips:

Do no more than two or three objects at a time
Do not move into the third period if you’re child’s not ready yet
Stay in the first and second periods as long as your child needs

Other Activities to prepare children for reading and writing.

Object to Object matching

This activity involves using real life child-sized objects. The child identifies each object and matches them with same object. This is an important stage as it prepares children to work with the pictures while enhancing their visual descrimination skills.

Picture to picture matching

Here, children extend their learning by matching same pictures together. This is a great activity as it helps build their visual descrimination skills. You can get this here