How Montessori Really Teaches Reading (It’s Not What You Think!): The Montessori Power Hour

In this episode, we’re exploring how the Montessori method builds early reading skills through movement, sound games, and meaningful language. We're explaining why writing comes before reading in Montessori and how your child’s natural development makes reading not only possible, but joyful. If you’ve ever wondered when to start teaching reading or how to do it without pressure, this is the episode for you.

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hey there friends, I'm Aubrey Harkis.
Today's episode is a replay fromthe Child of the Redwoods live
show that I host with my husbandin Montessori homeschooling,
partnering crime David Harkis. You can watch the full episode
on the Child of the Redwoods YouTube channel.
Here's the clip. If you thought that reading

(00:24):
starts with the sandpaper letters and you were going to
start there, oops, a doodle. It's easy to assume that reading
starts with teaching the lettersthemselves.
Most people actually think that,whether they're Montessori or
not. But actually Montessori takes a
radically different approach. It's a much more developmentally

(00:45):
aligned and respectful approach as well, and a lot of people
just don't realize that. That's right.
If you really want to help your child learn how to read, you're
going to start with sounds, withtouch, with movement, with
sight. You know the senses.
You're not going to start with an alphabet song or worksheets

(01:07):
or a movable alphabet or anything like that.
You're actually going to start just by engaging the physical
body. That's right.
Now I'm going to caveat this right off the bat that a lot of
people when they join our Montessori courses, they come in
and then this big reveal of likehow the Montessori method we
actually teach reading happens in the course because we really

(01:29):
dig into that and they see it immediately in our curriculum
when they start looking at the actual lessons that we're
teaching. And a lot of parents have this
big overwhelming, Oh no type of feeling.
And that Oh no feeling is but I already taught my child the
alphabet song or grandma. No, no offense to the grandmas

(01:50):
out there. We we love you.
But Oh no, grandma already taught my child that their name
is Jude instead of, you know, you know, duh, right?
So they've already a lot of kidscome in to my.
Solo did this or something? Right.

(02:10):
Like, I know we won't even blamethe grand laws on that one,
right? So it's perfectly fine if your
child has already been exposed to the alphabet, song, or any of
these other cultural markers that you're.
Not going to break your kids. I mean, it's just like that's
not how learning works. So if you have some guilt about

(02:32):
Oh no, I didn't follow the Montessori approach from day
one, just drop that. As it is, these tips and
strategies are going to work foryou regardless of whether you've
laid the groundwork or not. Yes.
OK. So these are the principles we
want you to keep in mind that really go along with the
Montessori approach. The first one we'll talk about

(02:54):
is the sense of sound. So honing in on the senses and
understanding that everything wedo in Montessori, especially in
the primary years, starts with the senses.
That's right. We are really going to start in
teaching greeting with that sense of sound.
That's right. I mean it.
It makes sense when you think about, like, we talk, you know,

(03:19):
like, sounds are all around us. Babies are exposed to sounds.
Children learn how to speak without even being taught
anything. Maria Montessori was amazed by
this herself. But not a lot of us think about
refining that sense of hearing when we start thinking about
teaching children to read. Aubrey I wanted to teach

(03:41):
reading, not listening. Because when we think about
teaching reading, the first sense we think about is the
eyes. Because we look at a piece of
text and it's like we see the letters and we think, OK, if if
reading is about seeing the letters and writing the letters,
then we will start by teaching our children how to see the

(04:03):
letters and name the letters. And it just like it, it see like
it just feels like it would makesense because as adults, that's
how we perceive reading to to be.
But the truth is that if your child has not developed the
auditory sense enough, if they don't really, if they haven't

(04:25):
really refined those ears in a lot of different ways, not just
thinking about the letters themselves, but like a lot of
different ways, then they're going to have a lot more trouble
actually with that, you know, visual sense of looking at the
letters and being able to put ittogether into words like.
So the errors really does come first.

(04:45):
It's a crucial part of Montessori that not a whole lot
of people really pay enough attention to.
So it's the sounds that really come first ahead of the letters
themselves. So do you want to list a few of
the things that we use in our reading curriculum where it kind

(05:06):
of illustrates this point of like, yeah, so a parent out
there can help your child to refine their sense of sound.
Well, you're probably doing a lot of these already and you're
not realizing that you're teaching your child how to read.
And so part of the what we want you to be aware of is that the
process of learning to read is actually very complicated, but

(05:27):
also kind of baked into a lot ofour understanding.
So what would those be? Maybe having conversations,
talking to your little one, talking to your baby.
There's no age at which it's tooyoung to start having
conversations. And I don't, I don't have to
tell most of you that, but it's good actually.
If someone is like why you're talking to your baby, you would
say I'm teaching them how to read because having a

(05:49):
conversation at a very early ageis critical.
You're probably already doing it.
You just didn't realize that this was laying the groundwork.
Other things that you might do are playing rhyming games,
singing rhyming songs, playing alistening game, playing an I Spy
sound game, reading books aloud,having conversation back and

(06:15):
forth, like the having your child tell you things and then
you repeat them back. Anything that's engaging the
sense of sound, not trying to associate to the representation
of the sound in the form of a letter, just of getting them
familiar with the sounds and being able to discern the
various different phonemes in let's say, English.

(06:37):
For if we're teaching English, right, getting them to start to
distinguish amongst all of thosedifferent sounds really is the
first. Because you said at the
beginning, like a lot of us think that reading happens in
the eyes, but actually we all probably know that reading
happens in the brain, right? So this is a super abstract
thing. You can't really touch it and

(06:58):
but anything that you can tactically interact with can be
learned. That's why we start with the
census with the little guys because they aren't able to
access in an abstract way the mental thinking that's going to
come later in their development.But if you can start to get them
to realize in a sensorial way that the world is made of all

(07:21):
these sounds, and then start to connect that those sounds to a
shape which we would call a letter, then the magic starts to
unfold. But it all starts with that,
training the ear to hear a variety of sounds.
That's right. I'm also thinking I don't know
if you mentioned this. Did you mention the sound
cylinders? No, I didn't.
That's a good one. Yeah, that actually is a really

(07:43):
good example. That's actually not in the
reading curriculum myself. It's in our sensorial subject
area. Maybe if you are familiar with
Montessori primary at all, you're familiar with the
sensorial subject category, the sound cylinders are we even have
a video out there on sound cylinder.

(08:05):
So you could just do it, I think.
Does YouTube have a search bar where they can go and search for
child of the Redwoods video on sound cylinders?
Yes, definitely go do that because they're very, very cool
and they really illustrate how we are refining not just like
the sounds that we used to make words with, but just sounds in

(08:27):
general. That's right, yeah, the
discernment of the. Essentially, like you're shaking
one cylinder or container with one sound and you're shaking
another and you're listening like, is this the same sound as
this? Is this louder or softer?
And those kinds of activities, not just in the reading
curriculum, but like throughout the Montessori curriculum that

(08:50):
have to do with your child listening is going to help
refine the. Ears.
Yeah, it makes me think of a because I know songs are part of
that too. And so with the sound cylinders,
Yeah, there's matching, there's ordering, there's all kinds of
different activities you might do, lessons you would do with
the sound cylinders. But I was singing you the song
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.OK, You know that song?

(09:13):
Yes. So do you remember how that song
goes? Jingleheimer Schmidt.
That's my name, too. Wherever people go, they're
always shout. There goes Don Jingle, Jingle
Heimer Schmidt. And then you go quiet.
Oh yes, that's right. Right, so.

(09:35):
There are lots of songs that usethat same technique, and they're
all really passed on from generation to generation.
Songs, right, or whatever, folk songs, right?
And it's the reason it connectedthe dots.
This is that is kind of what you're also doing with the sound
cylinders. You're just isolating that
particular sense because of the sound cylinders.

(09:56):
You're going to have a variety of louder or softer or bigger,
crunchier and more delicate sounds, right?
And playing those games, it's not it like the John Jingle song
or any of those other games where you modulate your voice up
or down. Or you make a sudden voice.
Or you make whatever you do funny things, it is fun, but

(10:16):
it's about hearing it and you'regetting the kids to listen to it
and match what they're hearing. So if you're playing song games
like that with your kids just inthe car or to pass the time or
to keep them entertained while you're, you know, cooking,
you're actually laying a foundation for reading.
This is a part of the process ofI'm going to I'm.

(10:37):
Going to give you another one. Do you know the song Willaby
Wallaby Woo a little bit. Do you remember that one?
It goes. Willaby wallaby woo.
An elephant sat on you. Willaby Wallaby waved.
An elephant sat on David. That sounds like that's like
down by the Bay, right? No.

(10:57):
Well, no, I mean in the way in the sense that down by the Bay
you see something funny and thenlike, did you ever see a blah?
Blah blah blah. I know that one.
But it's a different, like there's a different purpose.
OK, let's talk about what is thepurpose of this song.
Like let's do this so we'll singit again.
Willaby, Wallaby. Woo.
Oh, I got you an elephant sat onyou feeding me Willaby.

(11:22):
Wallaby Wabrey. And Elephant sat on Aubrey.
Yeah, right. Great.
Point what's happening there? You're getting them.
There's a rhyming component. You're also getting them to hear
the word wabri and Aubrey and distinguishing.
Yeah. Wabri and Aubrey technically

(11:42):
rhyme, so in that sense it is similar to the Down by the Bass
songs. That's also a rhyming song, but.
This one I like. This is a good example.
I like this wabri like so. And it could get harder or
easier based on the like the sound of that first consonant.
So there's a whole series of lessons in the reading
curriculum that focus on that first sound.

(12:04):
Right. The initial sound, so we're
talking about changing Aubrey into Wabri changes the initial
sound of my name. And same with David instead of
David with the DI, took out the DI, replaced it with the W, and
that's how we got waited. And before you're teaching your
kids any of this, like spelling wise or anything, they're just

(12:26):
hearing it. They're hearing the difference
between Wavid and David. And it sounds funny, right?
And it sounds even funnier because you've got an elephant
sitting on you. Yeah, and that kids love the
silliness. And that's not necessarily like
a Montessori game itself wasn't created by Maria Montessori.
I think it was created by Raffi.Or did Raffi just?

(12:46):
Wallaby, Wallaby. I don't know.
I mean, they're all folk songs. I don't know if he wrote it, but
there's a million variables. I don't know if Raffy wrote it
or not, or I remember it from Sharon Lewis and Bran, you know,
I don't know if you remember them from back in the back in
the 1980s had a lot of those on cassette tape.
But a lot of those types of songs exists and are out there

(13:09):
and are fully compatible with the Montessori approach because
they are teaching your child to refine their sense of sound.
And that's really what we're doing.
We're emphasizing in this first really principle of how to teach
reading the Montessori way is not to rush the stage.
It's so easy to think I've got to teach reading where my child

(13:34):
can do so much. My little 2 year old is so
interested in the whole wide world.
Why not go ahead and teach reading?
Here's some sandpaper letters ina movable alphabet.
Let's go. Yeah, Here's your board book.
Now you got it right. Thank you.
Whatever it is, you know, try toresist if you got a little one,
try and resist rushing the stagebecause the more you do on the

(13:58):
front end to develop the ears, the better the gain is going to
be later on. And this is to say like we are
not an age prescriptive curriculum, like we have
levelled all of the activities one through 6.
I've got one through 3 here and another 4 through 6 over here.

(14:19):
The reading curriculum goes all the way from levels one through
6. Roughly ages 2:00 to 9:00 but
not strictly. Level 1 is age 2 or pre-K or
something like that. It's following your child's
developmental readiness. So really, you know, parents,
they know their parent, their their kids the best, like you
really do. There's a lot of people out

(14:42):
there who will kind of try to sway you that you need someone.
And I'll speak from this. I'll say like I have a degree in
education, a masters in education and a specialization
in teaching reading, right? But I even I will tell you like
you know your child's level and ability the very best and all

(15:04):
you need access to is the methodand the curriculum and then you
can implement it. Yeah, that's right.
You're going to be a great teacher of your own child
teaching them reading. So if there is a gut instinct in
you that says like, oh, wow, like my child's auditory skills
are very well developed, then let's move on.
Let's introduce those sandpaper letters.

(15:24):
You know, you know your child. But if your child is just like
still trying to put together rhyming words and, you know, is
still trying to hear the difference between David and
David and identify what's different between them, then you
know to stay longer in this stage.
And that is perfectly fine. It's.
Perfectly fine. Yeah.

(15:44):
All right. So the first.
Not just fine. It's like what we want.
Exactly. OK, so #1.
Is sound #2. #2 is touch. That's right, all right.
Usually, like your body, your. Whole body touching things,
right? Usually when we talk in

(16:05):
monastery we think about the fingers a lot.
That's right, but the. Hand is a special tool.
Friends can also be toes, you know, it could be your elbow,
could be your entire body movement.
You know, what we're really talking about with the sense is
be it something that is tactile,something that you can touch and
feel. So when you engage this tactile

(16:28):
sense, it is literally sending signals to the brain.
I mean, and, and this, this works across the board.
We're this actually, this is a whole episode just about
teaching reading. But we actually touched on this
in a coaching session not too long ago when I was talking to
our lower elementary friends about teaching math.

(16:50):
Yeah, they're like. And we did a whole.
There's like, whole. That was a whole coaching
session just like we really weretalking about this particular
point about the fingertips are so sensitive and they have a
direct link to the neurons firing in your brain.
And the emphasis in this particular amount of research
was about the connection betweenthe fingertips and learning

(17:12):
mathematical concepts. But it is no less true for
teaching reading. So do you want to talk about a
few? Well, this, I mean, this
obviously is going to be where you're going to think classic
material like the sandpaper letter, right?
So what is it that makes a sandpaper letter so magical?
They are rough and smooth and your child is able to trace that

(17:34):
shape around the letter. And like you were saying, it's
going to send those signals. So you're going to, you're going
to do these things concurrently,but you're not going, but you're
going to have that sound experience.
You're going to be getting them to hear those sounds and it's
going to be forming this really diverse meaningful sense of the

(17:59):
auditory awareness, right? And then you're going to start
to bring in tactile experience, physically tactile experiences,
like I'm rubbing my finger and I'm feeling that this thing
which we'll say is the letter R,they won't notice the letter R,
they'll just know it's a shape. And then they're going to feel
the way that's shape and it's going to start to then connect

(18:22):
because you're going to do things like robot, you're going
to start to then connect those sound games that you were
playing and the sort of other techniques that you're using to

(18:43):
bring that awareness. And you're going to start to
bring in that physical. So another one, of course, would
be the movable alphabet. Then of course, this doesn't
have raised letters like the sandpaper, but it's a logical
progression, right? So the sandpaper letters are
really giving you a super tactile sense of the shape and
building in the brain a connection that this thing that

(19:05):
looks this way has a name and that name is the letter name and
it makes a sound. And now I'm going to progress
beyond that to now I can recognize that shape on a tile
and I can play with that shape. Robot Robin Ribbon, right?

(19:29):
So you have taken them from the very first tactile impression
with the finger tracing and now you're taking to a tactile
experience where they can actually manipulate the letter.
Hold it up. It's a little tile or something,
but imprinted on that is that same shape and you're helping
walk the child closer and closerto that abstraction.

(19:52):
And all the while they're hearing in their mind all of
those sound games and it's goingto start to weave together.
Now there are a bunch of others.Metal ends, sets, sand table,
we. Talked about this earlier,
before this, before we went live, we were talking about this
how just because you know, we say like definitely make sure
that the sound, the sounds are really well developed, the

(20:18):
auditory senses well developed, it doesn't mean that the sound
comes first and then touching. That's exactly right.
OK. So that's not.
There is a concurrent process. Here.
So here's a here's an example oflike an earlier activity before,
maybe before you even introduce the same paper letters is what
we're trying to do with kids is to take these sounds which they

(20:40):
cannot, you know, physically. See or hold you can't see.
Or hold the sound for a word. So even for a word like let's
take the word or the, you know, the sounds that make up the word
David. Like what is David?
Right? It's just a, a grouping of
sounds. But what physically is David is
you. And so when you know, so an

(21:02):
example would be like you have your two year old and you're
like, shake David's hand. This is a David, this is his
hand. And we'll shake the hand, right?
And so now we can feel David andwe know that David is a thing.
We can see him, we can feel him tactilely, hug him if we want
to, which I always do. And and then when we're ready,

(21:26):
we've introduced some of those letters and we've made the
relationship between the sound Dand the physical shape of the
letter D. Then maybe we play a game like
please take this D to the personwhose name starts with D and
they know that this is a David and they know that this starts

(21:47):
with AD. We're then associating, you know
the sound D to the physical representation of AD and then
the person you know whose name belongs with that.
So it's desk yeah David yeah. So it so with this second

(22:09):
principle engaging the the principle of like touching and
feeling, making things tactile. It doesn't just you know, we
don't stop with the sandpaper letters or the movable alphabet.
We want to integrate in like objects, anything that you can
feel or touch to make that correspondence between what this

(22:29):
abstract sound that you are hearing and a tactile thing that
you can touch and manipulate andfeel or interact.
This reminds me of another, which is the Bring Me game.
It's kind of I think similar, right where you could say.
Yes, that's like. That's like a variation on.
Bring me something that starts with a Ah, ah, you brought me an

(22:56):
Apple. Yes, Apple.
Apple starts with a. Oh.
What were you thinking? I.
Thought you were saying uh, likeUmbrella, but you were saying
like. Apple, that's what I said.
I said Apple you. Totally said.
Bring me, then I'll hard contentnext time.

(23:17):
Bring me, bring me a toothbrush.Toothbrush.
Right, so you this is this is actually going back to the
sound, right? The sound or the OR the?
Pin and pen again, which is. I'm a texting what can I say I.

(23:41):
Like difference. Sounded like aw Bree to me.
No, but yeah. So to take this to the touch,
right? So you could be playing a game
like bring me the bring me something that starts with a
right? And this is a sound game.
But then you could also say takethe like let's say a sandpaper

(24:04):
letter T take the to something that starts with they can carry
it to the toothbrush, right? So and then you would want them
to go rot, like take it and bring me A and they go and they
grab the top. Or you could set the objects,
the letters on the other side ofthe room, right?

(24:25):
Just a couple and you would say bring me the and then they'd
have to run over to them to the other side of the room.
They have to get the T and they bring it back to you, right?
So you're engaging the whole body.
They're physically touching, they're interacting with this
representation and they're connecting it to the sound.
So these are like any of these kinds of early games.

(24:46):
And then you're going to progress from that, right?
You're going to go all the way up when they're older to doing
things like using the grammar symbols, which are physical
representations of the parts of speech.
And they're awesome. They're unique to Montessori as
far as I know, to teach and. There's a whole grammar.
In lower elementary. Curriculum in the lower
elementary. That's right.

(25:08):
Yeah. And actually you're going to, in
fact, with reading and writing, the reading and writing
specifically, you are going to by the time you're in level 4,
you're mostly focusing on grammar, the study of language,
because these earlier first 3 levels will teach them the
principles. And so, but you're not going to

(25:28):
stop doing this kind of sound and tactile sensorial
expression. You're going to continue doing
that all the way through. So they're going to take a
sentence. The cat SAT and they're going to
diagram that sentence using little objects, the grammar
symbols, and you're going to connect the parts of speech to a
symbol that has a, a shape, a recognizable shape, but also a

(25:51):
symbol. Like it's symbolic with this is
the sun, it's red and round. And this is, you know, the black
triangle. It's like earthy and it's like
cold or whatever, right? There's the whole, this is the
family, right? The noun, the adjective and the
article, right? And we describe it as a family,
a mother and a daughter and a little baby, right?
So there's a whole kind of metaphoric language that goes

(26:14):
with this that actually feeds inand it all centers back on, I
can actually hold this little blue triangle.
This is a continuation of what you would be doing with Go bring
me that. That's right.
When you were talking about the toothbrush, I was thinking, I,
I'm you can always count on me for like ideas for variations on

(26:35):
these games, because I find thispart of Montessori so much fun.
The fact that like, we're playful with kids.
Maria Montessori was constantly doing this too.
She's a Rep. She has a reputation for being
all serious in her black Victorian guard with a little
she. Was in.
Mourning, I know, but but the pictures, you know, the pictures

(26:57):
exist out there and that's what people think of is like
antiquated. We're very formal.
People don't smile in photos. You know, it's Victorian times.
But in actuality, she was just so goofy with the kids.
And so all these games existed in her classroom as well.

(27:18):
Maria Montessori actually didn'tspend, you know, shouldn't spend
teaching full time in the classroom either.
Most of the teaching was actually done by teaching
instructors, directors of each classroom and they were told to
be playful and experimentation all with the kids like just
experiment and and love on the kids and have fun and play with

(27:43):
things. And so, Maria, I'm sure Maria,
it's not talked about very often, but I'm sure a lot of the
things that really got the Montessori movement going were,
you know, came actually from mostly parents and those very
early teachers that were hired. It's got to be joyful, like joy,

(28:05):
joy, joy. It has to be the center of your
teaching. So when you were thinking of
that, I was thinking, I was thinking you could give your
child the and say take this intothe bathroom.
Oh yes, and find something begins with and then I imagine
them finding the toothbrush, youknow, toothpaste with the

(28:26):
toilet. Or the pile.
Or the toilet. Paper so many things in the
bathroom because yes, I exactly this one was like how fun.
Yeah. And it is fun.
Yeah. I mean, it's joyful and it's
actually teaching. It's, I think sometimes we
underestimate the importance of these games.
I think sometimes we think of them as just like, oh, you know,

(28:49):
baby stuff. But they're actually really,
really important. And so if you're doing this or
you are starting to want to incorporate this stuff, that's
awesome because if you're already doing it or you're like,
I'm going to try that out, you're going to be teaching
reading or reinforcing the skills with reading.
And with homeschoolers, teachersin the classroom of course, can

(29:10):
play all these kind of games too.
But just think like if you are watching this in your
homeschooler, thinking about homeschooling your kid,
wondering if you have what it takes to teach your child how to
read. Just think about all of the
opportunities that exist in yourhome with these kind of very low
key games. I'm sorry that you cannot play.

(29:31):
You can't necessarily play with like 30 kids in a class or 25 or
20 or whatever that you could just play one-on-one with a
child. It just integrates into your
app. You know, let's say you're
cooking and your child is with you, which we would say is like
awesome. That's definitely part with
practical life and you're, you know, homeschooling together and
the cooking is a part of that and you're using that to listen

(29:55):
to the sounds or of the different kind of tools that
you're using. I'm trying to think of the
things that begin with in the kitchen now.
Teaspoon. But yes, tools, Teaspoons.
Yes, table salt. All right, before we go on.
Yep, we have, Tremaine says. That's awesome.
Where can I find the curriculum please?

(30:17):
Well, I'm not sure if you're in our community already.
If you are, then you'll find theLower L and Primary curriculum
in the Foundation section of themembership site, so just log
into the middle log. In.
Log in, go to Foundations and you'll find all of the
curriculum and the self-paced courses that will get you
rolling, which in both of them have emphasis on.

(30:38):
One is on Primary and one's on L'Oreal, and they'll each walk
you through how to teach readingand writing for those age
levels. Now, we have been getting a lot
of inquiries from alumni of our courses and curriculum that we
have published in the past. And just a note for those of you
who are rediscovering our curriculum or wanting to tap
back into those resources that we have completely rehauled

(31:02):
overhauled, called all of our materials and the what the
Montessori method that was before is still the Montessori
method. So if you're an alumni like and
you learn the Montessori method,you got the Montessori method.
But the materials themselves, like we've got these new
beautiful planning cards. They're all in our members.

(31:23):
Yep, our member site that you doneed to be a member of the
complete. Complete or unlimited?
Unlimited plans. Oh, Termin, you're being this
familiar. You're a past alumni.
Yeah. So you can find your materials
in the alumni section. And these lessons are still
there. They're just going to be
formatted and written out in a different way.
We like, Aubrey said. We've revamped quite a bit and

(31:46):
expanded and if you're interested in taking a look at
the newer edition, just reach out to us and we'll be happy to,
you know, talk to you about whatthat, what it would look like to
say rejoin as an alumni. We, we're always happy to
welcome alumni back at A at a good discount too.
In fact, or if you're looking for you just want to refresh
yourself with the materials thatyou've had before, you can

(32:08):
definitely grab those on the membership site under the alumni
section. Right, beautiful.
Let's go into our third one realquick.
Third one. So we talked about sound and
developing the sense of hearing.We talked about touch and
tactile things, moving your whole body, scavenger hunts,

(32:29):
that sort of thing. The third thing that we talked
about is finally, finally, finally, it's the sense of
sight, which also does need to be refined for children to
adequately become literate. Yeah.
And as we've said, it's not one than the other than the other.
Yeah, you're going to be doing these things together, right?

(32:52):
So what is it about the sense ofsight?
All right, so the primary thing your child needs to be able to
do is distinguish between 2 letters that look similar and
are slightly different. So let's think about the letter
D again, but not a Capital One. Let's think about a lowercase D
and a lowercase B. They're very, very similar, but

(33:17):
right. Can I go like this and make make
the, I don't know if I do this, the sign language right?
So they're like opposites of each other.
Yes, but even I have to remembersometimes and my name ends with
AD. Oh, it does, yeah.
And so I have sometimes if you're writing, I'm like, wait a
minute, which way does that circle go?

(33:39):
I'm, I'm not that smart. I've.
Never had that problem writing my name.
Not writing my own name, but I mean, if you were like, write
the word bear, I might be like, wait a minute, hold on.
Maybe the dyslexia doesn't just come from my side of the family.
It's possible. We'll think about that one.

(34:02):
So, yeah, so when you look at let's think about like AP and
AQ, those are also very hard, very easy A.
Lowercase A and a lowercase O depending on the way they're
written. Like that's true depending on
the font. But if you just, you know, if
you write it out like. I'm going to write cursive or
just. Even like a block O that you
might handwrite. An A and an O can look exactly

(34:23):
the same except for a little line.
Let's think about the N and EU. Yes, or the N way.
This quick or the N and the N Yeah, there's like one extra
hump on there. So, you know, that's really what
we're honing in on here. So in order to be able to read a
word like David, you have to be able to distinguish between the

(34:47):
individual letters. And honestly, it's kind of hard
for our brains to do this. So it takes it takes years of
practice on the part of like thethe human being.
You notice we grow and develop and it's going to happen at a, a
slightly different rate, you know, for each child sooner or a

(35:10):
little bit later. But all children as soon as they
are born, start the process of learning how to distinguish
between different shapes, different colors.
And if you know about baby development, like what do they
learn? What colors do they see first?
It's black and white, right? So they're noticing colors that

(35:30):
are high contrast or shapes thatare high contrast from each
other. And then later they, you know,
we start color comes in after a few months and they start
distinguishing between red and blue.
And then we're looking at red versus orange, which is kind of
starting to get to be a blurry line and then orange versus

(35:53):
yellow. And that's actually kind of hard
to distinguish too at first, buteventually children learn how to
see colors and then they're noticing shapes and their whole
this. Is why the whole sensorial
curriculum includes an emphasis on tertiary, primary, tertiary,
Yeah, you know, secondary colors, right?

(36:14):
Because you have to attenuate the eye.
That's right. So all of these, I mean, the
pink tower, you know, variationsbetween the smaller cube and the
slightly bigger cube, you know, like this is not really easy for
children in the very beginning, even though it's fairly easy for
us as adults. We can look at things that are

(36:35):
of various sizes, you know, think about a nesting tower
stack. You can look with your adult
eyes and see like, this one's clearly smaller than this one,
right? Or like, you dump out a whole
bunch of carrots and you're like, here's the tiny one and
here's the biggest one. But like if you've got 20
carrots, the tiniest and the biggest, OK, but right.

(36:57):
Like this 5th, 6th and 7th carrot.
Like how do you know? I think that some people develop
such good visual discrimination skills that they can look at a
big mess of carrots like that and their eyes canmore quickly
suss out like what comes next. Yeah, I would assume like a fine
thinker knows how to do this, right.
I would assume so or, or variations in color, like, you

(37:20):
know, I might look at something and I'm like, this seems like a
little more purpley or maybe this seems a little more Gray
purple. But I'll tell you what, when I
look at those paint samples online and I'm like, how would
that actually look on my wall? Sometimes it's really hard just
to see, like with this, is this slightly darker or more boil in

(37:41):
it so the visual sense can continue to be refined.
What's true for this discernmentbetween color is also true for
discernment of shapes. Yes, that too.
Right. And those shapes would include
the shapes of letters. Yes, so slight variations.
So what are we doing when we develop the sense of sight?
We are giving our children activities and things to engage

(38:02):
with that help develop the eyes and refine that sense of sight.
And it doesn't even have to be letters in the beginning.
In fact, it shouldn't be lettersin the beginning.
We're just focusing on basic shapes and sizes and color.
This is where your pink tower oryour blocks of different shapes

(38:23):
and colors come in, any of the kind of play that they might be
doing. Or you might get to something
where you're seeing I Spy games or your that's like figure
ground discrimination where you're looking at and you're
identifying the objects in a picture and discerning between
1:00 and the other. These are all sorts of these are

(38:44):
all kind of site based games that you would start to use.
And to tie it back to what we talked with the physical, the
touch. Sorry, I was thinking about
tile. Tile, I wanted to say tactile.
I was thinking about N. This is where those sandpaper
letters get really, really fun because N it has two humps.

(39:08):
It's like a double rainbow, right?
And right. So this is or the oh double.
Rainbow. Ah, how do you say?
What about the queue qua qua? Yeah, we usually do.
Qua right. So they're hearing a sound,

(39:32):
they're tracing the letter and they're physically seeing this
direction or the shape or the number of points or humps or
whatever, right? And it's all starting to blend
together to create an image in their mind that when they see
this shape, it makes the sound. And we call that letter N

(39:54):
eventually we don't have, we're not going to actually start with
that. We're going to get to the
letter, the name of the letter, much later, because what we want
them to know is and. Looks like this.
So let's go to that game again instead of like, if you're going
to play a fetching game, as you're getting to sight, you

(40:15):
might start to focus on sounds in the middle or at the end
where let's say they're looking at the word caught COT versus
cat. The first letter and the last
letter are the same. They have to visually
discriminate between the AH and the aw, right?
So again, this is where you're going to have a physical

(40:37):
representation. You might be spelling it with
the sandpaper letters or the movable alphabet.
You might have pictures of a catand a picture of a cot.
And you're going to have them looking at the letters, at the
spelling and sounding it out andputting together that site like,

(40:58):
ah, this is an O or we'll be able to say an O because it
looks like this. And it's a little bit different
than the way that the A looks. And they're visually, they're
getting that visual cue and thenit's matching it, right.
So you might a variation of thistoo, might be you could set out
a series of let's say I'm thinking of a CVC game, cat

(41:21):
caught. I can't think of a third word
that's AC cut, cat caught, cut. You could lay those words down
on the other side of the room and you could say, OK, get me
that cat right over there. Cat cut, caught.

(41:43):
They have to look and visually discriminate between that middle
sound and that would be a way tobring in again, that kind of
body movement and getting them. In this case, they have to look
at the middle letter. So it's a visual discrimination
challenge as well. Yeah, that's a really fun game

(42:06):
and actually kind of hard, I think, you know, for a beginning
reader to discriminate between those three right off the bat
when. You're totally.
So you're not going to start with that.
You're always going to start with the beginning sounds of.
Course, yeah, I I think that's actually really, that's a really
good game. It's just as fun as the find the
tease in your bathroom game, yes.
So it could be the ending sound cap and caught.

(42:27):
Yeah, I would. I would like to hear from our
friends if you try out that game.
Yeah. A few other things to think to
keep in mind. Unlimited members have access to
the alphabet role. Oh yeah, that's another.
One, we released that one a longtime ago.
We no longer offer that in our shop because there's no more
shop. We had to disable the shop in
order to roll out our new curriculum member site with a

(42:51):
lesson explorer and all of thosegoodies.
So if you have a copy of that alphabet role that's to nab from
the shop, get that out. Again, this is great for
developing that this visual discrimination skills and it
actually is a great example of an activity that integrates all
three of these really well. Sound, the tactile sense and the

(43:13):
visual discrimination site it it's a really good activity and
that's why and unlimited membershave access to that inside the
member site. So go check that out.
The other thing I wanted to to bring up with this one is the
four part cards. Oh.
Great. We publish those every single

(43:34):
month. Yeah, and consolation, the study
pack and consolation always includes A4 part card.
So this month is smile. And so we're doing parts of a
tooth, which I thought was pretty cool because I don't know
that I actually knew all the names of all those who we did
cat parts of a cat. I know last month we've done
elephants, all sorts of stuff. Tardigrade.

(43:55):
One month we did parts of the Yeah, tiny.
Parts of a water bear, that was really cute.
So those are all great for developing the sense of sight.
And of course, there's also the tactile sense.
So why would a four part car be good for visual?
Though it's really good when we're talking about teaching
reading on several levels. A four part card first, like

(44:15):
we've got the visual matching ofpicture to picture.
So with your younger children, you can just match picture to
picture. And then we've got the word to
the word matching. You don't even have to know how
to read, friends, in order to match a word to a word your
children are looking for. Yeah, your child, your child's
looking for like, is this the longest word?

(44:36):
And this is also the longest word.
And they're probably a match. Enamel.
Enamel, right? They don't know the word enamel,
but they can't recognize the shape.
Because to a child who hasn't learned to read, or anyone
hasn't learned to read, it's just as abstract as the drawing
of the tooth that's highlighted.The enamel super good for their
brains. And then the 4th part.
So those are the three parts, like you've got your control

(44:58):
card, you've got your picture card, you've got the word card,
and then you have the information or descriptive part.
And in your information card, this Harkins back to the
auditory sense where you can actually read this to your child
and tell some little informationabout what's happening.
A lot of people don't realize that a lot of people are

(45:21):
familiar with three-part cards because they are the most
popular child of the redwoods. We just are like three-part
cards are great, but you know what?
4 part cards are better. There's no reason to wait.
Yeah, they really won't grow with your child.
A lot of people in a traditionalMontessori classroom, you might
see them used more in the lower elementary curriculum in the

(45:42):
elementary classroom. But we published them for
everybody, encouraged like everyone to use them no matter
you know how old your child is or where their level is, because
reading out loud to them is so good.
It's such a great way to deliverthe information.
So a lot of our a lot of our published activities are super
parent friendly like that. You know, we publish, we go

(46:05):
ahead and publish the extra part.
And this is actually a really good point to bring up because a
lot of people say, OK, like I get that.
We're going to use the I get that to play the I spy game.
I got it right. I, I get it, like we're going to
do the sandpaper letters and we're going to do the block that
and those are awesome and I'll do those and I, you're doing

(46:27):
them. That's amazing.
But the part where we often start to see like people kind of
falling off the Montessori Cliffis like, where do I get in the
actual reading, reading. And in Montessori, a lot of
people don't know that we actually teach reading through
all of the other subject areas. In fact, in some Montessori

(46:51):
training centers, will, you know, I, I know that AMI does a
really great job of this becauseI've talked to people who have
taken those trainings. Is that like they actually
create their curriculum so that like all of the cultural
subjects, you know, they're all for the purpose of like
providing materials for reading.And I think that some training

(47:14):
centers probably emphasize it better than others.
We try and emphasize it in Childof the Redwoods, but not a lot
of people know like this is the reading curriculum.
You don't need to purchase an extra reading curriculum when
you're doing Child of the Redwoods.
Like we'll teach you the method.You're going to.
Use that movable alphabet. You're going to have the
materials that you need, but then through Constellation, we

(47:35):
just provide so much material for practicing that beginner
reading. Everything from math work
problems to parts cards to lab sheets to journaling pages to
all kinds of. Stuff that's right, so you don't
really just don't need to go outand purchase another set of
beginning reader, you know, curriculum resources like you

(47:58):
got what you need. We have some awesome questions.
Oh, yeah, let's do some first. Yeah, OK.
But I think just to put a pin onit, what is what is the answer
to our provocative title, which I don't remember?
Which which I have here. It's how Montessori really
teaches readers it's. Not what you think.
Well, OK, it's sensorial. Yeah, right.

(48:20):
That is the bottom line. That is, focus on the census,
the sounds, the tactile touch, getting the kids to move their
bodies, helping them practice the visual discrimination, not
just with letters but with otherobjects, and weaving these
together. And of course, lots and lots of
books. Read to your kids all the time,
as much as you can, as much as they want, and just read aloud.

(48:42):
Those things will put you on theright footing.
Yes, All right. And I will also say Montessori
did it first. There's a lot of buzz about the
science of reading these days. Great podcast out there about
it. I don't know if there's a book
yet. There might be, but a lot of
people are asking like is, is the reading curriculum that
child the Redwood science based,you know, is it follow the

(49:03):
science or is it aligned to the science of reading?
It's not only a line to the science of reading.
We did it first, friends. It is where the science came
from. We've been doing it.
Not per SE, but, you know, Montessori.
Montessori for sure. Yeah.
I mean, there's a reason these things will sound familiar, that
you'll see them in children's entertainment or they'll try to

(49:23):
make apps, or you'll just find them in other forms of education
because they work and they've worked for a long time.
They are a miracle. OK, We have some really great
questions. Crystal says she has a 5 year
old man like working with CDC words in English pre reading and
wants to practice writing the words in Spanish.

(49:44):
Should we practice writing the words how they actually are?
She adds. I'm assuming she means with
spelling. Yeah, legato sounds like Goto in
English. How they sound in English or how
they actually are. So should she?
I think she's asking about inventive spell.

(50:05):
Spelling, yes. Is that right, Crystal?
Is that what you're asking? She.
Comments later, she says it's heart.
Heart. OK, love it.
So yeah, inventive spelling. It's all about how it sounds, so
don't worry about teaching spelling, you'll do it later.
Regardless of the language, English, Spanish, French,
whatever. Spanish is also fairly phonetic,

(50:28):
more so much more so than English.
So it's whatever your child hears, you're going to validate.
Now there will come a point and she says she has five year olds.
So there will come a point whereyour child is like, hey, this
doesn't look right. You know, like I've, I've seen
the word cat or gato in books and this there's something seems

(50:53):
wrong is then they might ask like, is this spelled right?
And then you can read it back aloud to them.
And so the way I would do this is I would say, OK, let's, let's
read it back. And I will take my finger, go
back to the beginning of the word and then sound out each
letter the way it sounds. Act or oh, right, because it's

(51:19):
in Espanol, right? Your sounds are going to be
different, right? Let's do cochain, right car,
right? Isn't that cochain?
So like they might spell it withAK instead of AC.
That's fine. But to your point, then you
would start to read it aloud andyou would be like this doesn't

(51:39):
this doesn't sound like what I thought it was going to.
Sound like, yeah. So if you, if you read it
phonetically in whatever language you are in and whatever
the sounds sound like in that language, then your child should
be able to hear themselves the difference.
And this is what Maria Montessori says we should do

(51:59):
with all, all spelling. You know, don't worry about
teaching the spelling rules yet.There's plenty of time for that
in the elementary years, and that's where we teach spelling.
And I think honestly, because she's talking about CVC words, I
mean, you're the expert in this for sure.
But I think that kids can decodethe word cat.
So they're reading it even if they can't recreate the word cat

(52:24):
with the movable alphabet. So.
Actually it's the reverse. Tell me so like if I'm reading,
let's say I have a little board book and it's like the cat SAT.
Oh, OK. And then I say who spelled it
like separately I say spell the word cat and they spell it with
AK. Is that common to see that sort
of or? Yes, because they can decode the

(52:45):
word cat. Actually, I mean, it's the
writing is writing comes before reading.
And so we would be practicing writing the word cat and then
showing them the word cat. So ideally you would be
introducing words that your children have practice with
before you give them something to read the word with.

(53:07):
But in reality, what we know is that you're reading so many
stories to your kids like you'rereading to them constantly.
There's friends everywhere, environmentally around them and.
They want to know what those words mean.
And so you just have to like a lot of Montessori does at that
point come down to trust you, you know, so some of those start

(53:28):
to blend. Like it's not that we have to
introduce a word in with the movable alphabet first before
they. Get to the book that says Cat.
It's going to be. Both.
They're going to both be readingand be encountering the word
cat, and they're going to be writing the word cat with a
movable alphabet. And they might mix up the K and
the C or put extra letters in instead.

(53:53):
And especially with bilingual ormultilingual children, it might
take a little bit longer for those kind of sound letter
relationships to sort themselvesout.
And you just have to trust that they will.
They will sort themselves out. Might take around a couple extra
years, but guess what? After a couple years, they're
going to have twice the amount of knowledge that a child who's

(54:14):
learning a single language will no like they, they're doing an
astounding amount of brain work.And so if it takes a little
longer to do double the amount of work, like it's so worth it.
And remember that the on the thetopic of multilingualism is that
multilingualism is the natural state of, of being a, a young

(54:38):
child, you know, growing up learning languages.
Like, yeah, we and America are really weird.
I know. This whole.
Not everywhere, I mean. First, English everywhere here
in the United States. It's not the norm.
Like you travel to many places in the world and people speak
multiple dialects. Yeah, and even the indigenous

(54:58):
people here in North America, which like, I mean, there was
just, I can't, I don't even knowhow many languages there were
here just in the in North America before.
Thousands and. Thousands.
Colonialism. Colonialism, yeah, like
thousands of languages. So we're talking about like
villages that lived very, very close to each other.

(55:20):
It's a same. Smaller.
Like do you find this? Even I was just even thinking
like here in the Bay Area, therewas so many languages just in
this one small part of California.
Well, even in the city that we live in, I mean, we're kind of
going off task here a little bit, but I know just even in our
our neighborhood, I think it's probably as much Chinese spoken

(55:41):
as English. Yeah.
And only Chinese or you know, orChinese and English because
there's it's just such a vibrantplace in terms of like the
language for so. Just so just remember that this
is a, a normal state. It is the norm.
Multilingualism should be the norm.
It shouldn't be a single language is the norm.

(56:02):
The norm for human growth and development is multilingual.
And so if you just hold yourselfreally fast to that principle
and say like this is a normal process of learning, it's
multilingualism is where it's at, then, you know, give your
children the extra couple years they need to to work through the

(56:23):
issues and it's going to be amazing in the end.
OK. We have another question.
This is from Juan. How do you notice if there are
some signs of dyslexia and how does it differ in the teaching
process? Great question.
Yeah, I mean, we have one of oursons is dyslexic.

(56:44):
I can, I don't know what you would how you would answer this.
I would say that for us, we didn't differ the teaching of
reading. We followed the process and then
we began to realize developmentally that there were
certain skills that were not quite clicking and then we

(57:08):
reinforced those and then we realized that was not clicking
either. It LED us to the realization
that there might be something else happening.
And when that occurred, then we adopted some very specific
strategies that are good for people with dyslexia and that
that was the path that we followed.

(57:29):
I don't know if that's, I think that's a pretty standard
recommendation, but. I'll tell you that I don't worry
about diagnosing. Dyslexia is typically diagnosed
around second or third grade, okay, so you don't want to try
to assume that your child might be dyslexic too early, okay, so

(57:51):
there's no reason for it. So generally like second or
third grade, that's usually whenwe culturally like to diagnose
dyslexia. But I'll also tell you these
facts about 12 to 15% of the general population is dyslexic,
OK, so there's nothing wrong with it.

(58:13):
It is just a that 12 to 15% of the population is going to learn
to read in a a different way. OK, an experience we.
Invented reading a very relativerecently, you know, historically
species. So it's not a natural human
thing to learn to read and write.
We had to invent it. And so it's natural that there

(58:36):
are varying degrees of comfort and ability with that.
And I think sometimes we don't, you know, appreciate that as a
culture. Also, dyslexia is not doesn't
look the same for every kid, andso some children might struggle
more with the blending of the letters.
Some children might struggle more to discriminate between the

(58:58):
letters themselves. Some children are going to
struggle more auditorily with associating the sound to the
letter itself and children like with with rhyming or with
alliteration, those sorts of things.
And so once your child gets to be about second grade, I'd say
like age 7 1/2 to 8, if reading still isn't clicking by then.

(59:23):
And your child is still really struggling to learn the sounds
in the letter relationship, eventhough you've provided lots of
Montessori sound games and you've played with letters a
lot. Or you know that they know that,
but CAT spells cat. But somehow when they look at
it, it's just not clicking. They keep mixing it up with Cot.

(59:43):
That's at the point where you worry, all right.
But under the age of 7 1/2 to 8,it's not that children have to
learn to read By that age. Humans are capable of learning.
And even I'm thinking in other teaching traditions, like
Waldorf, who was started by Rudolf Steiner.

(01:00:08):
Teaching reading doesn't even start until first grade.
Historically, reading wasn't taught until first grade.
So in Montessori, there is no rush to get children to learn
how to read. But once we start giving
children the phonological tools and we start playing these sound
games and introduce them to the letters, if things aren't
clicking by 7 1/2 or 8 and you've given lots of exposure,

(01:00:31):
then you know, to to go down the, the road of like, OK, let's
see what's going on here. OK.
But I think a lot of people get worried about dyslexia too
early. And what's actually happening is
that children are just more interested in doing something
else other than reading activities.
Yes. We.

(01:00:52):
Over emphasize reading, you know.
But remember that like what kindergarten used to look like
was not sitting at a desk learning how to read by first
grade. What kindergarten used to look
like was lots of pretend play and learning how to be friends.
Counting games some letter games.
And what we do in Montessori is we, we make all of these really

(01:01:17):
cool concepts available to children in a concrete way.
You know, we, we play these sound games, we give them
letters to feel and interact with.
We give them a movable alphabet to move around and play with.
But at these young ages, children are experiencing all of
these things through play. And it's just supposed to be

(01:01:38):
fun. And if your child learns to read
at the same time during these young years, yeah, great, you
know, And if your child doesn't learn to read until first grade,
it's still developmental. So one.
Actually has come back. He's given us some some more
notes here. Thank you, by the way.
Yeah, he says my kids are able to read a few words in an
ascendance. But sometimes I see the struggle

(01:02:00):
with some words. It's like cat caught double O
sound. I'm playing games I spy or
running to get the word are great ways to reinforce.
Awesome one then says I have a 71/2 year old.
She is reading but I notice sometimes it's a little harder
than for a 5 year old brother I guess.

(01:02:20):
Yeah when I cover the rest of the letters it's easier for her,
but I'm not sure what I need to be looking for.
Well, I mean. So we.
Can't diagnose dyslexia. Yeah, we can't.
Definitely can't over YouTube. We can't do it anyway.
This is the legal caveat. Tell you some paths to go down.
I will tell you that if you weregoing to take a look at some of

(01:02:46):
these gaps that your older childhas, the what a reading
specialist would do with a dyslexic child is actually good
for all kids anyway. They use a multisensory
approach. Like that's the key.
That's that's what you do with adyslexic kid and you also
practice a lot and go a little bit slower.

(01:03:08):
And that that's, I mean, that's it.
That's the secret. You know, you can pay a whole
lot of money to have a reading specialist do it.
And whether you want to do that or go down the diagnosis Rd.,
it's totally up to you. But I will also say we can DIYA
lot of it yourself, do it yourself and it's the same
Montessori activities. You're just going to hone in on

(01:03:31):
those multi. Sensors on the sensorial slower
pace. Slower.
Go at a slower pace. Yeah.
I mean, the fact that it's only 7 1/2, it might still click.
I mean, you just don't know. But I think your point is great.
Like the other thing is that just because the five year old
is going faster than a 7 1/2 would.
Be worried, yeah. Totally.

(01:03:51):
Because I was going to say the five year old and the 7 1/2 year
old. Just because they're reading at
different levels doesn't mean anything.
It's just how reading works. Our first born completely taught
himself to read basically overnight.
I don't know how he did it, but he just picked up books and he
just dove, right? In well, we put some

(01:04:12):
refrigerator letters on some magnet letters on the
refrigerator. I taught him the sounds and then
he just, I taught him how to manipulate the sounds and then
poof, reading. Right.
Yeah. So it's not because he's like
particularly brilliant or anything.
It's just it worked for his brain in a different way.
And that happens. And it doesn't mean that he's a
more fluent reader than let's say his brother, who we have

(01:04:36):
dyslexia actually and did take alot longer.
Their comprehension and everything else, it's not
related at all. So that would be too concerned
if one is going faster than the other is, even if it's the
younger. I think your advice still about
like the games and things are great and then, you know, go
from there. There are some really awesome
programs that are great specifically for dyslexia, if

(01:05:00):
you come to that, and that fit really well with the Montessori
approach. That's right.
But but ultimately any program that is worth its salt, that
uses an appropriate method for helping dyslexic students,
looking at you, Orton Gillingham.
You can go Google Orton Gillingham right now and you'll

(01:05:22):
find references to methods that they use.
I don't know if they will mention the Montessori method
when you come across the descriptions of Orton
Gillingham, but I will tell you the Montessori method is already
science based. It already uses that multi
sensory approach and so the activities that you've got in

(01:05:42):
your career curriculum, friends like you don't need to go
further. You need to just follow your
child and if you have a child that needs a very consistent
step by step approach, because they're not, things are not
quickly and clicking as fast. They're telling you that they
need more practice with that hands on multi sensory approach

(01:06:05):
that's already built in the Yeah.
So you mean again, like you said, sensorial emphasis just
keep that going and going slower, but the curriculum is
the same. We had awesome conversation
today. We really appreciate it.
Jumping in. We did have one.
Crystal also gave us a big thumbs up for the alphabet rolls

(01:06:28):
and she was asking if there was any kind of fun game like way to
play with the alphabet roll. I don't know if anything comes
to mind and like any special additional games you could play
with the alphabet roll. I am thinking that it could be a
fun idea to take that alphabet roll with you places like what
if you were to go on vacation and you were to look for things

(01:06:53):
that began with each, each letter, letter and sound, you
know, So maybe you go to the beach and you see, you know, you
go to the beach and you write and you like, you draw a little
picture of a beach inside that square.
And then maybe you see like a beach umbrella and you draw the
beach umbrella in the space. And then you are like hunting

(01:07:16):
for things that begin with each of these letters and then like
drawing them in as you go. And maybe by the end of the
vacation you see if you can get like all 26 letters of the
alphabet, I guess maybe excluding X because there's no
initial sound. Z has an initial sound.
It's true, that's true. X does not you.

(01:07:37):
Have to go to the zoo to see thezebra for the Z.
Zebra yeah, right, right. But that could be a fun game is
like to take it with you or evenif you're not on vacation, like
take a field trip, go see what you can find at the music.
Yeah, he doesn't have to go to the grocery store.
It's fine. Just like.
Yeah, I love that idea. Get out in the world and play
basically like Inter, like environmental.
I spy. Yeah, I love it.

(01:07:58):
Yeah. Crystal, I had one other
question and that was what if you happened to have a thinking
about parts cards and we actually get this question
frequently. What if your kid just isn't
super into it? We had.
One of those. Oh yes, any advice?
Yes, I was shocked when I had come from a teaching environment

(01:08:21):
into a home schooling, you know,environment.
And I was introducing parts cards to my kids and I showed
them the traditional layout and they were like, oh, that's
interesting, the first time. And then the second time I
introduced a parts car, they were like, whatever, I've
already seen that thing before. So I was stumped.

(01:08:42):
And I thought a whole lot about it.
And then I started to experimentwith different ways to use it.
And we actually give you a lot of those ways to use it inside
the consolation community. We do it, we do it when we go
live for our welcome videos every single month when we kind
of walk you through the unit we're are making.

(01:09:05):
You know, the trick is like to make the what's on the parts
cards really relevant to your kids and interesting in
different ways and to kind of mix it up.
And so something we've been emphasizing right now is about
making those little books. And so some children like, it's
OK if your child doesn't want todo the entire layout, you know,

(01:09:26):
like it's a. Lot of cards.
But they're still worthy. Like you've got all those
information cards which you can read to your child.
Like if if even if you were justto sit and look at the control
cards with your kid and then just read the information cards
to them, you know, as you're looking at each of them, then I
think that that makes them a lotmore interesting.

(01:09:46):
So really I think the key is just to to vary it.
Yeah, don't try and make the whole set every time if they're
just not into it. Take the parts that work like
the picture it is. Only picture matching.
Or only do the watercolor image that we give you and like as a
start and they're thinking aboutit and then as they're coloring,

(01:10:06):
maybe talking about the parts and you're using, you are using
the cards like, oh, what color do we want to paint the enamel,
right, as an example. So yeah, I think kind of being
creative and not getting too hung up on the proper procedure.
I know some of our members have had their kids.

(01:10:28):
Their kids have actually done the cutting up of the parts
cards and that actually was interesting for them.
I've also seen members make a like a poster board out of the
parts cards, parts, you know, whatever parts they want,
sometimes just the control card and the information card, you

(01:10:48):
know, so you can, you know sorting games with them, you can
make a poster out of them. We also talked about integrating
them into lab books, which is another fun aside you.
Can print 2 copies and make likea memory game from them.
Just with the control card this would.
Actually be that would be a really hard memory game.
It would, but it would be fun. So Or it could be fun.

(01:11:10):
Hard Good. If they, you know, if it's fun,
so you're not necessarily makingthe set layout, but you're using
the cards in a way that's fun for your for your kiddos.
So yeah, I think that's kind of part of it is just sort of to
be, feel free to be creative, cut out the pictures of
themselves, get rid of the cars.Yeah, have like we just did

(01:11:30):
teeth. So like just have a whole bunch
of little pictures of teeth and like leave them on top of each
other and it looks like you're peeling back the layers of the
tooth and oh, now we're at the pulp.
But now we're. What if you were to get a big
roll of art paper, Let's say we'll focus on the tooth.
Like what if you had a big roll of art paper and then you use
the graphic, the David design ofthe tooth and you were to

(01:11:52):
freehand? Scan a tooth.
And then you're going to take those parts cards and you can
use a glue stick and like glue them around to label the parts,
you know, like. Especially for a lower L age.
I think you said it's 5 so that's kind of coming into the
right age. Big giant works can be super.

(01:12:13):
Fast. And honestly, this is again,
like the kind of stuff that's hard to do in the classroom
because we just don't have. Sometimes we just don't have
like, the, the room, the, I think, you know, sometimes it's
just like as Monasterians, we just kind of get into a rut of
like, this is what parts cards do and like, they'll go on the

(01:12:34):
shelf and that's it, you know, and a lot of parents
consequentially get disappointed.
Yeah, they just like going. Yeah, they're boring.
Or. Something.
So the key, I think is really toget playful.
Yeah, and not be, you know, it'sa printable curriculum.
Print out what you need and reprint it if you mess it up.
It's like that's a beauty of like the.

(01:12:56):
That's why we do that the way wedo.
We don't mail you something and like you have one precious copy.
So feel free to experiment. Thank you so much.
I know we've gone a long. I want to say thanks, Juan.
You guys are the best. He says.
Thanks. We appreciate that you are here
with us. And Crystal says she has great
tips. I love the memory game idea.

(01:13:16):
Maybe I could do a word in Spanish and in English.
That's a really cool idea. Yep.
All right. Well, I think.
I wanted to say that friends, ifthis topic is really important
and interesting to you, we have how many episodes left in this
series? So this is just episode 1.
We're going to do three more lives over the next month to

(01:13:39):
help you to approach different concepts in the topic of
teaching reading with your kids.So come back and join us next
week and we'll talk about a slightly different angle, but
you'll be able to ask questions just like this.
Yeah, that's absolutely right. And thank you to our alumni for
popping. In yes.
Thank you. I see you, I recognize your
names, and I love you. Thank you for being with us.

(01:14:02):
Well, I guess we're just about. Now you are not.
You missed me last week and I could not stay quiet anymore.
That's right, I have too much exciting news to share.
Oh my gosh. Well, you do look very excited.
Don't say look at my big smile. I see it.

(01:14:24):
Oh my gosh, I bet I know why you're so excited.
Yes. Why is that?
Because. You took that surfing.
Trip. I went to the beach.
That's right, Surfing Bunny. With your cousin, right?
Yes, that's right with my cousinand I.
Remember last time you were a little nervous because you and
your pesky little cousin hadn't really been getting along and he

(01:14:49):
was like you were trying to get a game plan of how it would go?
I remember it was that your cousin is really good at surfing
and you were feeling like it's your first time surfing and you
weren't really sure how it was going to go because he's so
little and he's, he's actually better at something than you,
even though you're the older Bunny.

(01:15:09):
Yeah. That's right.
It it, it was hard. So what happened is this, I got
to the beach and I was like, there's the waves and here I am
on the beach and I've got to puttwo of you together, but I just
don't know how. And I saw him out there, my
little cousin, he's so squirrely.
And he was out there surfing andhaving a good.

(01:15:30):
Time. And then I remember what you
said. And so I said to him, Cousin.
Would you be willing to? Teach me your cousin Mr. Bunny,
how to surf. You did.
I did, I did. And he said yes, and then he
took me out and he helped me learn to surf.

(01:15:52):
And then we surfed all day. How I was so much fun.
We surfed and did this. Oh yeah.
And then at the end that we weresitting on the beach and I said,
peasant, I want to tell you thatI'm sorry for being kind of mean
to you sometimes 'cause, you know, sometimes I just think,
you know, I should be nicer. And I want to say I love you.

(01:16:13):
Aw. That's really, yeah.
And he said thank you for sayingthat in I love you too and I'm
sorry. I know sometimes I can be pesky,
but I just think you're so cool that I want to be like you
sometimes and I want to be with you.
That's the best story I can tellby your whole demeanor, like
you're, you seem so empowered and proud.

(01:16:34):
Are you feeling proud of yourself?
Well, I am feeling proud, but I do have to admit something.
What I didn't really, I didn't really like the surfing.
Oh. Yeah, I don't know if you know
this about surfing, but you haveto go out into the middle of the
water and then you have to take a board, and then you have to
stand up on that board and you have to balance on it.
Did you know that's how surfing worked?

(01:16:55):
Yes, I mean I'm seeing pictures of surfing and.
Well, I I was really confused. Well.
It was OK. I'm I had a great time with my
cousin, but I don't, I don't really know that I'm going to be
surfing very much. I just, it doesn't.
I don't think I'm really let's see, Bunny.
I think I'm more of a land. But you know what?

(01:17:16):
I'm a sky Bunny. Oh, I have an idea.
A. Sky.
That's right. Right.
That's right. I've got a song just for you.
OK, Sky Bunny in flight. Care it fill the light.
Care it fill the light. Mr. Bunny, I think I recognize

(01:17:40):
that tune. What now?
That is a totally original tune.I need that oven.
You know what? Fine.
How about this one? I'm a sky Bunny racing through
the sky. I hope you'll come and join me,
because I'm Mr. Bunny high in the sky.

(01:18:01):
Bunny. Yeah, that's right.
I made that one up too. Well, I like, I recognize the
tune of that one as much, but I like it.
Come on, Hey, you just gotta hate hate, hate, hate, hate,
hate. That's all I gotta say.
I made that a song up too. Well, I got to go bye.
Bye, Mr. Bunny. Wow, that Mister Bunny.
He seems to have a wide knowledge of 70s music.

(01:18:24):
He does. And that one particular song
from Taylor Swift from the movieSing.
I think he knew that one. He knows that one song from
Sing, but also some 70s music. Yeah, You know, it sounds like
he had a great time surfing, andI have to say, I'm kind of not
surprised that he didn't really love it.

(01:18:45):
Well, why is that? Well, he was really skeptical
going in. It was something that he wanted
to try, but I don't know, there's like, I've never heard
him talk about the beach before or anything.
Yeah, no, but that's right. But he was, you know, I'm proud
that he tried something new. He.
Gave it a try. And the most important thing is

(01:19:07):
that he had a good time with hiscousin, and he learned to put
his, you know, feelings in check.
He can be really hard when someone is older than you.
Yeah. Or you're older than someone and
they're better at at something than you.
Yes, you know, and also when youare younger and you can feel
kind of jealous or envious or maybe sometimes you might kind

(01:19:30):
of idolize somebody who's older than you, like your Big Brother
or big cousin, Mr. Bunny, for example.
And yeah, but I think it's good.Like, I think that they came to
a mutual understanding and he was certainly happy enough to
sing. It was.
Well, see you next time Mr. Bunny and we'll see you next

(01:19:53):
time as well. We are starting our four part
series on wedding, so we hope tosee you back next week for our
next installment and I'm sure another visit from Mr. Bunny is
on schedule. All right.
Take care, everybody.