The Explosion into Reading

"Mom, I just read a book for the first time!" What wonderful rewards there are in motherhood, especially homeschooling motherhood. This is one of the most rewarding. Our son turned six less than a month ago and now, evidently, has decided that he wants to read. He has had no reading lessons, worksheets, no tears or reading homework. He has worked with the Montessori sandpaper letters and moveable alphabet off and on for the past two years, learning a few and then moving on to math - his favorite. Then all of a sudden he decides to read and does it.

Montessori described this phenomenon as the explosion into reading. Having gained all of the necessary information needed to know how to read, a child will one day put all the pieces together and begin reading. Typically a child will work with the sandpaper letters, moveable alphabet and the pink (phonetic consonant-vowel-consonant) collection of words. Due to the ability of each child to decide what he would like to accomplish with his time, he may not do all of the same steps that another child will do in order to begin reading.

The next couple of weeks will be particularly fun as he explores all of the many reading skills which he has gained over his years of "playing" with the Montessori materials.