The Montessori Elementary Material

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The "Children's Houses" reached a stage where children could write words and sentences, demonstrating their understanding through reading slips with actions to execute. The materials for developing writing and reading included two alphabets: a larger one with colored vowels and consonants, and a smaller monochrome one. In English, phonograms help reduce phonetic difficulties, allowing children to grasp sounds without focusing on individual letter values until they build rules inductively. While the extent of progress was not precisely measured, it was clear that children had acquired the mechanical skills of writing and reading, laying the groundwork for their next educational step, elementary school. The method established the psycho-motor mechanism of written language through a maturation process similar to the natural growth of speech, exercising psycho-motor paths methodically. This foundation allows the child's mind to utilize the operations performed with written language for mechanical execution (writing) and intelligent interpretation (reading). Typically, by age five, children begin to think and use written language to express their thoughts, indicating readiness for elementary work. This readiness is determined by mental maturity rather than age or other incidental factors.