Other aspects of language
By about 3 years of age the child’s spoken language is rich both in semantic and syntactic component. At around 4 years of age he experiences an anthropological and cultural need to communicate through yet another means of communication namely, writing. The deeper essence is that the spoken form however useful it may be cannot be a means of communication which can be used across space and time. Writing involves both physical and mental skills.
Dr Montessori realised that the need for writing and ability to write must both emerge out from the mind. When the child enters the House of Children, he would and in possessing on a spoken form of language which has a considerable semantic and syntactic potential. Immediately he is need of help to consolidate the language acquired as a human function and also refine it to get rid of any incorrections that may have been part of his language. Therefore he is offered various forms of help such as enriching his vocabulary, acquiring correct expressions and also finding opportunity for free oral expressions. Around the same time he would experiencing a sensitive period to bring in a mental order among the sensorial impressions chaotically amassed. He is offered sensorial activities to categorise impressions. In addition to serving towards refinement of his sense it also serves him in acquiring greater motor co-ordination. Thus around 4 years of age the child would have not only consolidated his spoken language but also acquired greater motor co-ordination. Dr Montessori realised that this is the time when various preparations culminate and leads the child into the explosion of writing as a human function. Broadly writing demands skills on two levels – physical and mental levels. On these two levels the child has to be prepared simultaneously so that he can acquire writing naturally.
Physical Level – The preparation on the physical level involves the following –
The ability to use the writing instrument with a controlled hand – Following the child's admission into the educational environment he is introduced to the elementary movements which enable him to consolidate the co-ordination of movement and also develop eye hand co-ordination. Introduction to exercises of practical life helps him to use his hands in a controlled manner. Every activity is associated not only with the specific criteria for perfection but also with many controls of errors. As the child has to take care to avoid committing an error, he acquires greater motor co-ordination. With the sensorial material the preparation on this level is more focussed.
Beginning with the cylinder blocks the child methodically prepares his hands towards the mechanical preparation for writing. The knobs of the cylinders help the child to acquire the necessary prehensile co-ordination to hold the writing instrument with the required firmness. Fitting the cylinders into its sockets with an intentional movement also develops the muscular control over his fingers. The same is continued with the pink tower. When the child is still experiencing the sensitivity for touch around 2 ½ years of age, the tactile materials are introduced. This enables the child to acquire the lightness of touch without letting the muscular sense interfere.
Lightness of touch is one of the most important requirements for writing. The lightness of touch would ensure that the child use of writing instrument over the writing surface in such a manner that both the writing instrument and the surface are not damaged. Further the tactile material also ensures that the child is able to move with control within the horizontal and vertical boundaries. Tracing the boards which have bands also enables the child to acquire the muscular control to skip over spaces evenly. During the presentation the adult directs the child to move from left to right which is the way majority of the scripts move.
Following the tactile material he is introduced to the geometry insets where he uses his muscular sense in a controlled manner to feel the contours of shapes. The child also performs the activity with intentional movement when he inserts the insets into the frames. When the child traces the insets in the clockwise direction and the frame in the anticlockwise direct, he is exercising his wrist to develop the required agility which is most needed for writing. The agility of the wrist is also taken care of by directing the child to move the sound boxes in a particular manner [shaking only the wrist]. Working with the sound boxes the child would develop a keep acoustic perception and become aware of the human speech sounds.
To be able to reproduce shapes of letters – Having extensively worked with the geometry cabinet the child would have developed muscular memory for geometrical shapes [regular shapes]. This is followed up by the Botany cabinet when the child starts using a stick to trace the contours of a leaf, just like he would hold a writing instrument to trace a shape. Having worked with shapes he would have acquired necessary muscular control and developed muscular memory.
He is then introduced to the sandpaper letters which are shapes of letters cut out of sandpaper and stuck on a plaque of wood. The child uses the tactile, muscular and the visual sense to take in the shape of the letter. The tactile sense ensures that the child runs his fingers lightly over the letters. Thus it becomes the control of error for the muscular sense, the muscular and the visual senses have the shapes of the letters imprinted in the mind. When the child’s hand has been prepared he has also acquired the motor control needed for handling the writing instrument he is introduced to the drawing / metal insets. With this material the child straightaway uses a writing instrument and a writing surface. Having drawn the contour of the shape on the paper with the help of an inset, he fills the shape with vertical lines which is a challenging task. He has also got the freedom to fill it up with horizontal and oblique lines. The activity demands that he draws lines very lightly remain within the outline and draw the lines very close to one another so that the colour of the paper is not seen. Thus the child starts using a writing surface without having to worry about a thought.
Next...Other Articles
