Barbara Isaacs explains how everyday interactions, songs, stories and activities support children’s language development in Montessori settings...
Long before Piaget, Montessori recognised that children develop in stages. Each stage is unique and essential to their subsequent development.
She named the first stage the Absorbent Mind. This is when children need the freedom to move and explore using their senses, supported by an empathetic adult.
A hundred years on, we take these principles for granted. However, it is always helpful to reflect on how Montessori perceived the first six years of life and why exploration, communication and the child’s uniqueness remain at the heart of her pedagogy.
Montessori identified and named the genetic traits of all human beings ‘human tendencies’. These natural predispositions for exploration, orientation, creativity, gregariousness and communication manifest themselves in ‘sensitive periods’.
These are unique periods of time. Children are interested in and repeat certain actions, such as climbing stairs. They may be attracted to the same small objects such as stones on a path or to the same nursery rhyme or story book.
For observing adults, there doesn’t seem to be a particular purpose to these actions. However, they have a significant meaning for children, supporting what Montessori describes as “psychological maturation”.
Montessori describes the sensitive period for language as the longest, spanning from the womb to about six/seven years of age. It starts with what appears to be a passive (or dormant) stage, when the child needs to hear language spoken.
Montessori advocates that the infant gets involved in the sounds of their environment. She urges prime carers to take children to the market and engage in family life. She warns of the sterility of the nursery where children lack the auditory stimulation of daily life.
Montessori also refers to cultures and communities where the child accompanies the mother in virtually every aspect of her life by virtue of being carried by her in a sling or tied to her back.
However, for this infant, the opportunities to explore the environment by being physically free may be limited. We know from the work of Sally Goddard Blythe and Sue Gerhardt that opportunities for exploration go hand in hand with children’s language development.
Facilitating exploration once children begin to walk is linked with their explosion into language. This is the height of the sensitive period for language, which is likely to last 18 to 24 months.
This is the stage when toddlers begins to name objects and point to others of interest. Montessori advises always giving the correct name as the child is exploring an object. This will enhance and develop cognitive understanding, as well as extend vocabulary.
Montessori urges us not to use baby language. This is because the child has enormous capacity to absorb new words at this period in his/her life. So we should name a flower found in the garden as daisy, rose or sunflower. We should call the tiny insect crawling in the grass an ant, earwig or ladybird.
As toddlers begins to express more complex ideas through short phrases and first sentences, we should mirror, extend and respond.
This ensures that we extend the child’s language skills. Subsequently, children will feel supported in their efforts to express ideas, feelings and discoveries.
Listening to children of this age whilst playing gives us real opportunities to assess their level of language skills and identify possible areas for further development.
Spoken language supported by songs, rhymes and sharing of books and opportunities for role play provides the best foundation for the next stage of the sensitive period for language.
This is when we gradually introduce children to the printed word and show them how to decode it and express their ideas through writing.
Without a strong foundation in spoken language, this next stage of the sensitive period for language becomes a real challenge, both for children and educators.
Barbara Isaacs is the academic director of Montessori Centre International.
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