 CHAPTER XVI. The Montessori Method by Maria Montessori translated by Anne E. George. CHAPTER XVI. SPONTANIUS DEVELOPMENT OF GRAPHIC LANGUAGE. While I was directress of the orthophrenic school at Rome, I had already begun to experiment with various didactic means for the teaching of reading and writing. These experiments were practically original with me. Etard and Sequin do not present any rational method through which writing may be learned. In the pages above quoted, it may be seen how Etard proceeded in the teaching of the alphabet, and I give here what Sequin says concerning the teaching of writing. Quote, To have a child pass from design to writing, which is its most immediate application, the teacher need only called D, a portion of a circle, resting its extremities upon a vertical A, two obliques reunited at the summit, and cut by a horizontal, etc., etc. We no longer need worry ourselves as to how the child shall learn to write. He designs, then writes, It need not be said that we should have the child draw the letters according to the laws of contrast and analogy. For instance, O beside I, B with P, T opposite L, etc., unquote. According to Sequin, then, we do not need to teach writing. The child who draws will write, but writing for this author means printed capitals. Nor does he, in any other place, explain whether his pupil shall write in any other way. He instead gives much space to the description of the design which prepares for and which includes writing. This method of design is full of difficulties, and was only established by the combined attempts of Itard and Sequin. Quote, Chapter 40. Design In design the first idea to be acquired is that of the plane destined to receive the design. The second is that of the trace, or delineation. Within these two concepts lies all design, all linear creation. These two concepts are correlative. Their relation generates the idea or the capacity to produce the lines in this sense. That lines may only be called such when they follow a methodical and determined direction. The trace without direction is not a line, produced by chance, it has no name. The rational sign on the contrary has a name because it has a direction, and since all writing or design is nothing other than a composite of the diverse directions followed by a line, we must, before approaching what is commonly called writing, insist upon these notions of plane and line. The ordinary child acquires these by instinct, but an insistence upon them is necessary in order to render the idiot careful and sensitive in their application. Through methodical design he will come into rational contact with all parts of the plane and will, guided by imitation, produce lines at first simple but growing more complicated. The pupil may be taught first to trace the diverse species of lines, second to trace them in various directions and in different positions relative to the plane, third to reunite these lines to form figures varying from simple to complex. We must therefore teach the pupil to distinguish straight lines from curves, vertical from horizontal, and from the various oblique lines, and must finally make clear the principal points of conjunction of two or more lines informing a figure. This rational analysis of design, from which writing will spring, is so essential in all its parts that a child who, before being confided to my care, already wrote many of the letters, has taken six days to learn to draw a perpendicular or a horizontal line. He spent fifteen days before imitating a curve and an oblique. Indeed the greater number of my pupils are for a long time incapable of even imitating the movements of my hand upon the paper, before attempting to draw a line in a determined direction. The most imitative, or the least stupid ones, produce a sign diametrically opposite to that which I show them, and all of them confound the points of conjunction of two lines no matter how evident this is. It is true that the thorough knowledge I have given them of lines and of configuration helps them to make the connection which must be established between the plane and the various marks with which they must cover the surface. But in the study rendered necessary by the deficiency of my pupils, the progression in the matter of the vertical, the horizontal, the oblique, and the curve must be determined by the consideration of the difficulty of comprehension and of execution which each offers to a torpid intelligence and to a weak, unsteady hand. I do not speak here of merely having them perform a difficult thing, since I have them surmount a series of difficulties, and for this reason I ask myself if some of these difficulties are not greater, and some less, and if they do not grow one from the other, like theorems. Here are the ideas which have guided me in this respect. The vertical is a line which the eye and the hand follow directly, going up and down. The horizontal line is not natural to the eye, nor to the hand, which lowers itself and follows a curve, like the horizon from which it has taken its name, starting from the center and going to the lateral extremity of the plane. The oblique line presupposes more complex comparative ideas, and the curve demands such firmness and so many differences in its relation to the plane that we would only lose time in taking up the study of these lines. The most simple line, then, is the vertical, and this is how I have given my pupils an idea of it. The first geometric formula is this. Only straight lines may be drawn from one given point to another. Starting from this axiom, which the hand alone can demonstrate, I have fixed two points upon the blackboard, and have connected them by means of a vertical. My pupils try to do the same between the dots they have upon their paper, but with some the vertical descends to the right of the point, and with others to the left, to say nothing of those whose hand diverges in all directions. To arrest these various deviations, which are often far more defects of the intelligence and of the vision than of the hand, I have thought it wise to restrict the field of the plane, drawing two vertical lines to left and right of the points which the child is to join by means of a parallel line halfway between the two enclosing lines. If these two lines are not enough, I place two rulers vertically upon the paper, which arrest the deviations of the hand absolutely. These material barriers are not, however, useful for very long. We first suppress the rulers and return to the two parallel lines between which the idiot learns to draw the third line. We then take away one of the guiding lines, and leave sometimes that on the right, sometimes that on the left, finally taking away this last line, and at last the dots, beginning by erasing the one at the top, which indicates the starting point of the line and of the hand. The child thus learns to draw a vertical without material control, without points of comparison. The same method, the same difficulty, the same means of direction, are used for the straight horizontal lines. If by chance these lines begin well, we must await until the child curves them, departing from the center, and proceeding to the extremity as nature commands him, and because of the reason which I have explained. If the two dots do not suffice to sustain the hand, we keep it from deviating by means of the parallel lines or of the rulers. Finally have him trace the horizontal line, and by uniting with a vertical ruler, we form a right angle. The child will begin to understand in this way what the vertical and horizontal lines really are, and will see the relation of these two ideas as he traces a figure. In the sequence of the development of lines, it would seem that the study of the oblique should immediately follow that of the vertical and the horizontal, but this is not so. The oblique which partakes of the vertical in its inclination, and of the horizontal in its direction, and which partakes of both in its nature, since it is a straight line, presents perhaps, because of its relation to other lines, an idea too complex to be appreciated without preparation." Thus Sequin goes on, through many pages, to speak of the oblique in all directions, which he has his pupils trace between two parallels. He then tells of the four curves, which he has them draw to right and left of a vertical, and above and below a horizontal, and concludes, Quote, So we find the solution of the problems for which we sought, the vertical line, the horizontal, the oblique, and four curves, whose union forms the circle, contain all possible lines, all writing. Arrived at this point, E. Tard and I were for a long time at a standstill. The lines being known, the next step was to have the child trace regular figures, beginning of course with the simplest. According to the general opinion, E. Tard had advised me to begin with the square, and I had followed this advice for three months, without being able to make the child understand me. After a long series of experiments, guided by his ideas of the genesis of geometric figures, Sequin became aware that the triangle is the figure most easily drawn. Quote, When three lines meet thus, they always form a triangle, while four lines may meet in a hundred different directions, without remaining parallel, and therefore without presenting a perfect square. From these experiments and many others, I have deduced the first principles of writing, and of design for the idiot, principles whose application is too simple for me to discuss further. Quote, Such was the proceeding used by my predecessors in the teaching of writing to deficients. As for reading, E. Tard proceeded thus. He drove nails into the wall, and hung upon them geometric figures of woods, such as triangles, squares, circles. He then drew the exact imprint of these upon the wall, after which he took the figures away, and had the boy of Averon replace them upon the proper nails, guided by the design. From this design E. Tard conceived the idea of the plain geometric insets. He finally had large print letters made of wood, and proceeded in the same way as with the geometric figures, that is, using the design upon the wall, and arranging the nails in such a way that the child might place the letters upon them, and then take them off again. Later Sequin used the horizontal plane instead of the wall, drawing the letters on the bottom of a box, and having the child superimpose solid letters. After twenty years Sequin had not changed his method of practice. A criticism of the method used by E. Tard and Sequin for reading and writing seems to me superfluous. The method has two fundamental errors which make it inferior to the methods in use for normal children—namely, writing in printed capitals, and the preparation for writing through a study of rational geometry which we now expect only from students in the secondary schools. Sequin here confuses ideas in a most extraordinary way. He has suddenly jumped from the psychological observation of the child, and from his relation to his environment, to the study of the origin of lines, and their relation to the plain. He says that the child will readily design a vertical line, but that the horizontal will soon become a curve because, quote, nature commands it, unquote, and this command of nature is represented by the fact that man sees the horizon as a curved line. The example of Sequin serves to illustrate the necessity of a special education which shall fit man for observation, and shall direct logical thought. The observation must be absolutely objective, in other words stripped of preconceptions. Sequin has in this case the preconception the geometric design must prepare for writing, and that hinders him from discovering the truly natural proceeding necessary to such preparation. He has besides the preconception that the deviation of a line, as well as the inexactness with which the child traces it, are due to, quote, the mind and the eye, not to the hand, unquote. And so he warries himself for weeks and months in explaining the directions of lines, and in guiding the vision of the idiot. It seems as if Sequin felt that a good method must start from a superior point, geometry. The intelligence of the child is only considered worthy of attention in its relation to abstract things, and is not this a common defect? Let us observe mediocre men. They pompously assume erudition and disdain simple things. Let us study the clear thought of those whom we consider men of genius. Newton is seated tranquilly in the open air, and Apple falls from the tree. He observes it, and asks, why? Phenomena are never insignificant. The fruit which falls and universal gravitation may rest side by side in the mind of a genius. If Newton had been a teacher of children, he would have led the children to look upon the worlds on a starry night. But an erudite person might have felt it necessary first to prepare the child to understand the sublime calculus which is the key to astronomy. Galileo Galilei observed the oscillation of a lamp swung on high, and discovered the laws of the pendulum. In the intellectual life simplicity consists in divesting one's mind of every preconception, and this leads to the discovery of new things, as in the moral life humility and material poverty guide us toward high spiritual conquests. If we study the history of discoveries we will find that they have come from real objective observation, and from logical thought. These are simple things, but rarely found in one man. Does it not seem strange, for instance, that after the discovery by Lavorin of the Malarial Parasite which invades the red blood corpuscles, we did not, in spite of the fact that we know the blood system to be a system of closed vessels, even so much as suspect the possibility that a stinging insect might inoculate us with the parasite? Did the theory that the evil emanated from low ground, that it was carried by the African winds, or that it was due to dampness, was given credence? Yet these were vague ideas, while the parasite was a definite biological specimen. When the discovery of the Malarial Mosquito came to complete logically the discovery of Lavorin, this seemed marvellous, stupefying, yet we know in biology that the reproduction of molecular vegetable bodies is bycision with alternate sporation, and that of molecular animals is bycision with alternate conjunction. That is, after a certain period in which the primitive cell has divided and subdivided into fresh cells, equal among themselves, there comes the formation of two diverse cells, one male and one female, which must unite to form a single cell, capable of recommencing the cycle of reproduction by division. All this being known at the time of Lavorin, and the Malarial Parasite being known to be a Protison, it would have seemed logical to consider its segmentation in the stroma of the red corpuscle as the phase of Cision, and to await until the parasite gave place to the sexual forms, which must necessarily come in the phase succeeding Cision. Instead the division was looked upon as spore formation, and neither Lavorin nor the numerous scientists who followed the research knew how to give an explanation of the appearance of the sexual forms. Lavorin expressed an idea, which was immediately received, that these two forms were degenerate forms of the Malarial Parasite, and therefore incapable of producing the changes determining the disease. Indeed the Malaria was apparently cured at the appearance of the two sexual forms of the Parasite, the conjunction of the two cells being impossible in the human blood, the theory then recent of Morale upon human degeneration, accompanied by deformity and weakness, inspired Lavorin in his interpretation, and everybody found the idea of the illustrious pathologist, a fortunate one, because it was inspired by the great concepts of the Moralean theory. Had anyone instead limited himself to reasoning thus, the original form of the Malarial insect is a Protoson, it reproduces itself by Cision, under our eyes, when the Cision is finished, we see two diverse cells, one half-moon, the other thread-like. These are the feminine and masculine cells, which must by conjunction alternate the Cision, such a reasoner would have opened the way to the discovery, but so simple a process of reasoning did not come. We might almost ask ourselves how great would be the world's progress if a special form of education prepared men for pure observation and logical thought. A great deal of time and intellectual force are lost in the world, because the false seems great, and the truth so small and insignificant. I say all this to defend the necessity, which I feel we face, of preparing the coming generations by means of more rational methods. It is from these generations that the world awaits its progress. We have already learned to make use of our surroundings, but I believe that we have arrived at a time when the necessity presents itself for utilizing human force, through a scientific education. To return to Sikwin's method of writing, it illustrates another truth, that it is the torturous path we follow in our teaching. This too is allied to an instinct for complicating things, analogous to that which makes us so prone to appreciate complicated things. We have Sikwin teaching geometry in order to teach a child to write, and making the child's mind exert itself to follow geometrical abstractions, only to come down to the simple effort of drawing a printed D. After all, must the child not have to make another effort in order to forget the print, and learn the script? And even we in these days still believe that in order to learn, to write, the child must first make vertical strokes. This conviction is very general, yet it does not seem natural that to write the letters of the alphabet, which are all rounded, it should be necessary to begin with straight lines and acute angles. In all good faith, we wonder that it should be difficult to do away with the angularity and stiffness with which the beginner traces the beautiful curve of the O, yet through what effort on our part, and on his, was he forced to fill pages and pages with rigid lines and acute angles. To whom is due this time-honored idea that the first sign to be traced must be a straight line, and why do we so avoid preparing for curves, as well as angles? Let us for a moment divest ourselves of such preconceptions and proceed in a more simple way. We may be able to relieve future generations of all effort in the matter of learning to write. Is it necessary to begin writing with the making of vertical strokes? A moment of clear and logical thinking is enough to enable us to answer, no. The child makes too painful an effort in following such an exercise. The first steps should be the easiest, and the up-and-down stroke is, on the contrary, one of the most difficult of all the pen movements. Only a professional penman could fill a whole page and preserve the regularity of such strokes, but a person who writes only moderately well would be able to complete a page of presentable writing. Indeed, the straight line is unique, expressing the shortest distance between two points, while any deviation from that direction signifies a line which is not straight. These infinite deviations are therefore easier than that one trace which is perfection. If we should give to a number of adults the order to draw a straight line upon the blackboard, each person would draw a long line proceeding in a different direction, some beginning from one side, some from another, and almost all would succeed in making the line straight. Should we then ask that the line be drawn in a particular direction, starting from a determined point, the ability shown at first would greatly diminish, and we would see more irregularities or errors. Almost all the lines would be long, for the individual must need gather impetus in order to succeed in making his line straight. Should we ask that the lines be made short, and included within precise limits, the errors would increase, for we would thus impede the impetus which helps to conserve the definite direction. In the methods ordinarily used in teaching writing, we add to such limitations the further restriction that the instrument of writing must be held in a certain way, not as instinct prompts each individual. Thus we approach in the most conscious and restricted way the first act of writing, which should be voluntary. In this first writing we still demand that the single strokes be kept parallel, making the child's task a difficult and barren one, since it has no purpose for the child, who does not understand the meaning of all this detail. I had noticed in the notebooks of the deficient children in France, and Voisin also mentions this phenomenon, that the pages of vertical strokes, although they began as such, ended in lines of C's. This goes to show that the deficient child, whose mind is less resistant than that of the normal child, exhausts, little by little, the initial effort of imitation, and the natural movement gradually comes to take the place of that which was force or stimulated. So the lines are transformed into curves, more and more like the letter C. Such a phenomenon does not appear in the copy books of normal children, for they resist through effort until the end of the page is reached, and thus, as often happens, conceal the didactic error. Let us observe the spontaneous drawings of normal children, when, for example, picking up a fallen twig, they trace figures in the sandy garden path. We never see short, straight lines, but long and variously interlaced curves. Sequin saw the same phenomenon when the horizontal lines he made his pupils draw became curves so quickly instead, and he attributed the phenomenon to the imitation of the horizontal line. That vertical strokes should prepare for alphabetical writing seems incredibly illogical. The alphabet is made up of curves, therefore we must prepare for it by learning to make straight lines. But, says someone, in many letters of the alphabet, the straight line does exist. True, but there is no reason why, as a beginning of writing, we should select one of the details of a complete form. We may analyze the alphabetical signs in this way, discovering straight lines and curves, as by analyzing discourse we find grammatical rules. But we all speak independently of such rules. Why then should we not write independently of such analysis, and without the separate execution of the parts constituting the letter? It would be sad indeed if we could speak only after we had studied grammar. It would be much the same as demanding that before we looked at the stars in the firmament, we must study infinitesimal calculus. It is much the same thing to feel that before teaching an idiot to write, we must make him understand the abstract derivation of lines and the problems of geometry. No less are we to be pitied if, in order to write, we must follow analytically the parts constituting the alphabetical signs. In fact, the effort, which we believe to be a necessary accompaniment to learning to write, is purely artificial effort, allied not to writing, but to the methods by which it is taught. Let us for a moment cast aside every dogma in this connection. Let us take no note of culture or custom. We are not here interested in knowing how humanity began to write, nor what may have been the origin of writing itself. Let us put away the conviction that long usage has given us, of the necessity of beginning writing by making vertical strokes, and let us try to be as clear and unprejudiced in spirit as the truth which we are seeking. Quote, let us observe an individual who is writing, and let us seek to analyze the acts he performs in writing. That is, the mechanical operations which enter into the execution of writing. This would be undertaking the philosophical study of writing, and it goes without saying that we should examine the individual who writes, not the writing, the subject, not the object. Many have begun with the object, examining the writing, and in this way many methods have been constructed. But a method starting from the individual would be decidedly original, very different from other methods which preceded it. It would indeed signify a new era in writing, based upon anthropology. In fact, when I undertook my experiments with normal children, if I had thought of giving a name to this new method of writing, I should have called it without knowing what the results would be, the anthropological method. Certainly my studies in anthropology inspired the method, but experience has given me, as a surprise, another title, which seems to me the natural one, the method of spontaneous writing. While teaching deficient children, I happen to observe the following fact. An idiot girl of eleven years, who is possessed of normal strength and motor-power in her hands, could not learn to sew, or even to take the first step, darning, which consists in passing the needle first over, then under the wolf, now taking up, now leaving, a number of threads. I set the child to weaving with the fruible mats, in which a strip of paper is threaded transversely in and out, among vertical strips of paper, held fixed at top and bottom. I thus came to think of the analogy between the two exercises, and became much interested in my observation of the girl. When she had become skilled in the fruible weaving, I led her back again to the sewing, and saw with pleasure that she was now able to follow the darning. From that time on our sewing classes began with the regular course in the fruible weaving. I saw that the necessary movements of the hand in sewing had been prepared without having the child sew, and that we should really find the way to teach the child how, before making him execute a task. I saw especially that preparatory movements could be carried on and reduced to a mechanism, by means of repeated exercises, not in the work itself, but in that which prepares for it. Pupils could then come to the real work, able to perform it without ever having directly set their hands to it before. I thought that I might in this way prepare for writing, and the idea interested me tremendously. I marveled at its simplicity, and was annoyed that I had not thought before of the method which was suggested to me by my observation of the girl who could not sew. In fact, seeing that I had already taught the children to touch the contours of the plain geometric insets, I had now only to teach them to touch with their fingers the forms of the letters of the alphabet. I had a beautiful alphabet manufactured, the letters being in flowing script, the low letters eight centimeters high, and the taller ones in proportion. These letters were in wood, one-half centimeter in thickness, and were painted the consonants in blue enamel, the vowels in red. The underside of these letter forms, instead of being painted, were covered with bronze, that they might be more durable. We had only one copy of this wooden alphabet, but there were a number of cards upon which the letters were painted in the same colors and dimensions as the wooden ones. These painted letters were arranged upon the cards and groups, according to contrast or analogy of form. Corresponding to each letter of the alphabet, we had a picture representing some object, the name of which began with the letter. Above this the letter was painted in large script, and near it the same letter, much smaller and in its printed form. These pictures served to fix the memory of the sound of the letter, and the small printed letter, united to the one in script, was to form the passage to the reading of books. These pictures do not indeed represent a new idea, but they completed an arrangement which did not exist before. Such an alphabet was undoubtedly most expensive, and when made by hand the cost was fifty dollars. The interesting part of my experiment was that after I had shown the children how to place the movable wooden letters upon those painted in groups upon the cards, I had them touch them repeatedly in the fashion of flowing writing. I multiply these exercises in various ways, and the children thus learned to make the movements necessary to reproduce the form of the graphic signs without writing. I was struck by an idea which had never before entered my mind that in writing we make two diverse forms of movement, for besides the movement by which the form is reproduced, there is also that of manipulating the instrument of writing. And indeed, when the deficient children had become expert in touching all the letters, according to form, they did not yet know how to hold a pencil. To hold and to manipulate a little stick securely corresponds to the acquisition of a special muscular mechanism which is independent of the writing movement. It must, in fact, go along with the motions necessary to produce all of the various letter forms. It is, then, a distinct mechanism which must exist together with the motor memory of the single graphic signs. When I provoked in the deficients the movement characteristic of writing by having them touch the letters with their fingers, I exercised mechanically the psychomotor paths and fixed the muscular memory of each letter. They remained the preparation of the muscular mechanism necessary in holding and managing the instrument of writing, and in this I provoked by adding two periods to the one already described. In the second period the child touched the letter, not only with the index finger of his right hand, but with two, the index and the middle finger. In the third period he touched the letters with the little wooden stick, held as a pen in writing. In substance I was making him repeat the same movements, now with, and now without, holding the instrument. I have said that the child was to follow the visual image of the outlined letter. It is true that his finger had already been trained through touching the contours of the geometric figures, but this was not always a sufficient preparation. Indeed, even we grown people, when we trace the design through glass or tissue paper, cannot follow perfectly the line which we see and along which we should draw our pencil. The design should furnish some sort of control, some mechanical guide for the pencil, in order to follow with the exactness, the trace, sensible in reality only to the eye. The deficience, therefore, did not always follow the design exactly with either the finger or the stick. The didactic material did not offer any control in the work, or rather it offered only the uncertain control of the child's glance, which could, to be sure, see if the finger continued upon the sign or not. I now thought that in order to have the pupil follow the movements more exactly, and to guide the execution more directly, I should need to prepare letter-forms so indented as to represent a furrow within which the wooden stick might run. I made the designs for this material, but the work being too expensive, I was not able to carry out my plan. After having experimented largely with this method, I spoke of it very fully to the teachers in my classes in didactic methods at the State Orthophenic School. These lectures were printed, and I give below the words which, though they were placed in the hands of more than two hundred elementary teachers, did not draw from them a single helpful idea. Professor Ferreri, in an article, speaks with amazement of this fact. Quote, At this point we present the cards bearing the vowels painted in red. The child sees irregular figures painted in red. We give him the vowels in wood, painted red, and have him superimpose these upon the letters painted on the card. We have him touch the wooden vowels in the fashion of writing, and give him the name of each letter. The vowels are arranged on the cards according to analogy of form. Row one. O-E-A. Row two. I. Blank. U. We then say to the child, for example, find O. Put it in its place. Then what letter is this? We here discover that many children make mistakes in the letters if they only look at the letter. They could, however, tell the letter by touching it. Most interesting observations may be made revealing various individual types, visual, motor. We have the child touch the letters drawn upon the cards, using first the index finger only, then the index with the middle finger, then with a small wooden stick held as a pen, the letter must be traced in the fashion of writing. The consonants are painted in blue and are arranged upon the cards according to analogy of form. To these cards are annexed a movable alphabet in blue wood, the letters of which are to be placed upon the consonants as they were upon the vowels. In addition to these materials there is another series of cards where, besides the consonant, are painted one or two figures, the names of which begin with that particular letter. Here the script letter is a smaller printed letter painted in the same color. The teacher, naming the consonant according to the phonetic method, indicates the letter and then the card pronouncing the names of the objects painted there and emphasizing the first letter as, for example, p, pair, give me the consonant p, put it in its place, touch it, etc. In all this we study the linguistic defects of the child. Describing the letter in the fashion of writing begins the muscular education which prepares for writing. One of our little girls taught by this method has reproduced all the letters with the pen, though she does not as yet recognize them all. She has made them about eight centimeters high and with surprising regularity. This child also does well in hand work. The child who looks, recognizes, and touches the letters in this manner of writing prepares himself simultaneously for reading and writing. Touching the letters and looking at them at the same time fixes the image more quickly through the cooperation of the senses. Later the two facts separate. Looking becomes reading. Touching becomes writing. According to the type of the individual, some learn to read first, others to write." I had thus, about the year 1899, initiated my method for reading and writing upon the fundamental lines it still follows. It was with great surprise that I noted the facility with which a deficient child to whom I one day gave a piece of chalk traced upon the blackboard in a firm hand the letters of the entire alphabet writing for the first time. This had arrived much more quickly than I had supposed. As I have said, some of the children wrote the letters with the pen and yet could not recognize one of them. I have noticed also in normal children that the muscular sense is most easily developed in infancy, and this makes writing exceedingly easy for children. It is not so with reading, which requires a much longer course of instruction, and which calls for a superior intellectual development, since it treats of the interpretation of signs and of the modulation of accents of the voice in order that the word may be understood. And all this is a purely mental task, while in writing the child under dictation materially translates sounds into signs and moves a thing which is always easy and pleasant for him. Writing develops in the little child with facility and spontaneity analogous to the development of spoken language, which is a motor translation of audible sounds. Reading on the contrary makes part of an abstract intellectual culture, which is the interpretation of ideas from graphic symbols, and is only acquired later on. My first experiments with normal children were begun in the first half of the month of November, 1907. In the two children's houses in San Lorenzo I had, from the date of their respective inaugurations, January 6th and 1, and March 7th in the other, used only the games of practical life and of the education of the senses. I had not presented exercises for writing, because, like everybody else, I held the prejudice that it was necessary to begin, as late as possible, the teaching of reading and writing, and certainly to avoid it before the age of six. But the children seemed to demand some conclusion of the exercises, which had already developed them intellectually in a most surprising way. They knew how to dress and undress and to bathe themselves. They knew how to sweep the floors, dust the furniture, put the room and order, to open and close boxes, to manage the keys and the various locks. They could replace the objects in the cupboards in perfect order. Could care for the plants. They knew how to observe things, and how to see objects with their hands. A number of them came to us and frankly demanded to be taught to read and write. Even in the face of our refusal, several children came to school and proudly showed us that they knew how to make an O on the blackboard. Finally, many of the mothers came to beg us as a favor to teach the children to write, saying, Here in the children's houses, the children are awakened, and learn so many things easily that if you only teach reading and writing, they will soon learn, and will then be spared the great fatigue this always means in the elementary school. This faith of the mothers that their little ones would, from us, be able to learn to read and write without fatigue, made a great impression upon me. Thinking upon the results I had obtained in the school for deficience, I decided, during the August vacation, to make a trial upon the reopening of the school in September. Upon second thought, I decided that it would be better to take up the interrupted work in September, and not to approach reading and writing until October, when the elementary schools opened. This presented the added advantage of permitting us to compare the progress of the children of the first elementary, with that made by ours, who would have begun the same branch of instruction at the same time. In September, therefore, I began a search for someone who could manufacture didactic materials, but found no one willing to undertake it. I wished to have a splendid alphabet made, like the one used with the deficients. Giving this up, I was willing to content myself with the ordinary enameled letters used upon shop windows, but I could find them in script form, nowhere. My disappointments were many. So passed the whole month of October. The children in the first elementary had already filled pages of vertical strokes, and mine were still waiting. I then decided to cut out large paper letters, and to have one of my teachers color these roughly on one side with a blue tint. As for the touching of the letters, I thought of cutting the letters of the alphabet out of sandpaper, and of gluing them upon smooth cards, thus making objects much like those used in the primitive exercises for the tactile sense. Only after I had made these simple things did I become aware of the superiority of this alphabet to that magnificent one I had used for my deficients, and in the pursuit of which I had wasted two months. If I had been rich, I would have had that beautiful but barren alphabet of the past. We wish the old things, because we cannot understand the new, and we are always seeking after that gorgeousness which belongs to things already on the decline, without recognizing in the humble simplicity of new ideas the germ which shall develop in the future. I finally understood that a paper alphabet could easily be multiplied, and could be used by many children at one time, not only for the recognition of letters, but for the composition of words. I saw that in the sandpaper alphabet I had found the looked-for guide for the fingers which touched the letter. This was furnished in such a way that no longer the sight alone but the touch lent itself directly to teaching the movement of writing with exactness of control. In the afternoon after school the two teachers and I, with great enthusiasm, set about cutting out letters from writing paper, and others from sandpaper. The first we painted blue, the second we mounted on cards, and while we worked, there unfolded before my mind a clear vision of the method in all its completeness, so simple that it made me smile to think I had not seen it before. The story of our first attempts is very interesting. One day one of the teachers was ill, and I sent as a substitute a pupil of mine, Srina Anna Fidelli, a professor of pedagogy in a normal school. When I went to see her at the close of the day she showed me two modifications of the alphabet which she had made. One consisted in placing behind each letter a transverse strip of white paper, so that the child might recognize the direction of the letter, which he often turned about and upside down. The other consisted in the making of a cardboard case, where each letter might be put away in its own compartment, instead of being kept in a confused mass as at first. I still keep this rude case made from an old paste-board box, which Srina Fidelli had found in the court, and roughly sewed with white thread. She showed it to me laughing and excusing herself for the miserable work, but I was most enthusiastic about it. I saw at once that the letters in the case were a precious aid to the teaching. Indeed, it offered to the eye of the child the possibility of comparing all of the letters and of selecting those he needed. In this way the didactic material described below had its origin. I need only add that at Christmas time, less than a month and a half later, while the children in the first elementary were laboriously working to forget their wearer's sympotox, and to prepare for making the curves of O. and the other vowels, two of my little ones of four years old, wrote, each one in the name of his companions, a letter of good wishes, and thanks to Sr. Eduardo Telamo. These were written upon note-paper, without blot or erasure, and the writing was adjudged equal to that which is obtained in the third elementary grade. End of Chapter 16. Method for the Teaching of Reading and Writing Chapter 17 of the Montessori Method. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Montessori Method by Maria Montessori. Translated by Anne E. George. Chapter 17 Description of the Method and Didactic Material Used First period. Exercise tending to develop the muscular mechanism necessary in holding and using the instrument in writing. Design preparatory to writing, didactic material. Small wooden tables, metal insets, outline drawings, colored pencils. I have among my materials two little wooden tables, the tops of which form an inclined plane, sloping toward a narrow cornice, which prevents objects placed upon the table from slipping off. The top of each table is just large enough to hold four of the square frames, into which the metal plane geometric insets are fitted, and is so painted as to represent three of these brown frames, each containing a square center of the same dark lowest centers of the metal insets. The metal insets are in dimension and form a reproduction of the series of plane geometric insets in wood already described. Exercises. Placed side by side upon the teacher's desk, or upon one of the little tables belonging to the children, these two little tables may have the appearance of being one long table containing eight figures. The child may select one or more figures, taking at the same time the frame of the inset. The analogy between these metal insets and the plane geometric insets of wood is complete. But in this case, the child can freely use the pieces where before he arranged them in the wooden frame. He first takes the metal frame, places it upon a sheet of white paper, and with a colored pencil draws around the contour of the empty center. Then he takes away the frame, and upon the paper there remains a geometric figure. This is the first time that the child has reproduced through design a geometric figure. Until now, he has only placed the geometric insets above the figures delineated on the three series of cards. He now places upon the figure, which he himself has drawn, the metal inset, just as he placed the wooden inset upon the cards. His next act is to follow the contour of this inset with a pencil of a different color. Lifting the metal piece, he sees the figure reproduced upon the paper in two colors. Here, for the first time, is born the abstract concept of the geometric figure. For from two metal pieces so different in form as the frame and the inset, there has resulted the same design, which is a line expressing a determined figure. This fact strikes the attention of the child. He often marvels to find the same figure reproduced by means of two pieces so different, and looks for a long time with evident pleasure at the duplicate design, almost as if it were actually produced by the objects which served to guide his hand. Besides all this, the child learns to trace lines determining figures. There will come a day in which, with still greater surprise and pleasure, he will trace graphic designs determining words. After this, he begins the work which directly prepares for the formation of the muscular mechanism relative to the holding and manipulation of the instrument of writing. With a colored pencil of his own selection, held, as the pen is held in writing, he fills in the figure which he has outlined. We teach him not to pass outside the contour, and in doing so, we attract his attention to this contour, and thus, fix the idea that a line may determine a figure. The exercise of filling in one figure alone causes the child to perform repeatedly the movement and manipulation which would be necessary to fill 10 copybook pages with vertical strokes. And yet, the child feels no weariness because, although he makes exactly the muscular coordination which is necessary to the work, he does so freely and in any way that he wishes, while his eyes are fixed upon a large and brightly colored figure. At first, the children fill pages and pages of paper with these big squares, triangles, oval, strapezoids, coloring them red, orange, green, blue, light blue, and pink. Gradually, they limit themselves to the use of the dark blue and brown, both in drawing the figure and in filling it in, thus reproducing the appearance of the metal piece itself. Many of the children, quite of their own accord, make a little orange colored circle in the center of the figure, in this way representing the little brass button by which the metal piece is to be held. They take great pleasure in feeling that they have reproduced exactly like true artists, the objects which they see before them on the little shelf. Observing the successive drawings of a child, there is revealed to us a duplicate form of progression. First, little by little, the lines tend less and less to go outside the enclosing line until, at last, they are perfectly contained within it, and both the center and the frame are filled in with close and uniform strokes. Second, the strokes with which the child fills in the figures, from being at first short and confused, become gradually longer and more nearly parallel, until in many cases the figures are filled in by means of perfectly regular up and down strokes, extending from one side of the figure to the other. In such a case, it is evident that the child is master of the pencil. The muscular mechanism necessary to the management of the instrument of writing is established. We may therefore, by examining such designs, arrive at a clear idea of the maturity of the child in the matter of holding the pencil or pen in hand. To vary these exercises, we use the outline drawings already described. Through these designs, the manipulation of the pencil is perfected, for they oblige the child to make lines of various lengths, and make him more and more secure in his use of the pencil. If we could count the lines made by a child in the filling in of these figures, and could transform them into the signs used in writing, they would fill many, many copy books. Indeed, the security which our children attain is like into that of children in our ordinary third elementary grade, when for the first time, they take a pen or a pencil in hand. They know how to manage it almost as well as a person who has written for a long time. I do not believe that any means can be found which will so successfully end in so short a space of time establish this mastery, and with it all, the child is happy and diverted. My old method for the deficience, that of following with a small stick the contours of raised letters was, when compared with this, barren and miserable. Even when the children know how to write, they continue these exercises which furnish an unlimited progression since the designs may be varied and complicated. The children follow in each design essentially the same movements, and acquire a varied collection of pictures which grow more and more perfect, and of which they are very proud. For I not only provoke, but perfect the writing through the exercises which we call preparatory. The control of the pen is rendered more and more secure, not by repeated exercises in the writing, but by means of these filled in designs. In this way, my children perfect themselves in writing without actually writing. Second period, exercising tending to establish the visual muscular image of the alphabetical signs, and to establish the muscular memory of the movements necessary to writing. Tidactic material. Cards upon which the single letters of the alphabet are mounted in sandpaper, larger cards containing groups of the same letters. The cards upon which the sandpaper letters are mounted are adapted in size and shape to each letter. The vowels are in light colored sandpaper under mounted upon dark cards. The consonants and the groups of letters are in black sandpaper mounted upon white cards. The grouping is so arranged as to call attention to contrasted or analogous forms. The letters are cut in clear script form, shaded parts being made broader. We have chosen to reproduce the vertical script in use in the elementary schools. Exercises. In teaching the letters of the alphabet, we begin with the vowels and proceed to the consonants, pronouncing the sound, not the name. In the case of the consonants, we immediately unite the sound with one of the vowel sounds, repeating the syllable according to the usual phonetic method. The teaching proceeds according to the three periods already illustrated. First, association of the visual and muscular tactile sensation with the letter sound. The directness presents to the child two of the cards upon which vowels are mounted, or two of the consonants as the case may be. Let us suppose that we present the letters I and O saying, this is I, this is O. As soon as we have given the sound of a letter, we have the child trace it, taking care to show him how to trace it, and if necessary guiding the index finger of his right hand over the sandpaper letter in the sense of writing. Knowing how to trace will consist in knowing the direction in which a given graphic sign must be followed. The child learns quickly and his finger already expert in the tactile exercise is led by the slight roughness of the fine sandpaper over the exact track of the letter. He may then repeat indefinitely the movements necessary to produce the letters of the alphabet without the fear of the mistakes of which a child writing with a pencil for the first time is so conscious. If he deviates, the smoothness of the card immediately warns him of his error. The children, as soon as they have become at all experts in this tracking of the letters, take great pleasure in repeating it with closed eyes, letting the sandpaper lead them and following the form which they do not see. Thus the perception will be established by the direct muscular tactile sensation of the letter. In other words, it is no longer the visual image of the letter, but the tactile sensation which guides the hand of the child in these movements which thus become fixed in the muscular memory. They are developed contemporaneously three sensations when the directorist shows the letters to the child and has him trace it. The visual sensation, the tactile sensation, and the muscular sensation. In this way, the image of the graphic sign is fixed in a much shorter space of time than when it was, according to ordinary methods, acquired only through the visual image. It will be found that the muscular memory is in the young child the most tenacious and, at the same time, the most ready. Indeed, he sometimes recognizes the letters by touching them when he cannot do so by looking at them. These images are, besides all this, contemporaneously associated with alphabetical sounds. Second, perception. The child should know how to compare and to recognize the figures when he hears the sounds corresponding to them. The directorist asks the child, for example, give me oh, give me I. If the child does not recognize the letters by looking at them, she invites him to trace them. But if he still does not recognize them, the lesson has ended and maybe resumed another day. I've already spoken of the necessity of not revealing the error and of not insisting in the teaching when the child does not respond readily. Third, language. Allowing the letters to lie for some instance upon the table, the directorist asks the child, what is this? And he should respond, oh, I. In teaching the consonants, the directorist pronounces only the sound and as soon as she has done so, unites with it a vowel, pronouncing the syllable thus formed and alternating this little exercise for the use of different vowels. She must always be careful to emphasize the sound of the consonant. Repeating it by itself, as for example, mm, mm, mm, ma, mm, ma, me, me, ma, ma. When the child repeats the sound, he isolates it and then accompanies it with the vowel. It is not necessary to teach all the vowels before passing to the consonants and as soon as the child knows one consonant, he may begin to compose words. Questions of this sort, however, are left to the judgment of the educator. I do not find it practical to follow a special rule in the teaching of the consonants. Often the curiosity of the child concerning a letter leads us to teach that desired consonant. A name pronounced may awaken in him a desire to know what consonants are necessary to compose it and this will or willingness of the people is a much more efficacious means than any rule concerning the progression of the letters. When the child pronounces the sounds of the consonants, he experiences an evident pleasure. It is a great novelty for him, this series of sounds, so varied and yet so distinct, presenting such enigmatic signs as the letters of the alphabet. There is mystery about all this which provokes most decided interest. One day I was on the terrace while the children were having their free games. I had with me a little boy of two years and a half left with me for a moment by his mother. Scattered about upon a number of chairs were the alphabets which we use in the school. These had become mixed and I was putting the letters back into their respective compartments. Having finished my work, I placed the boxes upon two of the little chairs near me. Little boy watched me. Finally, he drew near to the box and took one of the letters in his hand. It chanced to be an F. At that moment, the children who were running in single file passed us and, seeing the letter, called out in chorus the corresponding sound and passed on. The child paid no attention to them, but put back the F and took up an R. The children running by again looked at him laughing and then began to cry out, ruh, ruh, ruh, ruh, ruh, ruh. Little by little, the boy understood that when he took a letter in hand, the children who were passing cried out a sound. This amused him so much that I wished to observe how long he would persist in the game without becoming tired. He kept it up for three quarters of an hour. The children had become interested in the child and grouped themselves about him, pronouncing the sounds in chorus and laughing at his pleas surprised. He kept it up for three quarters of an hour. The children had become interested in the child and grouped themselves about him, pronouncing the sounds in chorus and laughing at his pleas surprised. At last, after he had several times held up F and had received from his public the same sound, he took the letter again, showing it to me and saying, fuh, fuh, fuh. He had learned this from out of the great confusion of sounds which he had heard. The long letter which had first arrested the attention of the running children had made a great impression upon him. It is not necessary to show how the separate pronunciation of the alphabetical sounds reveals the condition of the child's speech. The effects which are almost all related to the incomplete development of the language itself manifest themselves and the directors may take note of them one by one. In this way, she will be possessed of a record of the child's progress which will help her and her individual teaching and will reveal much concerning the development of the language in this particular child. In the matter of correcting linguistic defects, we will find it helpful to follow the physiological rules relating to the child's development and to modify the difficulties in the presentation of our lesson. When, however, the child's speech is sufficiently developed and when he pronounces all the sounds, it does not matter which of the letters we select in our lessons. Many of the defects which have become permanent in adults are due to functional errors in development of the language during the period of infancy. If for the attention which we pay to the correction of linguistic defects in children in the upper grades, we would substitute a direction of the development of the language while the child is still young, our results would be much more practical and valuable. In fact, many of the defects in pronunciation arise from the use of a dialect and these, it is almost impossible to correct after the period of childhood. They may, however, be most easily removed through the use of educational methods especially adapted to the perfecting of the language in little children. We do not speak here of actual linguistic defects related to anatomical or physiological weaknesses or to pathological facts which alter the function of the nervous system. I speak at present only of those irregularities which are due to a repetition of incorrect sounds or to the imitation of imperfect pronunciation. Such defects may show themselves in the pronunciation of any one of the consonant sounds and I can conceive of no more practical means for methodical correction of speech defects than this exercise in pronunciation which is a necessary part in learning the graphic language through my method but such important questions deserve a chapter to themselves. Turning directly to the method used in teaching writing, I may call attention to the fact that it is contained in the two periods already described. Such exercises have made it possible for the child to learn and to fix the muscular mechanism necessary to the proper holding of the pen and to the making of the graphic signs. If he has exercised himself for a sufficiently long time in these exercises, he will be potentially ready to write all the letters of the alphabet and all of the simple syllables without ever having taken chalk or pencil in his hand. We have, in addition to this, begun the teaching of reading at the same time that we have been teaching writing. When we present a letter to the child in unsiated sound, he fixes the image of this letter by means of the visual sense and also by means of the muscular tactile sense. He associates the sound with its related sign, that is, he relates the sound to the graphic sign, but when he sees and recognizes, he reads, and when he traces, he writes. Thus his mind receives, as one, two acts which, later on, as he develops, will separate, coming to constitute the two diverse processes of reading and writing. By teaching, these two acts contemporaneously, or better, by their fusion, replace the child before a new form of language without determining which of the acts constituting it should be most prevalent. We do not travel ourselves as to whether the child in the development of this process first learns to read or to write, or if the one or the other will be the easier. We must rid ourselves of all preconceptions and must await from experience the answer to these questions. We may expect that individual differences will show themselves in the prevalence of one or the other acts in the development of different children. This makes possible the most interesting psychological study of the individual and should broaden the work of this method which is based upon the free expansion of individuality. Third period, exercises for the composition of words. Didactic material. This consists chiefly of alphabets. Letters of the alphabet used here are identical in form and dimension with the sandpaper ones already described, but these are cut out of cardboard and are not mounted. In this way, each letter represents an object which can be easily handled by the child and placed wherever he wishes it. There are several examples of each letter and I have designed cases in which the alphabets may be kept. These cases or boxes are very shallow and are divided and subdivided into many compartments in each one of which I have placed a group of four copies of the same letter. The compartments are not equal in size but are measured according to the dimensions of the letters themselves. At the bottom of each compartment is glued a letter which is not to be taken out. This letter made of black cardboard and relieves the child of the fatigue of hunting about for the right compartment when he is replacing the letters in the case after he has used them. The vowels are cut from blue cardboard and the consonants from red. In addition to these alphabets, we have a set of the capital letters mounted in sandpaper upon cardboard and another in which they are cut from cardboard. The numbers are treated in the same way. Exercises. As soon as the child knows some of the vowels and the consonants we place before him, the big box containing all the vowels and the consonants which he knows. The directress pronounces very clearly a word. For example, mama. Brings out the sound of the M very distinctly. Repeating the sound a number of times. Almost always the little one with an impulse movement seizes an M and places it upon the table. The directress repeats mama. The child selects the A and places it near the M. He then composes the other syllable very easily but the reading of the word which he has composed is not so easy. Indeed, he generally succeeds in reading it only after a certain effort. In this case, I help the child urging him to read and read the word with him once or twice always pronouncing very distinctly mama, mama. Once he has understood the mechanism of the game, the child goes forward by himself and becomes intensely interested. We may pronounce any word taking care only that the child understands separately the letters of which it is composed. He composes the new word placing one after the other the signs corresponding to the word. It is most interesting indeed to watch the child at this work. Intensely attentive, he sits watching the box moving his lips almost imperceptibly and taking one by one the necessary letters rarely committing an error in spelling. The movement of the lips reveals the fact that he repeats to himself an infinite number of times the words whose sounds he is translating into signs. Although the child is able to compose any word which is clearly pronounced, we generally dictate to him only those words which are well known since we wish his composition to result in an idea. When these familiar words are used, he spontaneously rereads many times the word he has composed repeating its sounds in a thoughtful, contemplative way. The importance of these exercises is very complex. The child analyzes, perfects, fixes his own spoken language, placing an object in correspondence to every sound which he utters. The composition of the word furnishes him with substantial proof of the necessity for clear and forceful enunciation. The exercise thus followed associates the sound which is heard with the graphic sign which represents it and lays the most solid foundation for accurate and perfect spelling. In addition to this, the composition of the words is in itself an exercise of intelligence. The word which is pronounced presents to the child the problem which he must solve and he will do so by remembering the signs, selecting them from among others and arranging them in the proper order. He will have the proof of the exact solution to his problem when he rereads the word, this word which he has composed and which represents for all those who know how to read it, an idea. When the child hears others read the word he has composed, he wears an expression of satisfaction and pride and is possessed by a species of joyous wonder. He is impressed by this correspondence, carried on between himself and others by means of symbols. The written language represents for him the highest attainment reached by his own intelligence and at the same time, the reward of a great achievement. When the pupil has finished the composition and the reading of the word we gave him according to the habits of order which we try to establish in connection with all our work, put away all the letters, each one in its own compartment. In composition, pure and simple, therefore the child unites the two exercises of comparison and of selection of the graphic signs. The first, one from the entire box of letters before him, he takes those necessary. The second, when he seeks the compartment in which each letter must be replaced. There are then three exercises united in this one effort. All three uniting to fix the image of the graphic sign corresponding to the sounds of the word. The work of learning is in this case facilitated in three ways and the ideas are acquired in a third of the time which would have been necessary with the old methods. We shall soon see that the child on hearing the word or on thinking of a word which he already knows, we'll see with his mind's eye all the letters necessary to compose the word arrange themselves. He will reproduce this vision with the facility most surprising to us. One day, a little boy four years old running alone about the terrace was heard to repeat many times. To make Zera, I must have Z-A-I-R-A. Another time, Professor Di Donato in a visit to the children's house pronounced his own name for a four-year-old child. The child was composing the name using small letters and making it all one word and had begun thus, D-I-T-O-N, D-T-O-N. The professor at once pronounced the word more distinctly, Di Donato, whereupon the child, without scattering the letters, picked up the syllable T-O and placed it to one side, putting D-O in the empty space. He then placed an A after the N and taking up the T-O which he had put aside, completed the word with it. This made it evident that the child, when the word was pronounced more clearly, understood that the syllable T-O did not belong at that place in the word, realized that it belonged at the end of the word and therefore placed it aside until he should need it. This was most surprising in a child of four years and amazed all of those present. It can be explained by the clear and, at the same time, complex vision of the signs that the child must have if he is to form a word which he here has spoken. This extraordinary act was largely due to the orderly mentality which the child had acquired through repeated spontaneous exercises tending to develop his intelligence. These three periods contain the entire method for the acquisition of written language. The significance of such a method is clear. The psychophysiological acts which unite to establish reading and writing are prepared separately and carefully. The muscular movements peculiar to the making of the signs or letters are prepared apart and the same is true of the manipulation of the instrument of writing. The composition of the words also is reduced to a psychic mechanism of association between images heard and seen. There comes a moment in which the child without thinking of it fills in the geometric figures with an up and down stroke which is free and regular. A moment in which he touches the letters with closed eyes and in which he reproduces their form making his finger through the air. A moment in which the composition of words has become a psychic impulse which makes the child even when alone repeat to himself. To make Zera, I must have Z-A-I-R-A. Now this child, it is true, has never written but he has mastered all the acts necessary to writing. The child who, when taking dictation not only knows how to compose the word but instantly embraces in his thought its composition as a whole will be able to write since he knows how to make with his eyes closed, the movements necessary to produce these letters and since he manages almost unconsciously the instrument of writing. More than this, the freedom with which the child has acquired this mechanical dexterity makes it possible for the impulse or spirit to act at any time through the medium of his mechanical ability. He should sooner or later come into his full power by way of a spontaneous explosion into writing. This is indeed the marvelous reaction which has come from my experiment of normal children. In one of the children's houses directed by Senora Bettini, I have been especially careful in the way in which writing was taught and we have had from this school most beautiful specimens of writing and for this reason, perhaps I cannot do better than to describe the development of the work in this school. One beautiful December day when the sun shone and the air was like spring, I went up on the roof of the children. They were playing freely about and a number of them were gathered about me. I was sitting near a chimney and said to a little five-year-old boy who sat beside me, draw me a picture of this chimney giving him as I spoke a piece of chalk. He got down obediently and made a rough sketch of the chimney on the tiles which formed the floor of this roof terrace. As is my custom of little children, I encouraged him, praising his work. A child looked at me, smiled, remained for a moment as if on the point of bursting some joyous act and then cried out, I can write, I can write. And kneeling down again, he wrote on the pavement the word hand. Then, full of enthusiasm, he wrote also chimney, roof. As he wrote, he continued to cry out, I can write, I know how to write. His cries of joy brought the other children informed a circle about him, looking down at his work in stupefied amazement. Two or three of them said to me, trembling with excitement, give me the chalk, I can write too. And indeed they began to write various words, mama, hand, John, chimney, Ada. Not one of them had ever taken chalk or any other instrument in hand for the purpose of writing. It was the first time that they had ever written and they traced an entire word as a child and speaking for the first time speaks the entire word. The first word spoken by a baby causes the mother ineffable joy. The child has chosen perhaps the word mother, seeming to render thus a tribute to maternity. The first word written by my little ones aroused within themselves an indescribable emotion of joy. Not being able to adjust in their minds the connection between the paration and the act, they were possessed by the illusion that having now grown to the proper size, they knew how to write. In other words, writing seemed to them only one among the many gifts of nature. They believed that as they grow bigger and stronger, there will come some beautiful day when they shall know how to write. And indeed, this is what it is in reality. The child who speaks first prepares himself unconsciously, perfecting the psychomuscular mechanism which leads to the articulation of the word. In the case of writing, the child does almost the same thing, but the direct pedagogical help and the possibility of preparing the movements for writing in an almost material way causes the ability to write to develop much more rapidly and more perfectly than the ability to speak correctly. In spite of the ease with which this is accomplished, the preparation is not partial but complete. The child possesses all the movements necessary for writing and written language develops not gradually but in an explosive way. That is, the child can write any word, such was our first experience in the development of the written language in our children. Those first days, we were a prey to deeper notions. It seems as if we walked in a dream and as if we assisted at some miraculous achievement. The child wrote a word for the first time was full of excited joy. He might be compared to the hen who has just laid an egg. Indeed, no one could escape from the noisy manifestations of the little one. He would call everyone to see and if there were some who did not go, he ran to take hold of their clothes, forcing them to come and see. We all had to go and stand about the written word to admire the marvel and to unite our exclamations of surprise with the joyous cries of the fortunate author. Usually the first word was written on the floor and then the child knelt down before it in order to be nearer to his work and to contemplate it more closely. After the first word, the children with a species of frenzied joy continued to write everywhere. I saw children crowding about one another at the blackboard and behind the little ones who were standing on the floor. Another line would form consisting of children mounted upon chairs so that they might write above the heads of the little ones. And if you were yet being thwarted, other children, in order to find a little place where they might write, overturned the chairs upon which their companions were mounted. Others ran toward the window shutters or the door, covering them with writing. In these first days, we walked upon a carpet of written signs. Daily accounts showed us that the same thing was going on at home and some of the mothers in order to save their pavements and even the crest of their loads upon which they found words written made their children presents of paper and pencil. One of these children brought to me one day a little notebook entirely filled with writing and the mother told me that the child had written all day long and all evening and had gone to sleep in his bed with the paper and pencil in his hands. This impulsive activity which we could not in those first days control made me think upon the wisdom of nature who develops the spoken language little by little letting it go hand in hand with the gradual formation of ideas. Think of what the result would have been. Had nature acted imprudently as I had done? Suppose nature had first allowed the human being to gather by means of the senses, a rich and varied material and to acquire a store of ideas and had then completely prepared in him the means for articulate language saying finally to the child, mute until that hour, go speak. The result would have been a species of sudden madness under the influence of which the child feeling no restraints would have burst into an exhausting torrent of the most strange and difficult words. I believe, however, there exists between the two extremes a happy medium which is the true and practical way. We should lead the child more gradually to the conquest of written language yet we should still have it come as a spontaneous fact and his work should from the first be almost perfect. Figure A. It's a picture of children blindfolded and touching some material. The note says A. Training the sense of touch. Learning the difference between rough and smooth by running fingers alternately over sandpaper and smooth cardboard. Distinguishing different shapes by fitting geometric insets into place. Distinguishing textures. B. Learning to write and read by touch. The child at the left is tracing sandpaper letters and learning to know them by touch. The boy and girl are making words out of cardboard letters. A. Children touching letters. The child on the left has acquired lightness and delicacy of touch by very thorough preparatory exercises. The one on the right has not had so much training. B. Making words with cardboard on script. End of Chapter 17. Description of the method and adactic material used. Chapter 17, Part 2 of the Montessori Method. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jennifer Stearns. The Montessori Method by Maria Montessori. Translated by Anne E. George. Chapter 17, Part 2. Description of the method and didactic material used. I believe, however, that there exists between the two extremes a happy medium, which is the true and practical way. We should lead the child more gradually to the conquest of written language, yet we should still have it come as a spontaneous fact, and his work should from the first be almost perfect. Experience has shown us how to control this phenomenon and how to lead the child more calmly to this new power. The fact that the children see their companions writing leads them through imitation to write as soon as they can. In this way, when the child writes, he does not have the entire alphabet at his disposal, and the number of words which he can write is limited. He is not even capable of making all of the words possible through a combination of the letters which he does know. He still has the great joy of the first written word, but this is no longer the source of an overwhelming surprise. Since he sees just such wonderful things happening each day and knows that sooner or later, the same gift will come to all. This tends to create a calm and ordered environment, still full of beautiful and wonderful surprises. Making a visit to the children's house, even during the opening weeks, one makes fresh discoveries. Here, for instance, are two little children who, though they fairly radiate pride and joy, are writing tranquilly. Yet these children, until yesterday, had never thought of writing. The directoress tells me that one of them began to write yesterday morning at 11 o'clock, the other at three in the afternoon. We have come to accept the phenomenon with calmness and tacitly recognize it as a natural form of the child's development. The wisdom of the teacher shall decide when it is necessary to encourage a child to write. This can only be when he is already perfect in the three periods of the preparatory exercise, and yet does not write of his own accord. There is danger that, in retarding the act of writing, the child may plunge, finally, into a tumultuous effort due to the fact that he knows the entire alphabet and has no natural check. The science by which the teacher may almost precisely diagnose the child's maturity in this respect are the regularity of the parallel lines which fill in the geometric figures, the recognition with closed eyes of the sandpaper letters, the scrutiny and readiness shown in the composition of words. Before intervening by means of a direct invitation to write, it is best to wait at least a week in the hope that the child may write spontaneously. When he has begun to write spontaneously, the teacher may intervene to guide the process of the writing. The first help which she may give is that of ruling the blackboard. So that the child may be led to maintain regularity and proper dimensions in his writing. The second is that of inducing the child whose writing is not firm to repeat the tracing of the sandpaper letters. She should do this instead of directly correcting his actual writing. For the child does not perfect himself by repeating the act of writing, but by repeating the act's preparatory to writing. I remember a little beginner who, wishing to make his blackboard writing perfect, brought all of the sandpaper letters with him and before writing touched two or three times all of the letters needed in the words he wished to write. If a letter did not seem to him to be perfect, he erased it and retouched the letter upon the card before rewriting. Our children, even after they have been writing for a year, continue to repeat the three preparatory exercises. They thus learn both to write and to perfect their writing without really going through the actual act. With their children, actual writing is a test. It springs from an inner impulse and from the pleasure of explaining a superior activity, it is not an exercise. As the soul of the mystic perfects itself through prayer, even so in our little ones, the highest expression of civilization, written language is acquired and improved through exercises which are akin to but which are not, writing. There is educational value in this idea of preparing oneself before trying and of perfecting oneself before going on. To go forward correcting his own mistakes, boldly attempting things which he does imperfectly and of which he is as yet unworthy tells the sensitiveness of the child's spirit toward his own errors. My method of writing contains an educative concept, teaching the child the prudence which makes him avoid errors, that dignity which makes him look ahead and which guides him to perfection and that humility which unites him closely to those sources of good through which alone he can make a spiritual conquest, putting far from him the illusion that the immediate success is ample justification for continuing in the way he has chosen. The fact that all the children, those who are just beginning the three exercises and those who have been writing for months, daily repeat the same exercise, unites them and makes it easy for them to meet upon an apparently equal plane. Here there are no distinctions of beginners and experts. All of the children fill in the figures with colored pencils, touch the sandpaper letters and compose words with the movable alphabets. The little ones beside the big ones who help them. He who prepares himself and he who perfects himself both follow the same path. It is the same way in life for, deeper than any social distinction, there lies inequality, a common meeting point where all men are brothers or as in the spiritual life, aspirants and saints again and again pass through the same experiences. Writing is very quickly learned because we begin to teach it only to those children who show a desire for it by his spontaneous attention to the lesson given by the directors to other children or by watching the exercises in which the others are occupied. Some individuals learn without ever having received any lessons, solely through listening to the lessons given to others. In general, all children of four are intensely interested in writing and some of our children have begun to write at the age of three and a half. We find that children particularly enthusiastic about tracing the sandpaper letters. During the first period of my experiments, when the children were shown the alphabets for the first time, I one day asked Signora Bettini to bring out to the terrace where the children were at play all of the various letters which she herself had made. As soon as the children saw them, they gathered about us, their fingers outstretched in their eagerness to touch the letters. Those who secured cards were unable to touch them properly because of the other children who crowded about trying to reach the cards in our laps. I remember with what an impulsive movement, the possessors of the cards held them on high like banners and began to march followed by all the other children who clapped their hands and cried out joyously. The procession passed before us and all, big and little, laughed merrily while the mothers attracted by the noise leaned from the windows to watch the sight. The average time that elapses between the first trial of the preparatory exercises and the first written word is for children of four years from a month to a month and a half. With children of five years, the period is much shorter, being about a month. But one of our pupils learned to use in writing all the letters of the alphabet in 20 days. Children of four years after they have been in school for two months and a half can write any word from dictation and can pass in writing with ink in a notebook. Our little ones are generally experts after three months time and those who have written for six months may be compared to the children in the third elementary. Indeed, writing is one of the easiest and most delightful of all the conquest made by the child. If adults learned as easily as children under six years of age, it would be an easy matter to do away with the literacy. We would probably find two grave hindrances to the attainment of such a brilliant success. The torpor of the muscular sense and those permanent effects of spoken language, which would be sure to translate themselves into the written language. I have not made experiments along this line, but I believe that one school year would be sufficient to lead an illiterate person not only to write, but to express his thoughts in written language. So much for the time necessary for learning. As to the execution, our children write well from the moment in which they begin. The form of the letters, beautifully rounded and flowing, is surprising in similarity to the form of the sandpaper models. The beauty of our writing is rarely equaled by any scholars in the elementary schools who have not had special exercises in penmanship. I have made a close study of penmanship, and I know how difficult it would be to teach pupils of 12 or 13 years to write an entire word without lifting the pen, except for the few letters which require this. The up and down strokes with which they have filled their copybook make flowing writing almost impossible to them. Our little pupils, on the other hand, spontaneously and with a marvelous security, write entire words without lifting the pen, maintaining perfectly the slant of the letters and making the distance between each letter equal. This has caused more than one visitor to exclaim, though I had not seen it, I should never have believed it. Indeed, penmanship is a superior form of teaching and is necessary to correct defects already acquired and fixed. It is a long work for the child seeing the model must follow the movements necessary to reproduce it, while there is no direct correspondence between the visual sensation and the movements with which he must make. Too often penmanship is taught at an age when all the defects have become established and when the physiological period in which the muscular memory is ready has been passed. We directly prepare the child, not only for writing, but also for penmanship, paying great attention to the beauty of form, having the children touch the letters in script and to the flowing quality of the letters. The exercises in filling in prepare for this. Reading, didactic material. The didactic material for the lessons in reading consists in slips of paper or cards upon which are written in clear, large script, words and phrases. In addition to these cards, we have a great variety of toys. Experiences taught me to distinguish clearly between writing and reading, and has shown me that the two acts are not absolutely contemporaneous. Contrary to the usually accepted idea, writing precedes reading. I do not consider as reading the test which the child makes when he verifies the word that he has written. He is translating science into sounds as he first translated sounds into signs. In this verification, he already knows the word and has repeated it to himself while writing it. What I understand by reading is the interpretation of an idea from the written signs. The child who has not heard the word pronounced and who recognizes it when he sees it composed upon the table with the cardboard letters and who can tell what it means, this child reads. The word which he reads has the same relation to written language that the word which he hears bears to articulate language. Both serve to receive the language transmitted to us by others. So until the child reads a transmission of ideas from the written word, he does not read. We may say if we like that writing as described is a fact in which the psychomotor mechanism prevails. While in reading, there enters a work which is purely intellectual, but it is evident how our method for writing prepares for reading. Making the difficulties almost imperceptible. Indeed, writing prepares a child to interpret, mechanically, the union of the letter sounds of which the written word is composed. When a child in our school knows how to write, he knows how to read the sounds of which the word is composed. It should be noticed, however, that when the child composes the words with a movable alphabet or when he writes, he has time to think about the signs which he must select to form the word. The writing of a word requires a great deal more time than that necessary for reading the same word. The child who knows how to write when placed before a word which he must interpret by reading is silent for a long time and generally reads the component sounds with the same slowness with which he would have written them. But the sense of the word becomes evident only when it is pronounced clearly and with a phonetic accent. Now, in order to place the phonetic accent, the child must recognize the word. That is, he must recognize the idea which the word represents. The intervention of a superior work of the intellect is necessary if he is to read. Because of all this, I proceed in the following way with the exercises in reading and as will be evident, I do away entirely with the old time primer. I prepare a number of little cards made from ordinary writing paper. On each of these, I write in large clear script some well-known word, one which has already been pronounced many times by the children and which represents an object actually present or well-known to them. If the word refers to an object which is before them, I place this object under the eyes of the child in order to facilitate his interpretation of the word. I will say in this connection the objects used in these writing games are for the most part toys of which we have a great many in the children's houses. Among these toys are the furnishings of a doll's house, balls, dolls, flocks of sheep or various animals, tin soldiers, railways, and an infinite variety of simple figures. If writing serves to correct or better to direct and perfect the mechanism of the articulate language of the child, reading serves to help the development of ideas and relates them to the development of the language. Indeed, writing aids the physiological language and reading aids the social language. We begin then as I have indicated with the nomenclature that is with a reading of names of objects which are well-known or present. There is no question of beginning with words that are easy or difficult. For the child already knows how to read any word, that is, he knows how to read the sounds which compose it. I allow the little one to translate the written word slowly into sounds and if the interpretation is exact, I limit myself to saying faster. The child reads more quickly the second time but still often without understanding. I then repeat faster, faster. He reads faster each time, repeating the same accumulation of sounds and finally the word bursts upon his consciousness. Then he looks upon it as if he recognized a friend and assumes the air of satisfaction which so often radiates our little ones. This completes the exercise for reading. It is a lesson which goes very rapidly since it is only presented to a child who was already prepared through writing. Truly, we have buried the tedious and stupid ABC primer side by side with the useless copy books. When the child has read the word, he places the explanatory card under the object whose name it bears and the exercise is finished. One of the most interesting discoveries was made in the effort to devise a game through which the children might, without effort, learn to read words. We spread out upon one of the large tables a great variety of toys. Each one of them had a corresponding card upon which the name of the toy was written. We folded these little cards and mixed them up in a basket and the children who knew how to read were allowed to take turns in drawing these cards for the basket. Each child had to carry his card back to his desk, unfold it quietly and read it mentally, not showing it to those about him. He then had to fold it up again so that the secret, which it contained, should remain unknown. Taking the folded card in his hand, he went to the table. He had then to pronounce clearly the name of a toy and present the card to the directoress in order that she might verify the word he had spoken. The little card thus became current coin with which he might acquire the toy he had named. Four, if he pronounced the word clearly and indicated the correct object, the directoress allowed him to take the toy and to play with it as long as he wished. When each child had had a turn, the directoress called the first child and let him draw a card from another basket. This card he read as soon as he had drawn it it contained the name of one of his companions who did not yet know how to read and for that reason could not have a toy. The child who had read the name then offered to his little friend the toy with which he had been playing. We taught the children to present these toys in a gracious and polite way, accompanying the act with a bow. In this way we did a way with every idea of class distinction and inspired the sentiment of kindness toward those who did not possess the same blessings as ourselves. This reading game proceeded in a marvelous way. The contentment of these poor children and possessing even for a little while such beautiful toys can be easily imagined. But what was my amazement when the children having learned to understand the written cards refused to take the toys? They explained that they did not wish to waste time in playing and with a species of insatiable desire preferred to draw out and read the cards one after another. I watched them seeking to understand the secret of these souls of whose greatness I had been so ignorant. As I stood in meditation among the eager children the discovery that it was knowledge they loved and not the silly game filled me with wonder and made me think of the greatness of the human soul. We therefore put away the toys and said about making hundreds of written slips containing names of children, cities and objects and also of colors and qualities known through the sense exercises. We placed these slips in open boxes which we left where the children could make for use of them. I expected that childish consistency would at least show itself in a tendency to pass from one box to another. But no, each child finished emptying the box under his hand before passing to another being very insatiable in the desire to read. Coming into the school one day I found that the directoress had allowed the children to take the tables and chairs out upon the terrace and was having school in the open air. A number of little ones were playing in the sun while others were seated in a circle about the tables containing the sandpaper letters and the movable alphabet. A little apart sat the directoress holding upon her lap a long narrow box full of written