After exploring extensively with sounds with I-Spy games, your child moves on to work with the sandpaper letter lesson.
The sandpaper letters are one of the most iconic Montessori materials. Traditionally, you make the letters cut from sandpaper and glue them onto a piece of wood.
There is a sandpaper letter for each letter of the alphabet, a-z. The vowels are blue, and the consonants are pink. Plus, there are the green double sandpaper letters. For example, /ch/, /ae/, /ie/. Sandpaper letters come in print or cursive, depending on your preference.
As the adult, you model tracing the letter and saying the sound that goes with the letter. Your child then traces the letter and repeats the sound.
The purpose of the sandpaper letters is for your child to trace the tactile letters with her fingers to get a hands-on and sensory experience of the letter symbol. It helps your child to get an internal impression of the letter shape, which prepares her later on for writing.
You can even make DIY sandpaper letters. In a future blog post, I’ll go into more detail about how to use the sandpaper letters and different ideas to make your own set at home!
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I recall using phonemes to teach reading to my son and it certainly was an effective, efficient method.. love how you incorporate the games and letter tiles here
Hi Vidya, I’m glad you found the letter and sound activities helpful!
Such fun ways to create some engagement with the kiddies! 🙂
Love this! I love engaging kids in a fun way and its good for me to learn more about Montessori teaching practices. I’ve heard such great things!
I’ve never heard of sandpaper letters. It sounds like an excellent educational tool.
I’m going to do more research on it. Fab post!
Hi Riyah, That’s awesome! I’m so glad you enjoyed reading about the sandpaper letters!
We homeschool. My now 8 year old refused to let me teach her sounds, she eventually taught herself how to read but now even though she can read really well, we are having to learn sounds because she is struggling to spell words. So learning the sounds is super important.
Hi Laura, Yes, learning letters and sounds is so important. Thank you for sharing your story. Have fun with it!
These are great activities! My daughter is 2 and lately she’s come home singing, “A is for apple, a-a-apple.” She’s really into sounds right now!
Hi Jordyn,
I am glad you enjoyed reading about the letter and sound activities. That’s wonderful to hear that your daughter loves it!
This is such a great learning activity that I will be incorporating into my little one’s play time.
I like how the sensory aspect is included with the learning material. Such a great idea!
Great learning activities for kids. Thank you for sharing.
My daughter is also 4 and is at that age where she likes learning about alphabets and words and sounds. She is also a big fan of I-Spy. I will have to try out this way and incorporate i-spy into our lessons. Sounds like fun!
I love how you incorporate sensory activities in. It’s so important for kids. I especially like the sandpaper.
Hi Monica,
The sensory aspect of Montessori materials like the sandpaper letters helps young children to internalize and learn letter and sound activities. It is incredible!
I’ve always thought montessori to be very intricate. Love how you explain this
Hi Jasmine,
I’m glad you enjoyed reading about Montessori letter and sound activities! It is intricate and a lot to take in!
This is brilliant and a fun way to learn. My daughter loves the I-spy game and l love how you incorporated it in this lesson. We would love to try the sandpaper letters. Thank you for sharing these.
I found this very interesting, I love the different approaches! Hopefully, this gets implemented more in the standard learning system.
Hi AJ,
I agree. The Montessori approach to letter and sound activities, which lead to writing and reading, is powerful and works. The good news is that Montessori organizations like “National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector” are working on getting Montessori more mainstream.
It is nice to have a variety of strategies when it comes to learning letters and sounds. These are some great approaches!
This is a great initiative! All teachers and parents should read this. Making learning fun should be mandatory as it often gets kids more committed to the journey. Love your idea of sound games, I can see this having a positive impact on pronunciation for reading.
Great read!