Toddler Language Shelf (FREE Alphabet Reading Booklet)

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This month in 12 Months of Montessori Series I am featuring Vito’s language shelf. I didn’t have this opportunity with Mavi. During his time, I was not prepared and most of all most of these resources are not available. So I decided that if I ever I will have a second child, I want to be a bit organized with our homeschool process.

As you all know, Vito has been showing so much progress in his fine and gross motor skills. Not to mention that he is everywhere in the house, trying to emulate our actions, communicates with us using his own language and communicates verbally (as if he understands what he’s saying). This language shelf that I assembled for him will feed his “sensitive years”, his interest in communicating and in the area of language.

Here are some tips and ideas on how to start your own language shelf.

Book/s Basket

Read books to your kids.

We read endlessly. We may not do Montessori works all the time, but we are religious in reading books.

What books do I need to buy? Board books is perfect for little ones who love to mouth objects. I started with picture books for both boys. I got these from Book Depository and they were the same books I used with Mavi. Read my review here. Picture books are good for object recognition, especially if you read these books to your kids everyday. You don’t have to read everything. One at a time… baby steps as they say.

When Vito was still a baby, we do one book in the morning and one at night. Now that his attention span is longer, we read 3 books during daytime and 1 at night. I put the books in this wooden box and place it on the shelf. As you can see, little Vito can’t wait to get his books while Mommy do some photo-ops. Can you guess what' he wanted to read here?

Look for books that have bright colours and large pictures like this My First Numbers/ Colours and learn book series. These are good books for introducing colours and counting. Oh and yes, as much as possible use books that use realistic pictures! These are for younger ones of course. Study shows that 18 months old toddlers learn more in coloured photos than in coloured drawings.

For younger kids that might show no interest, try books that have manipulatives to get their attention. Life the flip flap books of Spot series (Amazon or Book Depository). Vito loves these two! Or those that create sounds like Mr Brown Can Moo, Vito enjoys hearing me make sounds as well. So he keeps on pointing to the pages so I will make a sound.And once reading becomes a habit in your home, try reading books that tell beautiful stories (short stories) and with less text per page, with bright colourful images. Point to the text as you read and point to pictures, so they’ll associate it with one another. These are Vito’s favourites so far.

Vito’s favourite books (in the picture):

Colour Basket

These are the contents of our colour basket. We do one colour basket per week, and rotate. You don’t need toys to have these. Think of socks, plastic container, shirts, books, handkerchief, plastic bowls, spoon and fork etc. By looking around your house you will be surprised of what you can assemble!

Am not really sure about including this here because in Montessori, colour is usually in Sensorial. But in our home and in my approach here, I used it as of the moment for language. I want Vito to learn his shapes and colours ASAP. This is the reason why I included a colour basket in our language as we use this basket almost every day during play time.

My aim here is to reinforce the names of the colours and for Vito to recognize them. What I do here is I would place it in the floor for us to play around and explore. I will pick one object, describe it by saying “red feather”. I will pass it to him so he can touch and feel it (or play with it if he wishes). We’ve worked with red, yellow, blue and green so far. I have no plans of introducing orange and purple yet. Just like the books, we rotate this basket.

I will quote this from Montessori from the Start “…repetition is the key to the learning process at all ages. Rotation, not substitution, is the answer to the process of habituation to objects. ” It goes to say that you don’t need to buy “more” objects (substitution) but rather rotate the resources that you have.

Letter Sound Basket for the Week

This has been a popular approach, introducing letter sounds using objects. I introduced this to Mavi when he was 2 years old but at that time he already knows all about the letters and the sounds. My aim during his time was to use the objects in learning how to read.

I’ve been introducing Vito to the alphabets since the beginning of the month through books, wall poster and singing the Alphabet Song. He loves pointing at the letters as I sing them. I prepared this basket so we can explore the letter, and its sound using the objects. Since Vito is only 16 months, I only have 3 objects for each letter and a booklet. This is a letter sound booklet which has realistic pictures and a label. This is similar to the booklet by Itsy Bitsy Books, but I wanted to use real pictures so I made one for myself. Now if you are interested with my file, you can download it for FREE here. On how to assemble the booklet… follow the instructions here.

So what’s in the basket?

A – apple, alligator (Schleich), ambulance

B – banana, book, block

C – cow, carrot, car

Now what about small letter? I wanted to use small letters but I can’t find a foam letter that’s sturdy. I used bath foam letters from Munchkins. These were Mavi’s. When Vito is old enough, I can add up all our objects here and add small and big letters (Melissa and Doug).

I know some of you are not able to assemble these because of limitations (in resources, space). Don’t be discouraged if you don’t have enough “materials” at home. Look around your house, and you will be surprised that you have more than enough to present with your kids. Reason why I used fruits and vegetables because this is what Vito usually eats and encounter everyday. All you needed actually is the principle behind it. Teach through play, use objects around your house for your kids to explore, and read books! Try thrift shops for books if library is not available, or Amazon, or Book Depository (lesser price and they ship for free!)

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This post is part of the 12 Months of Montessori Learning which is hosted by Natural Beach Living and The Natural Homeschool.