Читать книгу The Montessori Elementary Material - Maria Montessori Montessori - Страница 9

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WORD STUDY

When a little child begins to read he shows a keen desire to learn words, words, words! Indeed in the "Children's House" we had that impressive phenomenon of the children's tireless reading of the little slips of paper upon which were written the names of objects.

The child must acquire his word-store for himself. The peculiar characteristic of the child's vocabulary is its meagerness. But he is nearing the age when he will need to express his thoughts and he must now acquire the material necessary for that time. Many people must have noticed the intense attention given by children to the conversation of grown-ups when they cannot possibly be understanding a word of what they hear. They are trying to get hold of words, and they often demonstrate this fact by repeating joyously some word which they have been able to grasp. We should second this tendency in the child by giving him an abundant material and by organizing for him such exercises as his reactions clearly show us are suitable for him.

The material used in our system not only is very abundant, but it has been dictated to us by rigid experimentation on every detail. However, the same successive choices of material do not appear among the children as a whole. Indeed their individual differences begin to assert themselves progressively at this point in their education. The exercises are easy for some children and very hard for others, nor is the order of selection the same among all the children. The teacher should know this material thoroughly. She should be able to recognize the favorable moment for presenting the material to the child. As a matter of fact, a little experience with the material is sufficient to show the teacher that the educational facts develop spontaneously and in such a way as to simplify the teacher's task in a most surprising manner.