Writing Progression

The progression outlined below is not a sequence to be strictly followed. Like most topics in Montessori, it has to be thought of as a spiral.

At the bottom of the spiral, there are some foundational skills such as phonological awareness and phonics. Building up from these foundations, we start to see children show interest in rudimentary writing. To support this process, we start introducing phonograms (spelling rules) from common to complex. Alongside, we begin to engage in the writing process and all its conventions: punctuation, grammar, form.

As the child matures, so will their writing. During their time in the elementary classroom, children will continue to study spelling, grammar and form at an increasingly more complex level.

 

Phonics

 

Sandpaper Letters

Moveable Alphabet

Pink Series (short vowel sounds)

Blue Series (blends)

 

Phonological Awareness

 

Oral games and activities to discriminate and manipulate words and sounds

 

Spelling

 

Phonograms (AKA Green Series - the ‘keys’ to fluency)

  • Consonant patterns (including triple blends, silent initial consonants, soft hand consonants)

  • Long vowel patterns

  • Consonant influenced vowels

  • Diphthongs and ambiguous vowels

Sight Words (AKA high frequency words)

Word Study Semantics (compound words, homophones, homographs, homonyms, synonyms, antonyms, prefixes, suffixes, word families)

Word Study Mechanics (capitals, full stops, apostrophes, commas, speech marks, abbreviations)

Word Study Categorization (classification, alphabetization, dictionary, thesaurus)

Derivational Relationships (AKA morphology)

 

Grammar

 

Grammar Boxes

Further studies of the Noun

Further studies of the Adjective

Punctuation

Sentence Analysis

 

Writing Composition

 

The Writing Process

Non-fiction Genre

  • Biography (including autobiography)

  • Information report (factual)

  • Procedural (Instructions)

  • Explanation (cause and effect)

  • Persuasion (argument)

Fiction

  • Personal narrative (recount)

  • Narrative (fictional story writing)

  • Fantasy (imaginative, unusual setting and characters)

  • Myths (explanation of natural phenomena)

  • Legends (real character, unproven circumstances)

  • Descriptive (evokes images and sensations)

  • Poetry

  • Fables (moral lesson)

Literary devices

Editing and Revising

 

Handwriting

 

Metal Insets

Preparatory exercises

Cursive script

Print

Copying exercises

Fancy Lettering

Calligraphy

Illuminated text