The Language curriculum at this level seeks to enrich and expand the students developing abilities as speakers, readers, and writers of language. Through daily oral language work, students develop conversational and public speaking skills. They read challenging fiction and non­‐fiction texts with intonation, expression, and comprehension, as well as participate in discussions about literature. With guidance and direct instruction, students learn to write legible paragraphs with accurate spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure over the course of the three‐year Lower Elementary cycle. They explore a variety of genres in writing and reading and learn to understand the functions of words in sentences as well as the parts of the sentence including subject, predicate and object through work with the Montessori grammar and sentence analysis materials. They use language as a learning tool through independently working with a variety of reference texts.

 

The Montessori Elementary curriculum in Language also has the goal of helping children understand the power of language through an exploration of its origins and evolution. Teachers present children with the History of Language, one of the five Great Lessons in the Elementary Curriculum. Through this work, students explore pre‐history, ancient writing systems, and the evolution of writing tools through interactive, hands-on work. The goal is to help students gain an appreciation for the advanced writing systems humans have developed.