Special Focus on Montessori Letters and Sounds Work in Manuscript or Cursive

I’ve been in love with Montessori language materials for over 40 years, and I’ve had fun using them to help many children (including my own) learn to read and write. I especially focused on helping my granddaughter, Zoey, with her phonics and handwriting work when she had just turned 4. She was in her sensitive period for writing and was especially interested in handwriting.

Now that Zoey is 5½ and can comfortably write and read manuscript, we’re focusing on cursive handwriting as well as manuscript. I have some great materials to help with both!

I was happy to have the opportunity to review the Montessori Letters and Sounds Printable Pack Bundle by Renae from Every Star Is Different. The printable pack bundle has book-making printables along with a number of others for working on letters and sounds.

Disclosure: I was given a copy of the Montessori Letters and Sounds Printable Bundle Pack in both print and cursive for my review. My opinions are honest and my own. This post also contains some affiliate links.

The language bundle in cursive includes:

Montessori-inspired Letters and Sounds Printable Pack Bundle in Cursive

• Introduces both lowercase and uppercase letters of the alphabet using common household objects
• Encourages writing through various activities
• Designed to be used with the Montessori language materials

Montessori-inspired Beginning Language Bundle in Cursive

• Designed to be used with traditional Montessori materials
• Provides extra practice with consonant sounds at the beginning and end of words
• Helps to solidify short vowel sounds 

Montessori-inspired Intermediate Language Bundle in Cursive

• Introduces consonant blends in short vowel words
• Develops vocabulary skills through picture and word correspondence
• Letter colors reflect those of the Montessori movable alphabet

Montessori-inspired Advanced Language Bundle in Cursive

• Focuses on long vowel letter combinations as well as consonant combinations such as th, ch, sh, and more
• Emphasizes spelling in a variety of ways 
• Control cards can be sorted by consonant or vowel blends, as well as rhyming words 

Montessori Letters and Sounds Printable Pack Bundle 

Every Star Is Different has lots of wonderful printable materials. They are very thorough and emphasize realistic images, which I really appreciate.

 

You can see an example of the thoroughness of the materials in the Montessori Letters and Sounds Printable Pack Bundle. It has 151 pages and the following materials:

• My Montessori Lowercase Letters and Sounds Book (Control)
• My Montessori Uppercase Letters and Sounds Book (Control)
• My Montessori Lowercase Letters and Sounds Book with tracing pages
• My Montessori Uppercase Letters and Sounds Book with tracing pages
• My Montessori  Lowercase Letters and Sounds Book with fill in the blank pages
• My Montessori Uppercase Letters and Sounds Book with fill in the blank pages
• Lowercase Letters and Sounds Flashcards with Lines (Control)
• Uppercase Letters and Sounds Flashcards with Lines (Control)
• Lowercase Traceable Letters and Sounds Flashcards with Lines
• Uppercase Traceable Letters and Sounds Flashcards with Lines
• Fill in the Blank Letters and Sounds Flashcards with Lines
• Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Match Up Cards
• Letters and Sounds Picture Cards with No Words
• Letters and Sounds Nomenclature Cards with Words
• Lowercase Letters and Sounds Clip Cards
• Uppercase Letters and Sounds Clip Cards

The bundle is available in either print or cursive. It’s a personal preference as to whether you like to introduce print or cursive first. I teach print first and then cursive.

Our Former Work with the Montessori Letters and Sounds Printable Pack Bundle in Manuscript

I have a variety of Montessori language materials that I like to rotate on my shelves. This pack adds a lot of resources that can easily be used for both variety and to focus on a specific aspect of the Montessori language work.

Letter and Object Matching

Zoey has always enjoyed Montessori language objects, so I wanted to include those as part of the materials. The photos in the bundle are of common household objects, which makes for a fun scavenger hunt.

Rather than using the same objects as in the photos, I added to the difficulty by using different objects for the beginning sounds. We did an activity where we laid out the sandpaper letters, Zoey found the matching letter/photo card, and then Zoey found an object with the same beginning sound.

I had all the sandpaper letters, matching letter/photo cards, and 26 objects on the shelf. When Zoey was younger, I taught letter sounds using the Montessori order and pronunciations shown in this post: Teach Letter Sounds Using Montessori Principles.

Making a “My Montessori Lowercase Letters and Sounds Book”

When Zoey was a toddler and young preschooler, we also did a lot of practical life and other fine-motor work to develop her finger and hand strength for writing. That made it easy for her to hold the pencil correctly when focusing on the correct letter formation in her letter writing.

Zoey was very interested in making the “My Montessori Lowercase Letters and Sounds Book.” There are different variations of books that can be made with the bundle, but this is my favorite for Montessori children. I printed it on cardstock for durability. The child can trace with pencil, marker, or crayon. We used a fine-tip marker in red or blue, according to the color of the letter. Then Zoey printed her name in the place on the book cover. We bound the book by using a hole punch and a 1″ binder ring.

I added Zoey’s book to the shelf shown above. She had fun reading it over and over again. She was proud of the progress she’d made with her handwriting, and this was a great way to reinforce that work.

To see more ideas of how to use the Montessori Letters and Sounds Printable Pack Bundle, see “The Montessori Letters and Sounds Printable Pack Bundle in Action” at Every Star Is Different.

Our Current Work with the Montessori Letters and Sounds Printable Pack Bundle in Cursive

Since I start with manuscript for my grandkids, I typically wait until they’re comfortable reading and writing manuscript before I focus a lot on cursive. I do introduce a cursive letter with printable and writing tray to go with our current unit study, though, so cursive isn’t completely new.

This activity uses one of the printables from the new Every Star Is Different cursive language bundle. For a child like my 5½-year-old granddaughter, Zoey, I introduce the cursive letters in alphabetical order (since she already knows all her letters and letter sounds in manuscript). For a preschooler starting first with cursive, I’d use a Montessori order to introduce the letters. This activity just matches and compares the manuscript letters and cursive letters with the addition of the cursive movable alphabet letters. The printable is actually designed for making a book once the child is ready to write the cursive letters independently in the boxes. We’ll use these later on to do that!

This activity also uses one of the printables from the new Every Star Is Different cursive language bundle. This activity just matches cursive movable alphabet letters with cursive picture-word cards. Again, the printable is actually designed for making a book once the child is ready to write the cursive letters independently in the boxes.

These are some of the materials from the cursive version that I’ll use for tracing cursive letters before I have Zoey make a booklet with the space for her to write in the cursive letters. There are many more resources in the Montessori-inspired Printable Pack Bundle (in either manuscript or cursive). There’s plenty of practice for children to feel comfortable with handwriting. For children who are working on learning their letter sounds using sandpaper letters, the printables are a fabulous extension for that, too!

More Letters and Sounds Resources

If you’d like to know how to teach letter sounds, check out this post.

You can see more ideas of how I’d use these and other phonics materials in my DIY Montessori phonics for preschoolers post.

My Reviews of Montessori Printables from Every Star Is Different

After the gallery has loaded, you can see all my posts with reviews of Every Star Is Different printables. Just click on an image to go to that post!

You can see all my reviews of Every Star Is Different Printables with slightly larger cover images here.

You can see all the products in the Every Star Is Different shop here.

Thanks for being so awesome!

Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to. Teach Grace and Courtesy!

The Montessori at Home! eBook and Montessori at Home! eBook and Materials Bundle are AMAZING resources! You can learn more about them here. Buy them in the Living Montessori Now shop.

If this is your first time visiting Living Montessori Now, welcome! If you haven’t already, please join us on our Living Montessori Now Facebook page where you’ll find a Free Printable of the Day and lots of inspiration and ideas for parenting and teaching! And please follow me on Pinterest (lots of Montessori-, holiday-, and theme-related boards), and Twitter. You can find me on bloglovin’, Instagram, and YouTube, too.

And don’t forget one of the best ways to follow me by signing up for my weekly newsletter. You’ll receive some awesome freebies in the process!