A Montessori Reading Intervention For Nonliterate First Grade Children

This capstone paper seeks to address the question, How could traditional literacy interventions be integrated into an authentic Montessori classroom in order to help public Montessori teachers address the specific needs of nonliterate first grade students? The literature review explores the topics of authentic Montessori, Montessori literacy curriculum, traditional reading interventions, school readiness and teacher challenges. The researcher was influenced by the works of M. Montessori, C. Anderson, R. Ungerer, National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS), and B. Goldsbrough. The researcher produced a project to address the specific needs of nonliterate first grade children in Montessori classrooms. The project created for this capstone is an intervention consisting of a series of 14 phonics lessons, to be presented using an authentic Montessori material, the sandpaper letters. Each lesson is constructed using the Understanding by Design (UBD) framework. This intervention can be taught by a Montessori-trained classroom guide as well as by a reading tutor, paraprofessional, or parent volunteer. There is an accompanying Nearpod curriculum where children can practice if they do not have access to the materials