In Montessori classrooms, you’ll hear letters being called by the sounds they make instead of by their names. For example, the letter “b” is called “buh,” not “bee.”
This might seem confusing, but it actually makes learning to read and write much easier for a young child.
By calling each letter by the sound it makes, the child is able to easily blend letters together to form words, without getting confused by the letters’ names.
To read the word “bat” a child must know:
• “b” sounds like “buh”
• “a” sounds like “ah”
• “t” sounds like “tuh”
Knowing the letter names – “bee” “ai” “tee” – does not help the child sound out the word.
By focusing on the sounds the letters make, we eliminate the extra challenge of remembering the letter name AND its sound, and reading and writing come much more easily to a young child.
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