Foundations of Reading
Hi everyone,
I want to start sharing these newsletters as a way to pause, reflect, connect with our community, and bring a little more Montessori into everyday life.
These past months have been a bit of a shift for me. I’m currently at home with my baby, who is now three months old, and I’ve been so grateful for the time and space that this season has given. Alongside that, I’ve just finished two weeks of intensive training with AMI as part of the path towards becoming a trainer, which has brought me back into deep study, reflection, and research in a really meaningful way.
There’s something about this combination, being with a young child every day while also revisiting the theory, that makes everything feel more connected.
And with the weather here in Portugal turning warmer and brighter, I’ve been finding myself outside more, thinking, writing, and noticing things I might have rushed past before.
It’s been a really beautiful experience.
And it’s actually what led me to today’s topic: reading.
Reading is not what we think it is
I’ve been thinking a lot about reading lately because it has been the main focal point of my two week training. It comes up so often in conversations with parents, and it’s one of those areas where what we see on the surface doesn’t always match what’s actually happening underneath.
A child sounding out a word feels like “reading.”
A child not yet reading can feel like they’re “behind.”
But the more I study the research, and the more years I spend in the classroom, the clearer it becomes:
Reading is not a single skill. It’s the result of years of invisible work.
The brain is not wired for reading
Researchers like Maryanne Wolf remind us that reading is a relatively new human invention. The brain wasn’t designed for it.
Instead, when a child learns to read, they build a new neural circuit by connecting multiple areas of the brain. One of the most important is what neuroscientists call the visual word form area, often referred to as the “letterbox.”
This area originally helps us recognize faces and objects. Over time, with experience, it gets repurposed to recognize letters and words.
It doesn’t start that way.
It develops through experience, exposure, and time.
A helpful way to understand reading development
A great model for understanding this is something called Scarborough’s Reading Rope.
It was developed by researcher Hollis Scarborough to help explain why reading is much more complex than it appears. Instead of being one skill, reading is made up of many different strands that develop over time and eventually weave together into fluent reading.
The rope is divided into two main parts.
On one side is word recognition, which includes:
Phonological awareness
Decoding
Sight recognition
On the other side is language comprehension, which includes:
Vocabulary
Background knowledge
Language structures
Verbal reasoning
Literacy knowledge
Over time, these strands become stronger and more interconnected. When that happens, reading becomes more fluent and automatic.
What is important to understand is that many of these strands begin developing long before a child ever reads a word.
The Montessori connection
What’s beautiful is that so much of the Montessori language curriculum is already aligned with this research.
But it doesn’t always look like reading.
It looks like:
A child playing a sound game
A child naming objects
A child listening to a story
A child tracing sandpaper letters
And it can be easy to underestimate how powerful that work is.
Here’s how those activities connect to the reading rope:
Sound games and sandpaper letters support phonological awareness.
Children learn to hear, isolate, and manipulate sounds before ever seeing them in print.
Object naming and classified language work build vocabulary and background knowledge.
The richer a child’s vocabulary, the easier it is to attach meaning to decoded words.
Conversations and storytelling support language structures and verbal reasoning.
Children internalize how language works through real, meaningful exchanges.
Reading aloud supports literacy knowledge and comprehension.
They begin to understand how stories are structured, how ideas connect, and why reading matters.
None of this is extra.
This is the foundation.
What happens when we rush it?
There is a growing body of research showing that when reading is pushed too early, before these foundations are in place, it can lead to:
Increased anxiety around reading
Surface level decoding without deep comprehension
Reduced motivation to read over time
Maryanne Wolf writes about the importance of protecting what she calls deep reading, the ability to think, imagine, and connect while reading. When the focus becomes performance too early, we risk losing that.
In the classroom, I have seen this too.
Children who are given time to build these foundations often arrive at reading with excitement and confidence.
Children who feel pressure often approach it with hesitation, and the difference is not ability but the quality of the emotional experience and connection.
What you can do at home
The good news is that supporting reading does not mean pushing early decoding.
It looks much simpler and much more human.
Here are a few ways to support those foundational strands at home:
Play sound games
“I spy something that starts with /b/…”
Clap syllables. Stretch out sounds in words.
Build vocabulary naturally
Name what you see. Use rich, real language. Follow your child’s interests.
Read aloud every day
Even if your child is not reading yet, they are building comprehension, attention, and a love of stories.
Tell stories together
Retell your day. Make up silly stories. Let your child lead.
Make space for conversation
Slow down. Listen. Respond. This is where so much language development happens.
A shift in perspective
If there is one thing I hope you take from this, it is this:
Reading does not start when a child picks up a book. It starts years earlier, in conversation, in play, in connection. So if your child is not reading yet, it does not mean nothing is happening. It likely means everything is happening.
My hope is that this leaves you feeling a little more grounded and a little less pressured around reading.
And maybe even more able to enjoy this stage for what it is.
I would love to hear your thoughts. What have you noticed in your child’s language or reading journey?
Until next time,
Caitie ✨