The aural preparation of the child includes many activities such as building vocabulary, reading and telling stories or poems, teaching the children to speak and listen, as well as singing rhymes or songs. However, I felt like I had begun the children's aural preparation "for real" when we began the "sound games" or "I Spy" which generally are fun activities which accomplish "word analysis."
Dwyer and Homfray accomplish this preparation at slightly different stages in their teaching. Dwyer loads these skills into the front of the sequence, prior to the sandpaper letters, and calls it "aural preparation." Homfray advocates quite a bit of aural work before the sandpaper letters, but the bulk of what she calls "word analysis" work is done while teaching the sandpaper letters.
Philosophically, I prefer Dwyer's approach. She reminds us "One of the golden rules of the Montessori approach to learning is to present or to deal with one 'difficulty' or 'point of interest' at a time [Dwyer's emphasis]." She points out that " The child knew... [the sounds] as soon as he started to speak, but he did not know that he knew them" (23). The purpose of the sound games is to let the child discover that he does know these sounds and to help them "work out for themselves every sound contained in any word however long." The sound game is broken into several steps so the child has time to master one part of word analysis before moving on to or adding another. If the child only explores isolated sounds or initial sounds before embarking on the sandpaper letters either the word analysis never gets taught prior to the movable alphabet or it is taught while working with the sandpaper letters. Coming back to the Montessori "Golden Rule", one will be forced to present not one but somewhere between three-five "difficulties" when they learn the sandpaper letters. They will not only be learning the written symbol for each sound that they know, but also how to break a word down into it's component parts, and then find that sound in the beginning of a word, then the end of a word, then the middle, then finally multi-syllable words (if covered at all) .
I have found the number of skills acquired during the sound game vary from album to album. Probably this is due to whether the author intends to teach word analysis during the course of the sound games or alongside the sandpaper letters. At the extreme end, an album that uses the PBG scheme might only play I spy with initial sounds and with the 25 sounds of the single letters of the alphabet. On the other end of the spectrum, the aural preparation may be identical. I think the Dwyer plan is as thorough as you can get: all 40 key sounds, placed anywhere, in any-sized word.
You can read about the sound games everywhere and anywhere. I recommend the Gettman, Montessori Read & Write, or the Dwyer because those are the three places I know of that are compatible with the Dwyer.
The parts of the sound game are routinely referred to as "stages." Even among the three sources I've mentioned, there is variation in the number and description of these stages. Dwyer describes the sound game in terms of three stages. Because most of us are familiar with the sound game, I'm going to describe these in the simplest terms possible rather than give examples of each level of the game. These stages are to be done with all 40 key sounds, not just one sound for each letter.
- Initial sounds only starting with a single object and no chance of error, moving to 2, then 3, then more objects "slowly making the choice more difficult until the children are able to find the required object anywhere in the room" (20).
- Hear the sounds in the end and later in the middle of words. Eventually words longer than three sounds.
- How many words can the child think of that begin with or contain any one sound?
Although the Dwyer description is the most inclusive, the description in Montessori Read & Write breaks the process down into more steps and makes it a little easier to digest.
- Initial sound, one object at a time no opportunity for mistakes.
- Initial sound, choice of two objects or more. Only one object can be identified as the correct answer.
- Initial sound, choice of part of room or whole room. Many objects can be identified with the same sound.
- Initial sound and last sound played at both levels 2 or 3 as appropriate.
- All the sounds in the word played at level four, and then with any objects or words. The object does not have to be 'spied'
- Take a sound and think as many words as you can that contain the sound either at the beginning or end of th eword or have the sound somewhere in between.
The above is from their little sound game "chart" on page 63. Montessori Read & Write spends six or seven pages on the sound game. They do include work on words greater than three sounds, but that tidbit is hidden in the description of step five.
One place where Montessori Read and Write disagrees with Dwyer is when the chart on p. 63 suggests that the child begin sandpaper letters after completing level three. This conflicts with the sentence Dwyer put in all capitals:
IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT THE WHOLE 'THE SOUND GAME' IS EXPERIENCED WITHOUT REFERENCE TO ANY SYMBOLS, WHETHER THE SANDPAPER LETTERS, THE MOVABLE ALPHABET OR TO READING, AS THE AIM OF THIS GAME, IS AS STATED BEFORE, TO MAKE THE CHILDREN AWARE OF THE SOUNDS THEY USE IN SPEECH. [Dwyer's emphasis, 20]
Dwyer mentions that when the proper foundation is not laid you can tell when they reach the movable alphabet. The children may not progress or are not interested. She states "When the children do not use the movable alphabet well, it is a sure sign that the preparation has not been well done" [Dwyer's emphasis, 24).
MORE POSTS IN THIS SERIES ON THE DWYER APPROACH CAN BE FOUND HERE.