Montessori Moment: The 3-Period Lesson

Naming the sounds and tracing the letters.

Now that we have discussed the four main areas of the Montessori classroom, you may be wondering how exactly we “teach” these concepts to our students. Most lessons, or presentations, are given individually by the lead teacher allowing for more focus and individualized learning. Lessons that involve vocabulary or phonics usually use the “Three-Period Lesson” (or 3PL) strategy developed by French physician Edouard Seguin in the late 19th century.

The 3PL follows three steps: Naming, Recognizing, and Remembering.  These lessons are designed to be quick and fun like a game, making sure to not overload the child with too much information.

One way the 3PL can be used is when introducing sandpaper letters. The teacher begins with three sounds, making sure that the sounds don’t visually look too similar or sound too similar. Sounds like “b” and “d” would not be used in the same lesson, for example. The lesson begins with naming the sounds (not the letter names!) and then tracing the letters. “This is ‘m’, this is ‘a’, this is ‘t’”. Then the lesson moves on to the longest period of recognizing. This period is fun and fast-paced with the teacher saying things like “point to ‘m’, trace ‘a’, pick up ‘t’”. Some teachers even invite students to close their eyes so that they can mix up the letters and then continue with the game. It is fun to include movement in this period as well by asking the children to “pick up ‘t’ and walk around the table!” The second period is designed to give the child lots of practice recognizing each sound before the final period, remembering. During the third period the teacher asks the child “what’s this?” while pointing to each sound. This is the first time the child gives the sound themselves.

This method can be used with any vocabulary lesson like naming 2-D shapes from the geometry cabinet, names of colors, 3-D geometric solids, and even “puzzle” words that cannot be sounded out phonetically like where, was, and the.

Three-period lessons can be repeated as many times as needed until the child can complete the remembering period consistently.