Children are immersed in a world of sounds. They begin very gradually to comprehend that the sounds of voices are suffused with special meaning. By two years of age most children have learned to talk. They mimic the sounds they hear from their family and know which combinations will result in food or comfort or whatever they crave at the moment. From that initial self-absorption, the innate drive to develop sophisticated language skills is set furiously in motion. It will spur their emerging world curiosity. How that urge to read, write, describe feelings, and relate stories is channeled will profoundly influence their abilities to think coherently and communicate effectively. They begin to grasp the notion that letters, sounds, syllables, words, and sentences, our uniquely human symbols, represent other things, whole thoughts, and ideas, The internal pathways their brains create in laying down the building blocks of language will form the structures of their lifelong culture - the storehouse of all their memories, information, and knowledge.

The longest sensitive period for rapid natural learning is the one for language. It lasts from birth to six years. The Montessori language section embodies a holistic approach to communication skills: listening, speaking, writing, and reading taken all together. It is sense rooted as is everything else in the Montessori classroom, including touching and manipulating sandpaper letters, sorting sculpted letters by sounds, and gaining muscle control for writing by copying letters in metal cutouts. But language learning brings together more than materials and solitary exploration. Language games help children begin to hear sounds in isolation. They also delight to the sounds of similar words. They love to listen for rhymes and alliterative repetitions. The activities progress to include letters with the sounds, and then on to grouping sounds together with moveable alphabets. Before long, children absorb the connections between letter symbols, sounds, whole words, and the new words they make by exchanging letters.

Stories play an important role. The children listen to stories and in turn dictate their own, which are written down by the teacher. This process solidifies the connections between writing, reading, and spoken language and leads the children to more elaborate experimentation and self teaching. They are repeatedly thrilled with the amazing capabilities they gain using the flexible symbols and structure of language.