If you’ve ever noticed small, colorful shapes placed above words in a Montessori classroom, you may have wondered what they mean, or why grammar looks so different from what many of us remember from school.
Those colorful shapes are Montessori grammar symbols, reflecting a deeply intentional approach to helping children understand language through function, history, and experience.
Words Are Defined by the Work They Do
In Montessori, grammar begins with the simple understanding that words are classified by the job they perform in a sentence.
- Some words name people, places, or things.
- Some express action.
- Some describe.
- Some connect.
This concept of parts of speech exists in all languages, though the number and categories vary. Montessori embraces this universal truth and introduces it in a way that aligns with children’s natural development.
Language Is Experienced Before It Is Named
In our Pre-School environments (ages 3 to 6), children encounter parts of speech through activity, not terminology. When children explore words that express action, they get to act out simple commands like run, jump, skip. They respond with their bodies, so they can experience the language long before they analyse it.
As children develop their reading skills, we begin to introduce the functions of seven parts of speech:
- article
- adjective
- noun
- verb
- adverb
- preposition
- conjunction
We save two parts of speech, pronouns and interjections, for the Primary years because both require a higher level of abstraction. To understand a pronoun, for example, a child must first have a strong, concrete sense of the noun. Interjections express internal emotional states, which also require more mature abstract thinking.
Young children learn what words do, not what they are called. Questions we explore sound like:
- “Which word tells us what kind?”
- “Which word shows the action?”
- “Which word connects these ideas?”
We introduce the formal names of nouns, verbs, and so on later in the primary years, when children are developmentally ready to categorize and label abstract ideas.
Discovering the Living Nature of Nouns
Children are naturally curious about names, and Montessori grammar invites that curiosity. As they work with nouns, children often explore questions like:
- Why do things have the names they do?
- What do names mean?
- How are new names created?
They may research plant and animal names, country and place names, and first and last names of people. They also discover that language is alive and constantly changing. New nouns are added all the time. Some words that their grandparents used are no longer common. Other words shift in meaning over generations.
This exploration helps children see language not as fixed rules, but as a human creation shaped by time, culture, and need.
Making the Abstract Concrete
The grammar symbols allow children to:
- See patterns in sentence structure
- Manipulate language physically
- Analyse their own writing
- Build sentences and meaning intentionally
Sometimes children create symbol patterns first and then find words to match them. This shows deep structural understanding. They are thinking about how language works, not just what it says.
And grammar work is often joyful. We invite games, stories, and playful discoveries along the way. Even the symbols themselves have stories: the conjunction was originally designed as a chain, but it proved too difficult to make from paper!
By the time children move into primary school, they have:
- Experienced the functions of the major parts of speech
- Worked extensively with grammar symbols
- Developed an intuitive understanding of sentence structure
This foundation allows Primary School grammar to unfold naturally and move from concrete experience into abstraction, analysis, and increasingly sophisticated writing.
Why Montessori Grammar Looks the Way It Does
Montessori uses symbols because they:
- Make invisible patterns visible
- Support abstract thinking through manipulation
- Encourage independence and self-analysis
- Invite curiosity rather than rote memorization
In Montessori, grammar isn’t about labeling for its own sake. It’s about helping children understand the logic, beauty, and living nature of language, and it gives them tools to express themselves with clarity and confidence.
That’s what those small, colorful shapes are really doing. Come see for yourself! Schedule a tour here at Forestville Montessori School today.
