The Waldorf Path to Literacy
If Waldorf Early Childhood classrooms are pre-academic, when do children learn to read?
The answer is: Early Childhood!
Though we emphasize play instead of direct instruction, our EC curriculum is intentionally designed to bolster the foundational reading and writing skills that students will cultivate in first grade.
Comprehension before decoding
We believe it is important to build a child’s comprehension skills before they learn to decode the symbols of written language. The strongest way to do this is by engaging their imaginations.
Storytelling is at the heart of Waldorf education and it begins in Early Childhood. Whether they’re learning seasonal verses and songs, performing global folk tales as puppet plays, or listening intently to their teacher tell a fable, Waldorf children are surrounded by rich stories. These stories repeat throughout the season, giving the children a chance to internalize and interpret them on their own – you might even begin to hear them at home!
These experiences allow the children to form internal pictures, build attention span and vocabulary, engage their imagination, and anticipate narrative structures. With these comprehension skills in place, they are perfectly positioned to confidently approach written language in the grade school.
physical skills
Each task in the Early Childhood has an intentional, practical purpose. Even when the children are kneading dough or chopping vegetables for snack, they are building the hand strength and fine motor skills needed to grip and manipulate a pencil.
When they paint with watercolors, teachers begin to encourage them to hold the paintbrush with one hand rather than swapping it from hand to hand as they move across the paper, cultivate the gross motor skills they will need to write fluidly from left to right.
Additionally, the puppet plays they watch progress from left to right, training their eye tracking and laying a foundation for interpreting written English.
Prepared with comprehension tools, fine motor skills, and left-right tracking, our first graders are ready to fully grasp the sounds and symbols of written language.
we’re all different
Children learn to read at different paces – that’s okay! We want to encourage children to approach reading with enthusiasm and joy, rather than stress and anxiety. By taking a multisensory, unhurried approach to comprehension and decoding, children are given the opportunity to engage with literacy in a way that fits them best, on a timeline that fits them best.
