Maitri Learning

09/10/2026

Decoding is only one piece of reading comprehension — kids also need rich vocabulary and background knowledge to actually understand what they're reading. It's a strand linguistic phonics doesn't clearly address, but Montessori tackles it directly, using fine art and geography materials to build that foundation early. Explore the Background Knowledge Kit: https://maitrilearning.com/products/background-knowledge-kit

09/08/2026

One place linguistic phonics really shines is its use of morphology and etymology to explain spelling — and it's an area where Montessori Word Study materials do exactly the same thing, turning "why is this word spelled that way?" into a fun, playful investigation.

Shop Word Study materials: https://maitrilearning.com/collections/word-study

09/03/2026

Once kids are past the traditional movable alphabet, our solid color phonogram alphabets take over for a more targeted job: isolating a single concept at a time. Whether that's practicing all the ways to spell one sound, comparing singular and plural, working through prefixes and suffixes, or exploring synonyms and antonyms. A solid color set keeps the focus exactly where you want it. Explore the Solid Color Phonogram Alphabets: https://maitrilearning.com/collections/movable-alphabets

09/01/2026

There's a step between "hearing the sounds in a word" and "spelling that word" that's easy to skip: mapping each sound to its letter. In Montessori classrooms, that happens through sandpaper letters — kids trace the letter shape with their fingers while saying its sound out loud, linking touch, sight, and sound together. Only once that mapping is secure does the movable alphabet come out. The alphabet lets children build the words they already know how to hear and name.

In our founder's graduate research at Harvard, she found 3- and 4-year-olds could spell more words this way than they could with a pencil.

Shop the Movable Alphabet: https://maitrilearning.com/collections/movable-alphabets

08/31/2026

Happy Birthday, Dr. Maria Montessori! 🎉

Born on this day in 1870, she spent her life observing children — really observing them — and what she saw changed education forever. One of her most important discoveries was that children can write before they can read, using their hands to build words letter by letter.

That's exactly what you're watching in this video: a movable alphabet, one of her original inventions, still doing exactly what it was designed to do over a century later.

Explore our Movable Alphabets at https://maitrilearning.com/collections/movable-alphabets

08/27/2026

Once a child can hear the sounds in a word, the next step is mapping those sounds to letters. Our Letter-Sound Cards and 3-Part Letter-Sound Cards use a "key sound" approach — one predictable sound per letter, plus about 17 digraphs — giving kids everything they need to start phonetically spelling words. It's reliable, it's orderly, and it's exactly what young children are drawn to.

Shop Letter-Sound Cards: https://maitrilearning.com/products/letter-sound-cards

Shop self-correcting 3-Part Letter-Sound Cards: https://maitrilearning.com/products/3-part-letter-sound-cards

08/25/2026

Instead of memorizing dozens of spelling rules, students using the Dwyer Phonogram Spelling Folders learn the common patterns for each sound — and then get real words to practice reading and writing them in. It's simple, visual, and it works.

Explore the folders: https://maitrilearning.com/products/phonogram-folders

08/24/2026

We're so happy to support United Montessori Schools of Indiana! They're having a conference and if you're in Indiana and love Montessori, register now!!!

Thank you to Silver Level sponsor Maitri Learning for sponsoring our 2026 Montessori Educators' Conference; Follow the Child, Nurture the Community: Building Resilient Montessori Classrooms. We are grateful for their generous support of professional development for our Indiana Montessori Community!

08/20/2026

There's a lot of buzz right now about "linguistic phonics" — an approach that focuses on sounds first and all the ways we spell them. Sound familiar? It should. Montessori's Dwyer Phonogram Spelling Folders have been teaching kids that the long a sound can be spelled ai, a_e, ay, or ei for decades. We wrote up a full breakdown of where linguistic phonics aligns with Montessori — and where it doesn't quite go far enough.

Read it here: https://maitrilearning.com/blogs/pedagogy-blog/linguistic-phonics-montessori-science-of-reading

08/18/2026

We love AMI/USA! Check out their upcoming events:

Community Webinars - free for members, $20 for nonmembers.

The Prepared Professional: Refresh and Refocus - online conference

Webinar Series (3): Building Bridges: Autism Inclusion in Montessori Education | Development of the Bilingual Child | Seeing Differently: Observation, Inclusion, and the Power of Possibility

Midwest Regional Conference - Kansas City, MO

National Conference - Orlando, Florida

https://maitrilearning.com/pages/our-partners