Mabel Molanphy

In Montes­sori edu­ca­tion, the child learns to write (encode) before they read (decode). It’s kind of fun­ny, because they can write, but can’t read what they have writ­ten. As they learn to read, they quick­ly back-track and learn spelling. It’s real­ly quite mag­i­cal. Part of the writ­ing is using the “move­able alpha­bet,” tru­ly one of the awe­somest mate­ri­als. After Mabel learned her pho­net­ic pro­nun­ci­a­tion of all her sounds (includ­ing dou­ble let­ters like “sh” “ee” “ai”, etc), she gets to use the move­able alpha­bet to express her thoughts. Or find tiny objects and spell them out. This was her very first intro­duc­tion to the mate­r­i­al, and the words she spelled.