Montessori Nomenclature Cards - what are they FOR!?

Nomenclature is always REVIEW of the concept in elementary, with invitation to create one's own booklet or chart, to make the work one's own, with one's own definitions of the terms.

Nomenclature is always READING PRACTICE on FAMILIAR CONCEPTS in primary. We give vocabulary with the picture-only cards after they have had real experience with the items represented in the pictures. Then we add the words as they are learning to read, to give them familiar items to match up with the sounds they are learning (these sounds they should already be writing - remember, the child should write before reading); then we add the definitions as they become stronger readers, to give them more for reading practice on definitions they already know.

To back up a step, we are reading those definitions (via the booklets) or at least describing the terms in their context of real life experience. When the children start reading, they find familiarity in the definitions with what they already know.

Nomenclature cards are not teaching tools. They are review of concepts and reading/vocabulary practice.

Thus the child can move into whole reading rather quickly, because of a foundation of a variety of real life experiences, with sound vocabulary and other rich spoken language experiences provided from the beginning of his life, exploring the sounds of his language with the sound games and all the sandpaper letters, then the movable alphabet; freed from the tedium of step-by-step systems, he has the keys to explore his own language, other languages, and indeed the whole world around him.

Maria Montessori called the sensorial materials "keys of the world" - indeed all that observed and tested in all areas of the infant, toddler and primary (3-6, preschool and kindergarten), are keys of the world.