All infants and young children naturally desire to acquire language. We can see it in the way they study a person’s mouth when listening, or how the cooing and repetitive noises of an infant soon become words and sentences. To further develop their vocabulary, we communicate and review the terminology throughout every lesson in all areas of the classroom. The Sandpaper Letters, a multi-sensory manipulative, are used to introduce individual, phonetic sounds and letter shapes. These letters are finger-traced in conjunction with an auditory lesson to encourage sound and shape recognition. We teach the cursive script because it is actually easier to write than print and research has shown that children who learn to recognize cursive first can readily identify all other forms of script, unlike those who have only been taught print. Once a child has mastered at least ten sounds, he/she will prepare to read by building 3 to 4 letter phonetic words using the Movable Alphabet. From this lesson, a child will easily move on to reading short, three-letter phonetic words. Grammar is taught by labeling the Farm, acting out verbs, and diagramming sentences. Writing is practiced through a series of exercises that develop control of the hand muscles. The Metal Insets, which a child will trace on paper and then “fill-in” with curved, continuous up and down lines, directly prepare her/him for writing cursive words with pencil and paper.