From the Principal’s Desk – 30 January, 2020

Balancing innovation and tradition is an important practice for Waldorf educators. We honour the lessons and wisdom of the past and we study the needs of our classrooms today with an eye to the needs of the future. In the past hundred years, Waldorf education has spread around the world, adapting to the languages, traditions and circumstances of each locale. One time-honoured concept that goes across the Waldorf curriculum worldwide is the recapitulation of human historical development through the stages of child development. For example, before age seven, children are immersed in the oral traditions and fairy tales of pre-literate societies, and as children grow from age seven to fourteen, they are gradually brought from fables to myths to ancient history and through to the modern era.

Waldorf teachers in the English-speaking world are learning to apply this approach more broadly to how we teach reading, writing and spelling. English is a difficult language; it has more words and sound combinations than most other languages, and spelling is not always based on phonetics. The history of the English language provides insight into teaching literacy skills more successfully through our uniquely developmental approach.

Old English has many similarities to German, where there is a one-to-one correspondence with letters and their sounds. In Grade 1, students are introduced to letters and the sounds they make, and learn to put together simple consonant vowel consonant words like cat or tip.

Middle English occured with the Norman invasions in the middle ages, when courtiers spoke French and many new sounds and spellings were introduced. In Grade 2, we recap this middle period, and children learn to recognize different letter patterns and the sound combinations they make such has hay, plane and plain.

Modern English developed out of the renaissance, when scholars rediscovered ancient texts in Greek and Latin, bringing new words and their roots into the language. In Grade 3, the study of word families and roots brings children insight into spelling and meaning of words. This learning continues with a progression through the grades of more complex texts, spelling, writing and grammar as children move from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.”

As with any skill development, this work requires time, consistency and a clear path of progression. Teachers recognize that while much of the Waldorf curriculum is delivered in blocks of three to four weeks, time must be made to practice language skills on a daily basis, and that some children will need more practice than others. Teachers differentiate the delivery to students based on their needs and we have created time and space in the schedule and physical building so that children can get the help and practice that they need.

I am proud of the quality of language arts instruction in our school today. Our children are learning the skills and are benefitting from the deep foundational approach that will serve their thinking and communicating well into the future.

– Gabriel