Inclusive Montessori: DIY Sandpaper Letters Reimagined
DIY in a Nutshell
Montessori Tactile Letter Panels in YOUR Chosen Alphabet
Create professional-quality Montessori letters in any language using the LinguWhee letter templates and streamlined process.
- π₯ Get the template: Purchase and download the LinguWhee letter template that corresponds to your desired alphabet and handedness (right-handed child or left-handed child)
- π¨οΈ Print: on A4 label paper
- βοΈ Cut & Apply: Cut along guidelines and apply labels to wooden plaques or cardboard panels. See more/cheaper sourcing options below.
- βοΈ Trace: Use glitter glue pens to trace letters
- π Use: Let dry and start learning!
Demo Video: Watch the complete process from printing templates to creating finished Montessori letters.
What are Montessori Sandpaper Letters
Maria Montessori was a stickler for details: she studied, iterated, and designed the learning environment and materials in a very specific way. Her Sandpaper Letters are a great example of this attention to detail.
Traditionally, these are sets of color-coded wood panels, each displaying one letter or n-gram (also known as phonogram: letter combination representing a single sound). The letters are made of sandpaper, providing a multi-sensory learning experience: feeling the letter, saying the sounds, handling the letter board, and noticing the colors. Consonants have pink backgrounds, vowels are blue, and phonograms are green. Maria Montessori favored cursive, believing the letter differences are clearer in cursive (think of printed vs. cursive 'b' and 'd'). The panels themselves vary in shape β taller for letters with ascenders (like 'b') or descenders (like 'p'), shorter and wider for letters like 'm' - adding to the sensory experience. Traditional panels also offset the letter to the right, allowing children to hold the panel with their left hand while tracing with their right, mimicking how they would hold a sheet of paper.
Teaching the Letters - Montessori Method
It's common for adults to (1) teach letters alphabetically and (2) teach lowercase and uppercase together. This doesn't match how children encounter sounds and letters in real life. Lowercase letters are more frequent in text. Certain sounds are also more common than others (in any given language). So, in the Montessori method, lowercase letters and most common sounds are taught first. Capitals are introduced after children are comfortable with lowercase.
What letters are most captivating for a child? The ones in their own name! Start there, then introduce other letters based on their frequency in your target language.
You'll often see advice to teach letters in groups, like 'first teach c, m, a, t; then teach s, r, i, p'. This breaks down the alphabet, teaches common sounds first, and separates similar sounds into different practice groups, to reduce confusion. Remember that these groupings are typically designed for the English language.
The "teach most practical first" philosophy allows for immediate practice and for a great degree of adaptability to a child's environment. In a world saturated with printed text, for example, there's a strong argument for teaching printed lowercase letters first, and some Montessori schools do this. However, there's a trade-off between what's commonly seen in the environment and how easily letters are differentiated. Personally, when first introducing the letters, I prioritized differentiating letters and associating the correct sound to the symbols, so I chose cursive first.
Introducing Montessori Sandpaper Letters with the 3-period lesson.
Sandpaper letters are introduced using the "3-period lesson" which would take too long to explain here. But check out this video which does a great job at showing this process, for English speakers. Pay close attention to the letter panels themselves - they are the traditional Montessori panels with all the features, except they are for printed letters.
Why make your own
I wanted Montessori Sandpaper Letters in Romanian (one of our home languages) that met the essential criteria of the Montessori philosophy. The experience of finding these ready-made was surprisingly frustrating!
Second, there is a very limited support for languages other than English. Sets for alphabets beyond English are rare, and often only available with printed letters. I couldn't find templates in cursive for the Romanian alphabet.
The final challenge, which many diaspora parents understand: shipping costs. While I did find a Romanian letter set (no holding space, though), the shipping from Romania roughly doubled the cost.
So I attempted to make my own sandpaper letters with existing tutorials, but encountered some practical challenges.
- Time-Consuming and Skill-Intensive: Cutting letters from actual sandpaper is time-consuming and requires skill for consistent results.
- A Mess to Use: Tracing the letters with glue and sprinkling salt or sand to get the rough texture is a nice idea - in theory. In practice, you're looking at a lot of salt or sand sprinkled all over your house.
- Warped Paper Woes: Glitter glue sounds clever, but often fails. When glue dries on regular paper or printer-compatible cardboard, it warps, negating the tactile contrast essential for Montessori letters.
- Free-hand inconsistencies: Using glitter glue directly on thick cardboard panels avoids warping, but requires free-handing the letters, making consistent, professional results difficult.
That's how the 
solution came to life.
Supplies and Detailed Instructions
In addition to supporting different alphabets, having an option for left-handed children, including all the phonograms, and ensuring a consistent result, I also wanted:
- ποΈ A fun handprint to remind them to hold the panel when tracing (they constantly forget to do so if it's not there, and can't resist placing their hand on the handprint drawing when it is present)
- βοΈ Easy to cut - that means having visible cutting guides with width equal to the thickness of my guillotine cutter gutter
- π As little cutting as possible (if the panels are aligned on two sides all the way to the edge of the sheet I'm printing on, then that's 2 edges I don't need to cut)
I opted not to colour-code the background as I felt that would have been too much sensory input.
Supplies:
- LinguWhee's Printable Letter Templates (PDF)
- A4 Label Paper
- Wooden Plaques (10cm high by 15cm wide) - options:
- Glitter Glue - pen-shaped bottles work best for even application:
- Paper Guillotine - a real time saver
The Process:
- Get the template: Purchase and download the LinguWhee letter template that corresponds to your desired alphabet and handedness (right-handed child or left-handed child)
- Print: on A4 label paper
- Cut & Apply: Cut along guidelines and apply labels to wooden plaques or cardboard panels
- Trace: Use glitter glue pens to trace letters
- Use: Let dry and start learning!
You can see the steps in action in the demo video at the top.
Customization Options
Want to personalize your Montessori Sandpaper Letter templates? We've got you covered! Check out our customization options.
Pro Tips
- Use fine-tip glitter glue pens or bottles with fine-grained glitter specs
- Smooth the labels thoroughly when applying to prevent air bubbles
- Consider using brown/wood-colored label paper to preserve the look-and-feel of wood panels
- Allow glitter glue to dry completely before use
- Store letters flat to maintain their shape
Use it
How to use your Montessori Tactile Letters
Place one hand on the handprint to hold the letter panel. With your writing hand, trace the letters and say the sound. Trace the letters in the way that you would normally write. For example, for the core Latin alphabet, you would trace the letters in these directions:
Core latin alphabet cursive letter tracing directions.
Source: American Philosophical Society Library & Museum
Download the PDF here