Muriel Dwyer

Hello!  Here is a growing collection of links to posts I have written about using the Muriel Dwyer approach at home.

• A Better Language Approach for Montessori at Home:  Part One, Introduction
• A Better Language Approach for Montessori at Home:  Part Two, PBG vs Dwyer on the Shelf
• A Better Language Approach for Montessori at Home:  Part Three, Transition
• A Better Language Approach for Montessori at Home:  Part Four, Aural Preparation/Word Analysis
• A Better Language Approach for Montessori at Home:  Part Five, After the Object Boxes (Readers)  
• Dwyer-Compatible Phonetic Readers (also see "part five" above)
• A Better Language Approach for Montessori at Home:  Part Six,  Reading Folders
• Phonogram Dictionary:  Dwyer Part 7
• What happens after Dwyer:  Some Thoughts on Word Study

And here are some links to some free Dwyer materials. (You need almost none, but eventually you need readers, the reading folders, and a phonogram dictionary.)

• Free Dwyer-compatible readers.  Not enough to be the only readers you need, but at least something.  
• Free Reading Folders files.
• Free phonogram dictionary.

Here are some links to what others have to say about Dwyer.

• New Life for Montessori Reading Program by Barbara Furst (search for this online, it is at Jola Montessori but they way their website is constructed the link always breaks.)
• Another nice summary of the Dwyer approach at Kingdom of the Pink Princesses.
• Great blog post, Cracking the Code: Comparing Pro-Phonics Prophets, by Beth Holley.  Beth an AMI primary and AMS elementary guide who authors the blog It's Elementary.   

The ORIGINAL pamphlet on the Dwyer approach can be purchased through NAMTA.  I cannot provide a direct link to the page where you can buy the pamphlet because the NAMTA changes the address of that page so frequently.  Muriel Dwyer wrote a booklet called "A Key to Writing and Reading for English" (1968, 1977).  After many requests for a reprinting, she rewrote it and it was published as "A Path for the Exploration of Any Language Leading to Writing and Reading as a part of the Total Montessori Approach to the Development of Language" in the NAMTA Journal (Vol. 29, No. 3 Summer 2004).