by Cheryl McCabe-Allen | Emotionally Healthy Children, MFA, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Parent Education, Parent-Teacher Communication, TC September 2021, The International Montessori Council
from Tomorrow’s Child – The Montessori Family Magazine – September/October 2021
And Five Things Your Montessori Teacher Might Hesitate to Tell You (in descending order)
Make sure your child can dress themselves in the clothes worn to school. High-top sneakers look so cute, but if your child can’t put them on and tie them, they need to be only for out-of-school days and times.
Let your child walk to the classroom. Carrying your child tells your child they can’t do it on their own, and we want to encourage independence.
Make sure your child can manage their lunch items. Practice at home can help make lunch smoother for your child. If your older child will be cooking something in the microwave, let them try it at home first.
Limit the electronic babysitter, especially around school time. Screens certainly have their place, but try to use the time before and after school for music, audiobooks, conversation, or reading. This helps your child transition to and from school more easily.
Focus on specifics rather than giving a consistent “good job.” Share what you noticed (“I saw you running around the whole field.”)
Come to school on time. Make getting out the door on time a team effort by having your child complete some morning jobs. Getting to class on time allows your child more comfort when beginning their school day.
Communicate with your child’s guide, but consider the time. Let your child’s guide know if there is something that may affect the day, but try not to have a longer conversation just as class starts.
Help your child to “do it themselves.” Take the time to teach and then give the extra time it will take to allow your child to do whatever they can, from putting on shoes to preparing their lunch.
Ask “tell me more” before complaining about any information you hear from your child. Often, clarification makes a concern a funny story. For example, a child told her teacher that another child, “Said the f-word.” When the child was asked to whisper what was said, he leaned into me and said, “He said fat.” Crisis averted.
Always know that we are all on the same team: Team Your Child. Even when any of us have concerns, our goal is always to support your child to succeed.
And now…
Five Things Your Montessori Teacher Might Hesitate to Tell You:
Watching TV shows on the way to school does affect the way your child settles into class. Frankly, we do not move as fast and engage the brain the same way electronic screens do, so making that change can be difficult for many children.
Asking your child, “Why did you do that?” is not helpful and will probably not get a real answer. Try asking them to tell you the story of what happened, and ask how they were feeling before the incident; rarely do people know why they did something.
Have times when you are off your phone while you are with your child. Multitasking is sometimes necessary and so seductive, but some time without your child needing to compete with your phone is beneficial for both of you. Drop off and pick up from school are great times to be off your phone.
Be careful about what you say about the school, your child’s teacher, or your child’s classmate. Your child is probably listening. Vent to family or a friend at an appropriate time and place, or consider if it needs to be said at all.
When you talk about your child, as if they are not there, when they actually are there, they will hear you. Consider how children will take the information if it is new to them, and how they will feel about you sharing the information if it is not new. And, by the way, nobody appreciates being labeled
by Cassi Mackey | Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Emotionally Healthy Children, Empowerment, MFA, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Parent Education, TC September 2021
from Tomorrow’s Child – The Montessori Family Magazine – September/October 2021
We want to raise our children to be great human beings, but how do we develop strength of character in our children? According to Dr. Montessori, “Character formation cannot be taught. It comes from experience and not from explanation.”
Centering strong character traits in your family through modeling, experiences, and conversations is the foundation of developing strength of character. Practicing character is a daily decision that needs to be made, time and time again. Practice brings permanence if it is purposeful and deliberate.
What follows are seven practices in helping children start to develop strong character.
Practicing Integrity
• Model integrity. Live your values. Do your actions and words reflect your family values?
• Articulate your family values so they become a natural way of thinking and behaving.
• Develop a moral vocabulary. Children need to understand words, such as honesty, trust, fairness, integrity, etc. Teach children behaviors that embody these words.
• Acknowledge children when they are demonstrating integrity, not rewarding them but acknowledging them by telling them how much you value their behavior.
• Discuss and give examples of the effects your child’s actions have on themselves and on others.
• Respond to children’s behavior with calmness and consistency. Be open to listening to your child’s reasoning for an action before instinctually admonishing and correcting, then remind them of the expectations and decide on a natural consequence that is consistent and clearly understood.
Practicing Kindness
• Model kindness. Children learn how to relate with others by observing the adults around them and how they treat other people. Show them what it means to be kind and name the action as kindness.
Try to always speak kindly to your children, especially when you are tired, frustrated, or angry.
• Share stories of kindness, whether personal stories, stories in books, stories on the news, etc. Stories are a wonderful way of building an understanding of kindness.
• Assess the teasing in your household. Is it demeaning, provoking, or humiliating?
Remember, children learn how to play and interact with peers by their own experiences at home.
• Discuss how their behavior affects those around them, whether it is positive or negative.
• Give your children opportunities to serve others. Show them that holding a door open for someone, smiling and saying hello, and thanking the cashier, are all demonstrations of kindness.
• Expect kindness when your child speaks to you. When your child speaks to you rudely, simply state how you would like to be talked to. Do not get into an exchange with them, just simply state your preferred specifics of communication. Be consistent.
Do not let poor tone or attitude slide.
Practicing Positivity
• Model being positive. Take the time to monitor how you present your life experience to your children. Do they hear you regularly speaking positively or negatively?
Try to point out the good side of events and experiences.
• Address failure as an opportunity for growth. Help your children self-evaluate situations. Ask the questions: What went well and what would you change if you could? Encourage your child to develop a plan of action to effect change the next time around.
• Challenge your children when they are personalizing (“It was all my fault”) globalizing (“I always make mistakes”), or catastrophizing (“I will never do anything right”). You do not have to contradict your children’s explanation, but encourage them to come up with positive outcomes to the situation.
• Encourage children to set their own goals and think through how they plan on achieving them. This process gives them agency and a sense of competence that often leads to success. Encourage them to focus on the best possible outcomes and, as such, they will align their thoughts in that way and work toward achieving the outcome they want.
Practicing Gratitude
• Model gratitude. Make it a habit to notice and verbalize the things for which you are grateful.
• Ask your children questions to help them start to notice things that deserve gratitude: What have you noticed today that you were given that you are grateful for? and, Are there things in your life that you are grateful for that aren’t gifts or material things?
• Create space for conversations regarding how they feel when they receive something (including non-material things).
Help them associate positive feelings with someone else’s actions. As often as possible, highlight the idea that people and events can give us good feelings.
• Teach gratitude through action. Ask your children if there is a way that they would like to show how they feel about a gift, an event, or a person. Children can use their special talent or interest, for example, and make up a song and/or paint a picture to express their gratitude.
Practicing Flexibility
• Model flexibility. Tell children when and how you are being flexible as things come up throughout the day, whether as part of a minor or major event. Explain how you are being flexible and, when appropriate, involve children in the new plan. the routine at home every once in a while, helping them become accustomed to managing change.
• Change the rules to board games; start out with small changes, so they can see how they can adjust. Then, make more changes.
• Give positive reinforcement when your children demonstrate flexibility and change their course of action.
• Teach your child strategies to take when a change occurs. Teach them to stop and breathe, state the problem, consider at least three possible solutions, then select one to try.
Practicing Effort
• Model effort. Show your willingness to take risks and try new things, even when they are hard.
• Acknowledge effort, bravery, risk-taking, open-mindedness, and keeping a positive outlook.
• Teach children to monitor their effort.
Help them reflect on whether they gave their best in an activity.
• Help children recognize and celebrate their effort by asking them, What was something you did today where you felt proud of how hard you tried?
• Make it easy to work hard by preparing the environment with the tools they need to succeed with a task.
• Help your children work through challenges by modeling self-talk. Children can learn how to persist if they talk out the problem, coupled with positive self-talk.
• Show your children the progress they have made. Remind them of where they started and how far they have come.
Practicing Accountability
• Model personal accountability. Demonstrate accountability by apologizing and making amends when necessary. You will show your children you are responsible for the consequences of your actions.
• It is important that your children know exactly what is expected of them and the consequences of not meeting expectations.
They also need to know what is non-negotiable and what is open for discussion and mutual agreement.
• Allow your children to be responsible for their actions. Even a three-year-old can clean up a spill; spilling is normal, but cleaning up the spill is also normal.
• Parents should not point fingers or make children feel defensive about behavior.
They should acknowledge when a child owns up to a mistake, and help them come up with a solution on how to make amends; and do something differently next time.
• Give children age-appropriate choices and chores.
• Encourage children to participate in decision-making to develop accountability.
The road to strong character is paved with practice. It is a journey, and it is going to have ups and downs. The term practicing is not inadvertent. Have patience and remember what your ultimate goal is for your child.
Cassi Mackey, M.Ed. is passionate about helping families create sacred spaces where love, joy, and honest connections are nurtured. Cassi has witnessed the transformational power when families engage in Montessori philosophy as an imputable practice. It is a promise of more meaningful relationships, greater depth of experience, and a broader, more compassionate view of oneself and the world. Cassi has lived, learned, and taught the Montessori pedagogy for the last 30 years as a Montessori 9-12 teacher, a school principal, and a consultant. She consults with (and provides advice to) Montessori communities and families that are intent on providing safe harbors for children. Contact Cassi via email at: cassimackey11@gmail.com.
by Nathan Dungan | Emotionally Healthy Children, Empowerment, Entrepreneurship, Family Resources, MFA, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Parent-Teacher Communication, TC September 2021
from Tomorrow’s Child – The Montessori Family Magazine – September/October 2021
by Nathan Dungan, Share, Save, Spend
Raising a child to be financially independent is a significant accomplishment.
Parents can begin early to help their children build important financial capabilities and in turn, set them on a path to financial independence. Equipping them to make thoughtful financial decisions over time, and coaching them with those decisions (what went well and what could have been better) will prepare them for their financial future and help them:
• Develop healthy money habits. Cultivate a work ethic. Set age-appropriate money goals. Gain resilience to endure financial hardships;
• Gain confidence that comes from making financial decisions;
• Enhance their wellbeing, which may include lower stress and the improved health that follows; and
• Financial independence means learning to make financial decisions on your own.
Here are three important skills to help young people launch successfully into life on their own.
Ages 12–13
Children should gain experience using cash. Show your child how to periodically track all their income and expenses over a timeframe of a few weeks or months. Watch how they manage their money, and start conversations around their choices in sharing, saving, and spending.
64%of Americans aged 18 to 36 DO NOT own a credit card.
Ages 14–16
Younger teens should master a debit card. Help your son or daughter build on skills they demonstrated with cash by transferring funds to a debit card. Give them increased financial responsibility, including helping them map out a budget of needs and wants.
Ages 17–22
Older teens and young adults should learn to use a credit card. If your son or daughter has earned this right through the lessons of earlier stages, layer in learning about how to use a credit card and how to monitor their credit score. Communicate the additional responsibility that goes with this new privilege.
Let your child make mistakes, and talk openly about your own money mishaps (avoid freaking out your child in the process). Your son or daughter will learn the pain of unwise spending, running out of money, or not paying off a credit card bill on time. As you shift more and more responsibility to them, remember that now is the time for them to gain firsthand experience, while the stakes are still low.
MONEY TALKS: What steps will you take in the next 30 days to help your child(ren) become more financially independent?
Nathan Dungan is the founder and president of Share Save Spend®. He speaks and consults with organizations and families on the topic of financial wellbeing. Nathan uses a Wellbeing Framework to help individuals and families build capabilities that are most relevant for them and the goals of their family.
He is the author of three books and numerous resources for organizations and families. Nathan’s newest resource, Money Sanity U®, is a subscription-based virtual learning library for organizations that addresses a variety of money topics in a simple and interactive format—all designed to help improve financial wellbeing. You can learn more at sharesavespend.com.
by The Montessori Foundation Staff | Family Resources, MFA, Montessori Education, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Parent-Teacher Communication, TC September 2021
from Tomorrow’s Child – The Montessori Family Magazine – September/October 2021
by Montessori Foundation Staff
Here are a few ways in which you might be able to help your school.
There are some things that even money can’t buy, and one of the most valuable contributions that families make to a school is the gift of their time and expertise.
Parents, grandparents, and friends of the school are often found helping in the office, assisting in the classrooms, serving as field-trip drivers, offering a special class, planning the next special event, coaching, or serving on parents’ associations or school committees.
Parents play a crucial role in Montessori. Our schools are communities of parents and educators (many of whom will also have children enrolled at the school). Our ideas and input often help to shape the school.
Montessori schools are normally very responsive to suggestions and concerns.
Most Montessori schools encourage families to participate in the broader life of the school through social and educational activities. Although many parents spend considerable amounts of time as volunteers, except for parent-cooperative schools, there is normally no expectation for a set-time commitment.
Parents and grandparents who give of their time and talent share with their children special memories of experiences and friendships that endure well beyond their graduation.
Volunteer a few hours a week to help in the office.
Lend your time and support to our fundraising efforts.
Serve as a class parent.
Help to organize a reunion for former students and their families.
Help out in the library.
Help put together the school newsletter.
Join in at open houses to meet prospective families.
Teach a special course.
Volunteer to be an Ambassador Family to parents new to the school.
Help the teachers organize field trips or special lessons.
Help organize special events.
Help students work in the garden.
Serve on one of the school’s committees. Share your talents and special interests, such as playing a musical instrument, speaking a language, or making a craft. Volunteer your time to help the school prepare major mailings. Volunteer your time to coach a team or after school club.
by Amanda Riccetti | Emotionally Healthy Children, Family Resources, Language, Language & Reading, Lower Elementary (6-9), MFA, Montessori Education, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Primary (3-6), Reading, TC September 2021
from Tomorrow’s Child – The Montessori Family Magazine – September/October 2021
by Amanda Riccetti
The many different philosophies of childhood education foster children’s learning in their own unique ways. The Montessori philosophy nurtures independence, confidence, self-regulation, and learning in children from doing and experiencing, offering and actively involving them in direct learning experiences. In a Montessori environment, students are encouraged to follow their curiosity and learn at their own pace. They are exposed to lessons, activities, and materials that build upon their skill set and help them develop as an individual.
The teacher in a Montessori classroom does not give class lectures but instead spends time with individual students guiding their learning experiences. This allows the children to take the time they need to fully understand a concept and meet individualized learning goals. Although this concept makes for a stimulating learning environment for most children, some may struggle, especially when faced with learning differences and other similar challenges. The Montessori reading curriculum has three essential components: a strong foundation in phonics; comprehension based on visualization; and a whole-language approach of learning to read for meaning using context clues. Montessori reading is based on the first of these components, a strong foundation in phonics so that children can sound out or “decode” words. This approach is unique in that children first learn how words are constructed through phonemes, or letter sounds. Once they are aware that words can be broken down into smaller units of sound, children can then independently learn to decode new words. They can read what they see and enjoy what they read. Why, then, might a child struggle with learning to read in a Montessori classroom?
When I was three years old, my mother enrolled me in a Montessori school. In the 1960s, neither my Montessori teachers nor my parents were aware that I had a learning difference. I was a well-behaved little girl who kept very busy learning from the environment.
My school was very relaxed, with inviting small tables, rows of shelves filled with activities, and warm lunches of soup and crackers. I remember exploring and discovering things entirely on my own. One of the things I loved most were the Metal Insets—flat metal squares with different shapes inside. I enjoyed tracing and coloring the shapes inside with colored pencils. By the time I was ready to move on to the next level, I had full confidence in myself.
When I entered the first grade (lower elementary), I understood a great deal, but when the reading lessons started, I felt confused and alone. I am sure others felt this way, but all I could see were my classmates who understood the lessons and could read out loud with no effort.
During the summer between first and second grade, my mother enrolled in a Montessori teacher education program. The Montessori teacher training center was in Palo Alto, and since we were living in San Francisco, I had to change schools.
My second-grade experience was a more positive one, as I had a lovely teacher who had wonderful and creative ways to teach and never asked any student to read out loud. Instead, we were put in smaller groups of children who were learning at the same level. Observing my reading challenges, she asked my mom to have me tested. After a series of tests at UCSF, it was finally discovered that I had a high IQ as well as dyslexia, a common learning difference. I couldn’t understand sound components the way it was traditionally taught; visually, I wasn’t able to memorize which letters produced which sounds. My mother and I realized that we would have to do extra work outside of school to help me learn how to read.
After sharing what she learned about me with her Montessori trainer, she simply suggested that Mom should teach me in the same way she taught her students in her class. Each night, my mother would give me a reading lesson from materials she brought home from her Montessori classroom. At first it was slow, but we pushed on day by day, lesson by lesson. At the end of second grade, I could read at a first-grade level. Although I still struggled in school, I could at least keep up. When my mom used the Montessori reading curriculum to tutor me, she spent the time to break down the components of language into smaller parts, eventually, I learned how to decode words. This experience not only helped me learn to read, but it also showed me how to teach others. Comprehension can still be difficult for me at times and I tire easily, especially if the topic is not terribly interesting to me.
In a traditional Montessori class, most children simply absorb reading skills as easily as they learn to walk. However, children and adults who have dyslexia struggle with visual memory tasks such as learning letter sounds. Often teachers overlook these children in early childhood programs (3-6 years old). This can happen even in a Montessori classroom because not all Montessori teachers have the experience or knowledge to recognize a child who may later be diagnosed with a learning difference.
These children require a great deal of repetition and time to get a breakthrough just to recall a few letter sounds, but they want to learn, can learn, and need to learn during those early years during the sensitive period for language development, when their minds are most open to learn reading skills. These children cannot afford to wait and see, an approach that often leaves them struggling with learning to read later in their elementary years. My first-hand experience led me down the path to becoming a Montessori teacher, reading tutor, and later creating the Reading with Miss Amanda Book Series.
After 35 plus years of coaching and lending materials to the parents at my school, I began to search for another solution. That is when I set a goal to create my own solution to this problem. Along the way, I recruited some wonderful and talented people who supported my vision. They are Steven Gomez, my illustrator; Kimberly Lopez, an alumnus from my school, who became my proofreader and editor; and two parents from my school, Jessica Lam and Maya Bourdeau, who gave me their professional support and parent perspectives. After five years of hard work, the Reading with Miss Amanda Book Series was completed.
The series adapts the Montessori reading curriculum into a simple-to-use book format that provides children with the ability to practice sounds and make words. Then they will begin to decode words and gain the confidence to read at their own pace. This approach makes it a fun and accessible tool for parents and teachers to use when working with young children on their reading skills. Children receive intuitive step-by-step lessons simply by following the dialogue of the teacher in the books. Each of the five levels in this color-coded series offers books for all levels of readers, including pre-readers (3 years and up); beginning readers (4 years and up); and advanced readers (5 years and up). Each level offers a set of lessons that shows young children the skills required to reach the next level.
These books teach reading phonetically over the course of 32 books, each of which is about 75 pages. The curriculum mirrors the lessons a Montessori teacher would present to a student in their class. The classroom materials have been masterfully adapted into engaging and intuitive lessons with simple dialogue for the adult to follow as they assist their child. Through the child’s imagination, they are transported into a Montessori classroom with their very own Montessori teacher to guide them. The books also offer tips for the adults and are designed to be read over and over until the child masters the lesson. When the child successfully completes a book, they will encounter a page that offers its congratulations and shows children their progress
Level one focuses on using basic letter sounds through the use of Sandpaper Letters. The lessons in this level are broken down into three parts in order to teach children the phonetic sound associated with each printed letter. Each book within this level focuses on three letters, two consonants and one vowel. Over the course of the five books in the ‘Yellow Level,’ a total of fifteen letter sounds are taught and learned.
Level two moves on from practicing single-letter sounds to bridging the sounds together to form three-letter words using the Moveable Alphabet. Each of the five books in this level isolates the task of understanding the sound of one vowel in a word, in the order of a, e, i, o, u.
Level three focuses on sounding out three-letter words and reading them individually as well as other words. Each book offers lessons in the following sequence: matching words to pictures; flashcards; three-letter word lists; short sentences; and a short story.
Level four focuses on four- and five-letter short-vowel words as well as simple sight words and blends. This level offers the same curriculum as the previous level in order to adapt children to reading and identifying larger words.
Level five is the longest of the series, with twelve books instead of five books in each of the previous levels. This level focuses on phonograms, long-vowel words, silent vowels, and more. The children are introduced to a more advanced vocabulary, additional English language rules, and the knowledge of how to decipher words. Each of the twelve books offers flashcards, a list of words, short sentences and a short story.
Early intervention is the key during the sensitive period of learning to read. Children are traditionally taught to read between first and third grade, but with the use of this series, children form a solid foundation for reading at an early age. Children may not show immediate progress, but that is completely normal. They often forget how to do something new, and it may take a child anywhere from one week to as long as a month to master a new book. Follow the child, and if you feel that your child is not engaging with the book, stop for a little while and reintroduce it at another time. Remember, children who are not learning with ease will require a great deal of support and patience. These children want to learn to read but may tire more easily and need baby steps. Once these children feel safe and start to feel success, they will pick up the lessons more rapidly. Keep it fun, always encouraging your child’s effort and progress. The lessons are designed to offer information, so always give your child the answer when they can’t retrieve it themselves.
Be patient and remember: “practice makes permanent.” Children love repetition, and it drives learning the more the child practices. For example, the popular book Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown might seem so repetitious to an adult, but children love the repetition of phrases. So, if you use these books and think, “that’s repetitive,” remember—it has been designed that way. Only move to the next book when your child can recall the information easily.
Amanda Riccetti is the Director and Owner of Big City Montessori School in San Francisco. She has been a teacher, reading tutor, and mentor for over 40 years. Founded by her mother, the school gave Amanda the opportunity to observe from an early age the benefits of a strong and connected educational journey. As a child, she struggled with the traditional learning process and later discovered it was because she had a learning difference, dyslexia. Amanda learned to identify a pattern among children who struggled to visually recognize lower case letters and who did not understand the relationship between the letter and the sound that the letter made. This led her to develop the Montessori-based reading series described in this article. Contact Amanda at: amanda.riccetti@gmail.com Visit Amanda’s website to learn more. www.readingwithmissamanda.com
by Amanda Riccetti
The many different philosophies of childhood education foster children’s learning in their own unique ways. The Montessori philosophy nurtures independence, confidence, selfregulation, and learning in children from doing and experiencing, offering and actively involving them in direct learning experiences. In a Montessori environment, students are encouraged to follow their curiosity and learn at their own pace. They are exposed to lessons, activities, and materials that build upon their skill set and help them develop as an individual.
The teacher in a Montessori classroom does not give class lectures but instead spends time with individual students guiding their learning experiences. This allows the children to take the time they need to fully understand a concept and meet individualized learning goals. Although this concept makes for a stimulating learning environment for most children, some may struggle, especially when faced with learning differences and other similar challenges. The Montessori reading curriculum has three essential components: a strong foundation in phonics; comprehension based on visualization; and a whole-language approach of learning to read for meaning using context clues. Montessori reading is based on the first of these components, a strong foundation in phonics so that children can sound out or “decode” words. This approach is unique in that children first learn how words are constructed through phonemes, or letter sounds. Once they are aware that words can be broken down into smaller units of sound, children can then independently learn to decode new words. They can read what they see and enjoy what they read. Why, then, might a child struggle with learning to read in a Montessori classroom?
When I was three years old, my mother enrolled me in a Montessori school. In the 1960s, neither my Montessori teachers nor my parents were aware that I had a learning difference. I was a well-behaved little girl who kept very busy learning from the environment.
My school was very relaxed, with inviting small tables, rows of shelves filled with activities, and warm lunches of soup and crackers. I remember exploring and discovering things entirely on my own. One of the things I loved most were the Metal Insets—flat metal squares with different shapes inside. I enjoyed tracing and coloring the shapes inside with colored pencils. By the time I was ready to move on to the next level, I had full confidence in myself.
When I entered the first grade (lower elementary), I understood a great deal, but when the reading lessons started, I felt confused and alone. I am sure others felt this way, but all I could see were my classmates who understood the lessons and could read out loud with no effort.
During the summer between first and second grade, my mother enrolled in a Montessori teacher education program. The Montessori teacher training center was in Palo Alto, and since we were living in San Francisco, I had to change schools.
My second-grade experience was a more positive one, as I had a lovely teacher who had wonderful and creative ways to teach and never asked any student to read out loud. Instead, we were put in smaller groups of children who were learning at the same level. Observing my reading challenges, she asked my mom to have me tested. After a series of tests at UCSF, it was finally discovered that I had a high IQ as well as dyslexia, a common learning difference. I couldn’t understand sound components the way it was traditionally taught; visually, I wasn’t able to memorize which letters produced which sounds. My mother and I realized that we would have to do extra work outside of school to help me learn how to read.
After sharing what she learned about me with her Montessori trainer, she simply suggested that Mom should teach me in the same way she taught her students in her class. Each night, my mother would give me a reading lesson from materials she brought home from her Montessori classroom. At first it was slow, but we pushed on day by day, lesson by lesson. At the end of second grade, I could read at a first-grade level. Although I still struggled in school, I could at least keep up. When my mom used the Montessori reading curriculum to tutor me, she spent the time to break down the components of language into smaller parts, eventually I learned how to decode words. This experience not only helped me learn to read, but it also showed me how to teach others. Comprehension can still be difficult for me at times and I tire easily, especially if the topic is not terribly interesting to me.
In a traditional Montessori class, most children simply absorb reading skills as easily as they learn to walk. However, children and adults who have dyslexia struggle with visual memory tasks such as learning letter sounds. Often teachers overlook these children in early childhood programs (3-6 years old). This can happen even in a Montessori classroom because not all Montessori teachers have the experience or knowledge to recognize a child who may later be diagnosed with a learning difference.
These children require a great deal of repetition and time to get a breakthrough just to recall a few letter sounds, but they want to learn, can learn, and need to learn during those early years during the sensitive period for language development, when their minds are most open to learn reading skills. These children cannot afford to wait and see, an approach that often leaves them struggling with learning to read later in their elementary years. My first-hand experience led me down the path to becoming a Montessori teacher, reading tutor, and later creating the Reading with Miss Amanda Book Series.
After 35 plus years of coaching and lending materials to the parents at my school, I began to search for another solution. That is when I set a goal to create my own solution to this problem. Along the way, I recruited some wonderful and talented people who supported my vision. They are Steven Gomez, my illustrator; Kimberly Lopez, an alumnus from my school, who became my proofreader and editor; and two parents from my school, Jessica Lam and Maya Bourdeau, who gave me their professional support and parent perspectives. After five years of hard work, the Reading with Miss Amanda Book Series was completed.
The series adapts the Montessori reading curriculum into a simpleto-use book format that provides children with the ability to practice sounds and make words. Then they will begin to decode words and gain the confidence to read at their own pace. This approach makes it a fun and accessible tool for parents and teachers to use when working with young children on their reading skills. Children receive intuitive step-by-step lessons simply by following the dialogue of the teacher in the books. Each of the five levels in this color-coded series offers books for all levels of readers, including: pre-readers (3 years and up); beginning readers (4 years and up); and advanced readers (5 years and up). Each level offers a set of lessons that shows young children the skills required to reach the next level.
These books teach reading phonetically over the course of 32 books, each of which is about 75 pages. The curriculum mirrors the lessons a Montessori teacher would present to a student in their class. The classroom materials have been masterfully adapted into engaging and intuitive lessons with simple dialogue for the adult to follow as they assist their child. Through the child’s imagination, they are transported into a Montessori classroom with their very own Montessori teacher to guide them. The books also offer tips for the adults and are designed to be read over and over until the child masters the lesson. When the child successfully completes a book, they will encounter a page that offers its congratulations and shows children their progress
Level one focuses on using basic letter sounds through the use of Sandpaper Letters. The lessons in this level are broken down into three parts in order to teach children the phonetic sound associated with each printed letter. Each book within this level focuses on three letters, two consonants and one vowel. Over the course of the five books in the ‘Yellow Level,’ a total of fifteen letter sounds are taught and learned.
Level two moves on from practicing singleletter sounds to bridging the sounds together to form three-letter words using the Moveable Alphabet. Each of the five books in this level isolates the task of understanding the sound of one vowel in a word, in the order of a, e, i, o, u.
Level three focuses on sounding out three-letter words and reading them individually as well as other words. Each book offers lessons in the following sequence: matching words to pictures; flashcards; three-letter word lists; short sentences; and a short story.
Level four focuses on four- and five-letter short-vowel words as well as simple sight words and blends. This level offers the same curriculum as the previous level in order to adapt children to reading and identifying larger words.
Level five is the longest of the series, with twelve books instead of five books in each of the previous levels. This level focuses on phonograms, long-vowel words, silent vowels, and more. The children are introduced to a more advanced vocabulary, additional English language rules, and the knowledge of how to decipher words. Each of the twelve books offers flashcards, a list of words, short sentences and a short story.
Early intervention is the key during the sensitive period of learning to read. Children are traditionally taught to read between first and third grade, but with the use of this series, children form a solid foundation for reading at an early age. Children may not show immediate progress, but that is completely normal. They often forget how to do something new, and it may take a child anywhere from one week to as long as a month to master a new book. Follow the child, and if you feel that your child is not engaging with the book, stop for a little while and reintroduce it at another time. Remember, children who are not learning with ease will require a great deal of support and patience. These children want to learn to read but may tire more easily and need baby steps. Once these children feel safe and start to feel success, they will pick up the lessons more rapidly. Keep it fun, always encouraging your child’s effort and progress. The lessons are designed to offer information, so always give your child the answer when they can’t retrieve it themselves.
Be patient and remember: “practice makes permanent.” Children love repetition, and it drives learning the more the child practices. For example, the popular book Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown might seem so repetitious to an adult, but children love the repetition of phrases. So, if you use these books and think, “that’s repetitive,” remember—it has been designed that way. Only move to the next book when your child can recall the information easily.
Amanda Riccetti is the Director and Owner of Big City Montessori School in San Francisco. She has been a teacher, reading tutor, and mentor for over 40 years. Founded by her mother, the school gave Amanda the opportunity to observe from an early age the benefi ts of a strong and connected educational journey. As a child, she struggled with the traditional learning process, and later discovered it was because she had a learning diff erence, dyslexia. Amanda learned to identify a pattern among children who struggled to visually recognize lower case letters and who did not understand the relationship between the letter and the sound that the letter made. This led her to develop the Montessori-based reading series described in this article. Contact Amanda at: amanda.riccetti@gmail.com Visit Amanda’s website to learn more. www.readingwithmissamanda.com
by Ann Epstein Ph.D | Family Resources, MFA, Montessori Education, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Teachers, Parent Education, Science
This handout was shared by Dr. Ann Epstein at the 2013 IMC conference.
See also her Power Point of the same title.
Download File
Baking Soda and Vinegar
Materials: mixing bowl, large metal or plastic spoon for mixing, 1 cup measuring cup, I Tablespoon measuring spoon, box of baking soda, white vinegar (optional: food coloring)
Process
o Measure 1 cup of baking soda into mixing bowl
o Measure 1 T baking soda
o Mix slowly and carefully, add vinegar by tablespoons until reaction occurs
o Encourage children to discuss how the bubbles are formed (gas is released when baking soda and vinegar are mixed)
Inquiry-based skills: observation, prediction
Dawn Dish Detergent and Whole Milk
Materials: small dish for mixing, q-tips, food coloring, small container with approximately half a cup of Dawn dish detergent, small pitcher of whole milk
Process
o Pour about ¼ cup of whole milk into small dish
o Add several drops of food coloring into dish (can be different colors)
o Dip q-tip into Dawn
o Gently lower q-tip to surface of milk and food coloring
o Encourage children to guess why swirls occur (detergent ”attacks” fat /grease in milk)
o Note: Can also use as an art activity to mix colors and create impressionistic swirls similar to Van Gogh’s (Starry Night)
Inquiry-based skills: observation, prediction
Black Pepper and Bar Soap
Materials: flat pan or plate with raised edges (glass pie plate works well), bar of soap (?hard? soap such as Dial works better than softer soap such as Ivory), pepper in shaker or original container, water
Process
o Pour about 2 cups of water into pan or plate
o Sprinkle pepper across entire surface
o Gently touch edge of bar of soap to surface
o Encourage children to guess why pepper quickly disperses (surface tension of water has been broken by soap)
o Repeating encourage children to guess why pepper does not move again (surface tension has already been broken, so won’t ?hold? pepper in place)
Inquiry-based skills: observation, prediction, comparing/contrasting with second attempt
Oobleck: Corn Starch and Water
Materials: large mixing bowl (glass works well so children can easily see through), large box of corn starch, pitcher of water, newspaper to cover table surface (or tray large enough for bowl), wooden mixing spoon
Process
o Pour about 1½ cups of corn starch into the bowl.
o Slowly pour water in, stirring as you pour.
o You may need to tweak these amounts. Your goal is a honey-like consistency.
o Gather a small amount into the palm of your hand. It should form a very soft ball.
o Clench your fist. As you do this, the mixture will turn to liquid and drip through your fingers
o Encourage children to discuss the transitions from liquid to solid and back to liquid. Why does this occur? Surface tension is again at work to hold particles in place. Pressure disturbs the surface tension, turning the solid form into liquid.
Inquiry-based skills: observation, prediction
Check out an amazing video at the end of this Oobleck description. Participants walk and run across, and then ink into a pool of Oobleck! http://sciencecafe.org/content/2008/12/22/how-to-make-oobleck/ (Participants are great fun to watch but we need our Spanish speakers to translate for us!)
Additional Kindergarten-age Science Activities
Simple circuits: large battery, wire, alligator clips, small light bulb with holder.
Sink and float
Magnetic and non-magnetic
Color mixing with shaving cream
Sprouting seeds: lima bean work well because they are large and will sprout in individual sandwich baggies with a ½ sheet of paper towel and a little water
How plants drink: stand celery stalk (with fresh cut at bottom) in colored water (red works well) for 2 ? 3 days, watch water creep up celery veins
Wind experiments
Bubble experiments
by Ann Epstein Ph.D | Communication, MFA, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Teachers, Parent-Teacher Communication, Parenting on the Same Page, Research
This is an ongoing research project. Participants participated in a survey as part of the experience as well and Ann will share her findings once compiled and analyzed! While teachers are able to predict family priorities and stressors to some degree, they also have some mistaken assumptions. For example, teachers think that family issues (such as sibling rivalry, marital difficulties, single parenting) are highly stressful but families do not. (My guess is this is just their day to day life). Families say dealing with children’s behaviors is highly stressful but teachers did not list this as stressful for families.
This is a PDF version of Dr. Epstein’s PowerPoint used in her presentation at the November 2012 IMC Conference.
Download File
by Matthew Rich | Communication, Discipline, Family Resources, MFA, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Grandparenting, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Teachers, Parent Education
An article on Discipline without Violence
There are many instances in Dr. Montessori’s work where she explains why she “eventually…gave up either punishing or rewarding the children”.(1) She explains that this method is “always a form of repression”(2), and is based upon our – in her opinion tragically erroneous – belief that children “come into the world bad and full of naughtiness.”(3) She found, after careful observation, that both punishment and reward were equally ineffective tools for supporting the type of development that she felt was important (i.e. the normalization of the individual and the valorization of mankind). In fact she observed that children were disinterested in both of these methods and often could not even tell the difference between them (4). For many of us our experiences of being punished, and – in some instances – administering punishment, have proven this to be an accurate assessment. And the overwhelming and ever growing body of scientific evidence (for instance that collected by Alfie Kohn in his comprehensive work, Punished by Rewards) has served to put a final nail in the coffin of “pop-behaviorism”.
So how is it possible that many parents – sometimes even parents who appear to be making so-called holistic or alternative parenting choices – still choose to use punishment and reward strategies? And, even more alarmingly, choose instead of some of the sophisticated control mechanisms at their disposal the blunt, archaic approach of physical punishment (i.e. pain-based negative reinforcement)?
My contention is that the core issue here is to do with an understanding of the role and function of the human will. Women and men can be easily dominated when their will is destroyed. History has born witness that although we may imprison, torture, or manipulate the minds and bodies of people they will remain free, for as long as their will is their own. Conversely when people hand over their wills their bodies and minds become the captives of foolish desires and suggestions. Knowing this, many powerful organizations or ideologies have sought to break or ensnare the wills of individuals. As Simone de Beauvoir would have it, oppression is most effectively enforced by “changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them”(5).
The construction of man as evil and in need of control is a pervasive one; if we want someone to behave in a particular way there can be few more effective methods than labeling the obedient as good and the disobedient as evil. When we succeed in doing this we are able to more easily create self-justifications for our acts of violence, and – ideally – as the will is progressively obliterated the acts of punishment will become less frequently necessary. This notion is put forward by the psychologist and popular parenting guru Dr. James Dobson in his book, The Strong-Willed Child. He writes,
“…take charge of your baby now, hold tightly to the reins of authority, and quickly begin building into her an attitude of respect and obedience. You will need every ounce of awe you can muster in coming years. Once you have established your right to lead, begin to let go of the reins systematically, year by year.”(6)
This is a trend in modern discipline, surveillance, and punishment which the Parisian social historian, Michel Foucault, documented in his work, particularly Discipline and Punish. He explains how the emergence of the panopticon prison (and the work of Jeremy Bentham) in the late 19th century lead to a gradual loosening of restrictions as prisoners became the “principles of their own subjection” and increasingly “docile bodies” who “internalized the gaze” of their captors, whilst unwittingly submitting themselves to a variety of techniques of testing, scrutiny, and control.(7)
So what was Dr. Montessori’s perspective on the child’s will? Dr. Montessori points out that there is no lack of obedience in the world today, people all over the place are blindly accepting and following those authorities whose threats are most apparent. Terrorism and despotism in all of its guises from apartheid, to the “war on terror”, to the Third Reich are fueled not by strong wills, but by weak and broken ones who follow blindly even to their own demise. Dr. Montessori writes,
“This kind of obedience (breaking the will) is the real reason why vast masses of human beings can be hurled so easily to destruction. It is an uncontrolled form of obedience which brings whole nations to ruin. There is no lack of obedience in our world: quite the contrary! What, unhappily, is absent, is the control of obedience.”(8)
Dr. Montessori believed that a different type of obedience was necessary for the development of mankind. Her biographer and protégé E.M. Standing clearly identifies obedience as an act of will (i.e. acceptance of adult guidance) as well as the ability to act from a place of true choice (as opposed to idle curiosity) as chief characteristics of normalization.(9)
So, in a nutshell, Montessori holds that in order for a person to choose to be obedient it makes sense for her will to be allowed to develop to its full potential rather than being systematically suppressed. She writes,
“Conscious will is a power which develops with use and activity. We must aim at cultivating the will, not at breaking it. The will can be broken in a moments. Its development is a slow process that evolves through a continuous activity in relationship with the environment.”(10)
A few pages later she continues with the following convincing and amusing argument:
“The basic error is to suppose that a person’s will must necessarily be broken before it can obey, meaning before it can accept and follow another person’s directions. Were this reasoning to be applied to intellectual education, we should have to destroy a person’s mind before we could give him any knowledge”.(11)
Dr. Montessori was able to see, quite clearly, that treated the human will as a kind of pathology formed an integral part of the schooling system. She noted that,
“… the ordinary school not only denies the child every opportunity for using his will, but it directly obstructs and inhibits its expression. Every protest on the child’s part is treated as rebellion, and one may truly say that the educator does everything possible to destroy the child’s will.”(12)
When one is able to take on this perspective it becomes clear that the active subject in most classroom power struggles is not a child who wishes not to obey, but an adult hell-bent on the notion that she should. In her – often under utilized – book, The Child in the Family, Dr. Montessori states the following,
“Now we can see that the so-called problems of education, especially those relative to individuality, character and intellectual development, have as their origin the permanent conflict between the child and the adult. The obstacles that the adult places in the way of the child are numerous and grave, and the degree of their danger is dependent upon the consistency with which the adult resorts to them – armed against the child, as it were, with moral law, science and the will to direct him according to his own convictions. It is therefore the adult closest to the child, the mother or the teacher, who presents the greatest danger to the formation of the child’s personality. … The question takes on, therefore, universal proportions of a cyclical nature in that the problem passes from adult to child and from child to adult”.(13)
The cyclical nature of systems of intimate violence are particularly important because of the ways which the simple act of spanking or slapping not only perpetuates itself, but can in fact mushroom out of all proportion. This is explored more in the work of – among others – Riane Eisler(14) and Alice Miller(15). The time is now right for adults to take responsibility for their own wills, attitudes, and actions rather than capitalizing upon our human propensity to shift blame on to the most vulnerable in our communities. I think Dr. Montessori puts it beautifully when she writes,
“When I see how the numbers of naughty and difficult children are increasing today, I see it is not a question of the morality of the children, of something wrong inside individual children. It is a question of a lack in the parents more than in the children and attention should be directed to them rather than to the little children. If we are to make better conditions for the children we must consider the parents…. First change these grown-up people who are so anxious to give little children a moral education. Grown-ups must adapt themselves to the needs of the times. The central point for little children is their need to go in a certain direction towards the adult. Adults are ignorant and see the children in only one aspect. They see only the naughtiness of the children. So the conclusion is that if we are to have a better humanity the grown-ups must be better. They must be less proud, think less of themselves, be less dictatorial. The adults must look at themselves and say “Yes, I understand this problem.””(16)
And elsewhere,
“The first step in the integral resolution of the problem of education must not, therefore, be taken toward the child, but toward the adult educator: he must clarify his understanding and divest himself of many preconceptions; finally, he must change his moral attitudes”.(17)
Particularly in Western society, and especially since the onset of the Christian era, we have developed an addiction to dualism. This causes us to perceive many false dilemmas and the area of parenting and education is no different. We are told by supposed authorities that we must either punish our children or adopt an entirely permissive and laissez faire approach to child-rearing. I don’t perceive that either of these are viable options, and neither did Montessori. She was emphatically clear that “…the liberty of the children should have as its limit the collective interest”. However, she clearly outlined a method of partnering with children in developing their own path to full choice with regards to their behavior, rather than by punishing them and robbing them of choice. For instance, she proposes that,
“It is true that we have said and repeated often enough, that when a child is absorbed in his work, one must refrain from interfering, so as not to interrupt his cycle of activity or prevent its free expansion; nevertheless, the right technique now (for misbehavior) is exactly the opposite; it is to break the flow of disturbing activity. The interruption may take the form of any kind of exclamation, or in showing a special and affectionate interest in the troublesome child. These distracting demonstrations of affection, which grow more numerous with the disturbing activities of the child, act on him like a series of electric shocks and they have their affect in time. Often a question will serve, such as, “How are you Johnny? Come with me, I have something for you to do.” Probably, he won’t want to be shown and the teacher will say “All right. It doesn’t matter. Lets go into the garden” and either she will go with him or send her assistant. In this way… the other children will cease to be disturbed by him”.(18)
I think that the argument in favour of nonviolent approaches to dealing with children is both cogent and convincing. What remains is for us to turn. It starts with us each taking a stand and then sharing our practice and beliefs with those parents and educators who surround us. Our method supplies us with many tools. Each voice is important if we are to help families, communities, churches, schools, and nations to turn. Every moment that we walk with a child who is growing in their own will and power is spent manifesting peace on earth. What could we ever do that might be more noble?
Published in Montessori Leadership, June 2009.
1. Maria Montessori. (1966) The Secret of Childhood. New York, New York: Ballantine Books. 123.
2. Maria Montessori. (1912) The Montessori Method. New York, New York. Stokes Books. 25.
3. Maria Montessori. (1995). The Child, Society and the World. Oxford, England: CLIO Press. 77. See also Education for Human Development. 26.
4. Maria Montessori, 1966. Op cit. 122-123.
5. Quoted by Paulo Freire (2000) Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition. New York, New York: Continuum Books. 74
6. James Dobson, The Strong-Willed Child, http://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/effective_biblical_discipline/the_strongwilled_child.aspx
7. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, particularly from 195 onward.
8. Maria Montessori. (1988) The Absorbent Mind. Oxford, England: CLIO Press. 234.
9. Edwin Mortimer Standing, Maria Montessori: her life and work, 175 onward.
10. Maria Montessori, 1988. Op cit. p. 231.
11. Maria Montessori, 1988. Op cit. p. 234.
12. Maria Montessori, 1988. Op cit. p. 232.
13. Maria Montessori (1999) The Child in the Family. Oxford, England: CLIO Press. 70.
14. Riane Eisler (1995) The Chalice and the Blade. or Tomorrow’s Children
15. Alice Miller. (2002) For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence – 4th edition. New York, New York: Farrar – Straus – Giroux.
16. Maria Montessori, 1995. Op cit. 75.
17. Maria Montessori, 1999. Op cit. 68.
18. Maria Montessori, 1988. Op cit. 279.
by The Montessori Foundation Staff | Family Resources, Free Reads, MFA, Montessori Education, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Parent Education
When Varnadore “Willie” Williamson first came to JABA’s Adult Day Healthcare Center he was still independent. Later, however, his Alzheimer’s had progressed to the point where he could no longer go to the bathroom by himself. He couldn’t unbuckle his belt.
Ellen Phipps, director of the healthcare center, went next door to the Montessori School and borrowed a buckle frame that three and four-year-olds use to learn to manage buckles.
She gave it to Willie. “He became totally absorbed,” she recalled. “Soon he had relearned a skill that had escaped him.”
That is just one way the Montessori method of teaching skills to preschoolers is finding a use in rehabilitation of Alzheimer’s patients.
In the early 1900s, Maria Montessori developed her method of teaching cognitive, social and functional skills to children. Using materials from everyday life, Montessori taught simple skills, making the tasks more complex as the child advanced.
On this level, Montessori’s method is used for the young who are just learning about their environment. On the other end of the spectrum are adults who are losing their knowledge of the environment. And as Phipps and others who work for the elderly have discovered, the Montessori method works here, too.
As adults advance in their dementia, this loss is a source of frustration and anger. The use of the Montessori tools can resharpen abilities that have been dulled by the disease.
“I used to have a dream that I could use the method to help the clients with the Montessori method,” Phipps said. Before working with adults, she had learned the Montessori method and had been an aide in a Montessori school, so she was well-versed in its concepts. “But could it work?”
From Cleveland, Ohio, came the answer and it was a resounding yes. Psychologist Cameron Camp is a research scientist with the Myers Research Institute of the Menorah Park Center for the Aging in Beachwood, a suburb of Cleveland. For three years he has been testing the method on clients at its adult day care center and he has discovered some amazing things.
* Patients with dementia can prolong the period in which they retain skills.
* Not only do they prolong their retention, they can teach skills to children.
* Agitation, aimless wandering and loss of attention, so prevalent in Alzheimer’s patients, decrease not only during the Montessori lesson period, but for an extended period of time.
No one professes that Montessori will prevent or stop the progression of Alzheimer’s. But Camp and Phipps both believe it delays it – and does something even more important.
It changes the way patients feel about themselves.
Self-worth! Self-esteem! Dignity! These are the words Camp used over and over again and Phipps echoed.
“We look for activities that can enhance their independence,” Camp explained. “If the activity doesn’t do that we change the activity.”
For instance, one activity used at Menorah Park has the client using a scoop to pick up white, yellow and red golf balls and place them in a muffin tin cups painted white, yellow and red.
“If the client can’t put the golf ball in its corresponding colored cup, then we change to balls and cups that are only one color,” Camp explained. “If they can’t use a scoop, they can use their hands.”
For those who have mastered scooping golf balls, they progress to scooping lima beans, then corn, then water – and pretty soon they can feed themselves soup.
Another activity involves a series of photographs. “Is that person happy or unhappy?” the patient would be asked, and the picture would be put into the “happy” or “unhappy” pile.
Music is especially useful, he said, and Phipps agreed that the musical events held at her day care center are very popular. Sing the first bar of music, she said, and the senior will respond with the second line.
The ability to read lasts for a long time, even in severe dementia cases, Camp said, “but the letters have to be a clear font, very large and very thick. If they are done the right way, people who didn’t recognize their own nametags can now read them.”
Word games are often used, such as word bingo or beginning a phrase and having the senior finish it.
“We had a woman who was reluctant to do anything,” Camp said. “We showed cards and she said she couldn’t read anymore. I held up the card ‘Chicago.’ She looked at it and said, ‘I’m from a small town.'”
Besides independence, the activities also enhance the patients’ awareness. Some Alzheimer’s patients doze all day long, remaining awake and aware only a few minutes at a time.
“After two months, one of our clients was awake 30 to 45 minutes at a time – even when we were not doing Montessori activities,” Camp said. “Another patient who had stopped talking, began again after two months of participation in Montessori activities.”
Perhaps the most remarkable feat is when people who were totally disengaged become involved in intergenerational activities. The children at the Montessori School which is located in the JABA building are frequent visitors to the Adult Day Healthcare Center, where they join in dancing and often perform for the seniors.
At Menorah Park, the children from the employees’ day care center, which is not Montessori-oriented, learn from the seniors. In one activity, a senior was paired with a child to whom the senior taught phonics using a block with a letter cut out of sandpaper.
The senior rubs the letter with her finger until she knows what it is, Camp explained. Then she is shown objects that have the letter; for instance for W she might be given a wagon or water. Once she is comfortable with the letter, she teaches it to the child.
“We had rehearsed a woman to be videoed for a scientific presentation,” Camp recounted. “The plan called for her to hand the child the block and have him trace the “T” all the while pronouncing it until he got it. Then she’d give him a toy. ‘Toy,’ she said. Then she took a teabag. ‘Teabag,’ she said, giving it to him.
“Then she asked, ‘What is the word on the teabag?’ We wondered what she was doing; she was going off script. ‘See,’ she said. ‘It says Lip-ton.'”
The Montessori method is working so well that Camp hopes to teach volunteers and family members to use it at home. He has developed a manual that offers guidelines for using the principles and directions for specific activities that Phipps is using to train her aides. It is Phipps’ hope to bring Camp to JABA for a training program.
Phipps has been borrowing Montessori equipment from the school, but she would like to have her own.
“If there is a handyman out there who loves creating, we would love to talk to him about making the Montessori toys. It could be very meaningful to someone’s life.”
Providing a purpose to a life is the point of the program. No one expects Maria Montessori’s methods for teaching children to reverse the progress of a degenerating disease.
“The purpose is to make their lives meaningful. To give them dignity. To foster their self-esteem,” she said. “What better way is there to do that than to make them feel useful and help them regain some independence.”
This article was republished with the author’s permission in Tomorrow’s Child magazine.
by Paul Epstein, PhD | Brain Development, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Emotionally Healthy Children, Family Resources, MFA, Montessori Education, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Leadership Magazine Online Issue, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Teachers, The International Montessori Council
This article appeared in Montessori Leadership in 2010
Test taking and test scores have become the singularity of education. Teacher performance and, in turn, school house performance, is validated primarily through children’s test scores. The rationale is that teachers are teaching, performing if, and only if children
achieve high test scores. The justification is, finally, if children achieve high test scores, Americans will retain our position as the economic superpower.
Perhaps prayer does help. Nevertheless, I propose to test this logic? To test the test.
Download File
by Alfie Kohn | MFA, Montessori Education, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Teachers, Parent Education
This article was written by Alfie Kohn and included here with the author’s permission.
Download File
You can tell a lot about a teacher’s values and personality just by asking how he or she feels about giving grades. Some defend the practice, claiming that grades are necessary to ”motivate” students. Many of these teachers actually seem to enjoy keeping intricate records of students’ marks. Such teachers periodically warn students that they’re going to have to know this for the test as a way of compelling them to pay attention or do the assigned readings and they may even use surprise quizzes for that purpose, keeping their grade books at the ready.
Frankly, we ought to be worried for these teachers’ students. In my experience, the most impressive teachers are those who despise the whole process of giving grades. Their aversion, as it turns out, is supported by solid evidence that raises questions about the very idea of traditional grading.
by Sharon Caldwell | Child's Work, Family Resources, MFA, Montessori Education, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Teachers, Parent Education, Parenting on the Same Page
It makes no sense to me that a pedagogical approach based on spontaneous activity and free choice in the classroom would presume to dictate what a child should be doing at home. The idea of assigning homework is appropriated from the conventional schooling paradigm – sometimes because Montessori teachers have insufficient faith in the child or the Montessori approach, but more often to appease parents who are seduced by the notion that if children aren’t assigned some sort of “work” they will not do anything useful with their time.
The greatest help you can give your children is freedom to go about their own work in their own way, for in this matter your child knows better than you.
Maria Montessori, The Child, Society and the World, p. 5
Montessori-referenced arguments aside for the moment – there is plenty of opposition to homework even from conventional educators, who generally have fewer qualms about telling children what they should be learning and when. Despite many teachers’ claims to the contrary, there is no reliable evidence that increasing homework has any correlation to academic achievement. There is no reliable evidence that it has any non-academic benefits – such as promoting good work habits, either. Homework causes stress for the child and the family, often harming the parent/child relationship. Homework cuts into family time, and where homework is intended to be done with a parent, imposes choices made by the school over those made by the family. Homework is often dictated by the needs of the pre-planned syllabus and is not related in any way to the changing needs of a family or individual children.[1]
If a school, which has control of a child for the better part of the day still needs to assign work to be done at home, I would question what is happening in school. When most home-schooling families can cover the conventional school curriculum in between one and three hours a day why do schools need a child for five to six hours and then add on hours of homework in addition? There are many books and articles that state the case against homework in a regular schooling context far more comprehensively than is possible in this short article, so I will move on to an examination of the role of homework in the Montessori school.
There are many reasons why I would argue that “homework” (in the traditional sense, as teacher assigned activity) has no place in an authentic Montessori program. Firstly the Montessori approach is based on the understanding that children want to learn and have the ability to choose what they want to learn. Sometimes their learning looks more like play than work, but it is no less important to their development. Careful observation of the child’s attitude and level of engagement will reveal whether his spontaneous activity is developmentally appropriate and productive, as this type of activity results in concentration and a calm and satisfied demeanor following the activity.
… the child must learn by his own individual activity, being given a mental freedom to take what he needs, and not to be questioned in his choice. Our teaching must only answer the mental needs of the child, never dictate them. Just as a small child cannot be still because he is in need of co-ordinating his movements, so the older child, who may seem troublesome in his curiosity over the what, why and wherefore of everything he sees, is building up his mind by this mental activity, and must be given a wide field of culture on which to feed. The task of teaching becomes easy, since we do not need to choose what we shall teach, but should place all before him for the satisfaction of his mental appetite. He must have absolute freedom of choice, and then he requires nothing but repeated experiences which will become increasingly marked by interest and serious attention, during his acquisition of some desired knowledge.
Maria Montessori, To Educate the Human Potential, p.5.
So, from a Montessori perspective, the issue of homework comes down to an issue of the Liberty of the Child, (and faith):
These teachers have studied the method to the letter, but they do not have the necessary faith and therefore have not respected the liberty of the child. … they sought to interfere and to guide and by doing so they have interrupted the natural development and destroyed where they would edify.
Maria Montessori, The Child in the Family, p. 36.
In case it is argued that this applies only to the 3 – 6 group:
… we can no longer distinguish between preschool and school. In fact we do not have a program for instructing a child, but rather it is the child, who, living in the midst of, and developing himself with the help of, physical and intellectual labors, achieves different levels of culture which, generally speaking corresponds to his advance in age.
Maria Montessori, Discovery of the Child, p. 322.
If, as Montessori educators, we are expected to have faith that in a properly prepared environment which offers a wholesome field of study, which opens the child up to an exploration of the universe (in the broadest sense of that word), then surely we cannot presume to control what the child will do outside of the Montessori classroom. As a parent exploring Montessori schools, I would conclude that a Montessori school which was assigning homework would be even more controlling and limiting of a child’s choices in the school. This indicates a fundamental distrust in the ability of the prepared environment to provide the necessary inspiration for the child to take control of his or her own learning.
If a child is not productive much of the time, then the problem has a deeper cause. To be true to the ethos of Montessori, we need to find out what it is in the child’s school or home environment is preventing a child from seeking meaningful work.
Most children today are so overburdened with all the extra classes and activities their parents make them take, we would probably be doing them a service by assigning them some time to simply play. There is growing concern that children today have so little time for free, unstructured, undirected play. I am not referring only to small children in this regard, but older children, even adolescents and teens. There is so much research to show that even adults still need play, we need to chill-out and relax, unwind. Adults are taking courses on how to do this because we have forgotten how, and it looks like our children will have nothing to forget, never having had the opportunity to really learn how to play, how to learn through play.
Many parents are aware of the dangers of too much TV and too much time spent playing computer games, but seem unaware that those dangers are related predominantly to what children are not doing while taking part in those distractions – they are not moving, not playing, not interacting socially, not thinking for themselves. Thus, homework essentially poses the same problems for a child as too much electronic entertainment. What is the child NOT doing when he is doing the assigned work?
Children in Montessori classrooms freely choose their work. They arrive in the morning, look around the classroom, and decide what to do. They work on it for as long as they are inspired to, then they put it away and select something else. This cycle continues all day. … For the most part, children’s choices are limited only by the set of materials they have been shown how to use, by the availability of the material … And by what is constructive for both the self and society. Home time is also relatively free: few Montessori schools assign homework. Practically speaking, this is because the learning materials stay in the classroom. In addition, probably because of differences in structure, Montessori children appear to achieve enough during the school day to obviate the need for homework.
Angeline Stoll Lillard, Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius, p. 80.
A further problem I see with assigned homework is that it compounds an already almost insurmountable problem – that somehow work and learning and play are different things. Flow theory shows us that playful work is the most productive – or was that purposeful play? The phenomenon of deep concentration brought about by self-chosen purposeful work which Dr. Montessori identified in small children (resulting normalization) is in adolescents and adults in the state called “flow”.[2] Just as we protect the right to extended uninterrupted time in the prepared environment, so should we refrain from depriving the child of long periods of uninterrupted time in the afternoons and evenings, to find those activities which are most likely to lead to deep concentration and satisfaction.
When my sons were at regular school, I really resented the way that their homework intruded into our lives – often we could not go on an outing, have a discussion or read a book of our choice because they had homework to do. Weekend activities were curtailed by “projects” and studying for tests. None of the work they were required to complete was as interesting as the things we wanted to do together, or the things they wanted to do alone.
It could be argued that the homework assigned in a Montessori school is more relevant and interesting than the “busywork” assigned in regular schools. My reply is that it is still “assigned” and that is the problem – this is an imposition. Dr. Montessori wrote that “every lesson infringes the liberty of the child, and for this reason we allow it to last only for a few seconds”. (Maria Montessori, The Advanced Montessori Method Vol. 1, p. 35)
If this is the case in the classroom, how can we justify imposing on our children to the extent of telling them what to do at home?
These children have free choice all day long. Life is based on choice, so they learn to make their own decisions. They must decide and choose for themselves all the time… They cannot learn through obedience to the commands of another.
Maria Montessori, The Child Society and the World, p. 26.
REFERENCES:
Bennett, S. & Kalish, N. (2007) The Case Against Homework – How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It. Three Rivers Press.
Kohn, A. (2006). The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of A Bad Thing, Cambridge MA; Da Capo.
Kralovec, E. & Bruell, J. (2000) The End of Homework: Hoe Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning. Beacon.
Lillard, A. S. (2007) Montessori: The Science Behind The Genius. Oxford: OUP.
Montessori, M. (1989) To Educate the Human Potential. Oxford: Clio Press.
Montessori, M. (1965) The Advanced Montessori Method Vol. 1. Madras: Kalakshetra.
Montessori, M. (1989) The Child in the Family. Oxford: Clio Press.
Montessori, M. (1988) Discovery of the Child. Oxford: Clio Press.
Montessori, M. (1988) The Child, Society and the World. Oxford: Clio Press.
[1] . Readers interested in the studies underpinning these assertions can begin with any of a number of books dealing exclusively with the subject: Alfie Kohn, The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of A Bad Thing (Da Capo 2006); Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish, The Case Against Homework – How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It (Three Rivers Press, 2007); Etta Kralovec and John Bruell, The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning (Beacon 2000). Chick Moorman and Thomas Haller supply Synthesis of Research Findings on Homework on http://www.janebluestein.com/articles/hw_research.html.
[2] . A list of the various books by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on Flow Theory is found on http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/. See https://www.montessori-namta.org/NAMTA/…/currentresearch.htm for research linking flow theory with Montessori.
by Tim Seldin | MFA, Montessori Education, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Teachers, Parent Education
FIRST PLANE OF DEVELOPMENT
The work cycle is dependent on a three-hour uninterrupted period. It begins with preliminary work of a low order followed by a period of restlessness called false-fatigue. After this comes a period of more strenuous, challenging work which induces a period of rest (state of repose) when completed.
There should be no “opening exercises” at the start of the day. Likewise the adult should not intervene during the period of “false fatigue. If false fatigue does not disappear over time it is because there is intervention.
For a detailed discussion of this see Maria Montessori, Spontaneous Activity in Education, Schocken Books, New York, 1965.
Curves of work:
1. Weak child – low concentration (p. 102)
2. Development in Progress (p. 103)
3. Lofty stage of development (p. 104)
Contemplation/repose happens only after maximum effort is completed spontaneously. [Hence forced work can impede the development of the work cycle.]
SECOND PLANE OF DEVELOPMENT
The uninterrupted work cycle in elementary : An answer to a question regarding whether “extras” for elementary children can be provided in the morning with an uninterrupted work cycle in the afternoon.
by Tim Seldin
A mother posed the following question on an online discussion group:
“My children are part of a public Montessori that is a school within school. It has been proposed that their uninterrupted 3 hour morning work time be replaced with their specials – art, library, music, and physical education. They would have an uninterrupted work time in the afternoon instead. Could you please give input and any support material I could use to support the uninterrupted morning as opposed to afternoon work time.”
There is actually some debate about how sensitive elementary children who have grown up in Montessori are to interruptions. Certainly I can find no reference in Montessori’s writing to it at all at the elementary level. But common sense kicks in here to help one analyze this question.
The issue of whether an uninterrupted work period should be in the morning or afternoon has to do with whether the children in question are most focused and alert at one time of the day over the other. We know that young children under age six tend to become tired and less focused in the afternoon, at least in general this is the case. Likewise, studies are showing that many adolescents are at their worst intellectually in the morning, and show definite improvement in the afternoon and evening – again in most cases. Elementary children do not seem to show a consistent pattern – some seem to do better at one time of the day, others are the opposite, while still others seem to be more of less the same all day long.
The basic advice behind this is to consider why an uninterrupted work cycle is considered important, and then, if one has to interrupt the children at some point n the day, choose to protect the time when they seem to be the most focused and alert.
The second issue here though is freedom of choice. Ideally in all Montessori, children follow their hearts and interests, only controlled by rules pertaining to maintaining health, safety, and the general peace of the community. Establishing any sort of schedule is fine, so long as it is completely up to the children whether to participate. If their attendance is required, that is where one drifts away from the freedom of movement and honoring of children as independent human beings.
School is not a factory, children are not employees, and despite the attitude of some educators and parents, they should not have any quota of work output. The issue is not whether we care about their learning – oh we definitely all care. But the wise educator, or at least the authentic Montessori educator, understands that our job is to inspire a sense of wonder, to nurture children’s curiosity and imagination, and to awaken their spirit as human beings. We cannot hurry love. We cannot force lasting learning and creativity. We can only watch, wait, and continue to encourage and entice.
Why then do we think it is important to require children to attend classes, rather than to create resource centers and people trained in their use in which children can do art, music, Spanish, exercise, and so on when the moment is right?
Again, there is nothing wrong with telling a child that something is essential, but only sparing when it is truly important, because mandating things tends to engender resistance. Why not say to children, exercise is important. You need to do it for at least this much time every day, week, whatever… Choose from among these activities. Choose when you will do it. Group experiences are offered at these times. Attend of they interest you. The gym (just as we do with libraries) is open between this time and that.
Some Additional Resources:
Pottish-Lewis, Phyllis. Why the Extended Work Period is Central to Montessori Elementary Pedagogy, AMI Communications 203/2-3, 52 – 57.
by Tim Seldin Paul Epstein | Children with Exceptionalities, Montessori Education, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Teachers, The Montessori Way
Download the chapter on how Montessori schools attempt to meet the needs of children with exceptional needs and challenges, from the book The Montessori Way by Tim Seldin and Dr. Paul Epstein.
Download File
by Andrew Kutt | Family Resources, MFA, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Teachers
Circle Time (class meetings) and community Meeting (school wide gatherings provide unique opportunities to present lessons and to do activities which build community , reinforce school values, broaden the common parameters of learning, and deepen the children’s spiritual experiences at school. These times of gathering can play a central role in introducing curriculum themes., acknowledging students for their achievements and effort, and for setting the spiritual tone for the class and the school.
I believe that circle time(class meetings) should be a time when magic happens – the magic of togetherness, of learning, of sharing, of movement, of stories, of music, and of silence. Start each day with a little ritual, such as lighting a candle, bringing a vase of fresh flowers, or ringing chimes, bells, or a meditation bowl/. Encourage the children to sit “Indian style” with their legs crossed and to be still and silent for a few moments or longer. This can be done with eyes closed or with eyes open depending on you preference or the situation. During this time, the children can think peaceful thoughts, visit a special place in their minds, send “loving energy” to a friend , relative, or pet, or simply listen to the silence.
During the bulk of the day, the focus of the children’s activity is working with the materials and learning new skills in the different subject areas. Circle time can focus more directly on the emotional, social, and spiritual development the children. Singing a song with finger play or hand motions, such as Merrily Merrily Greet the Morn”, is a wonderful way for the children to begin their day. Other songs, can be used to introduce or reinforce academic themes. Stories such s the “The Squirrels an the Acorns” can be told and retold to illustrate certain values or virtues. The children love to act these stories out , and fancy props or costumes are required. Rhyming games with hand motions such as “Open Them Close Them” can introduce or reinforce important guidelines or concepts such as the difference between indoor and outdoor voices. Other movements activities, such as “Brain Gym” can get the children’s neural motors running.
I my mind, circle time should always include daily acknowledgments of achievements, effort, improvement, and special help on the part of members of the class community. The acknowledgments should not flow only in one direction – from teacher to student. Rather, they should crisscross the circle – to include acknowledgments from student to student and even from students to teachers.
Simple sharing can also be a very special part of circle time. invite the children share news about their pets, about someone they love, or about something they have learned or observed. It is helpful to choose one of these themes for each day and to stick with that theme for sharing. Teachers, of course, can also share things important to them during this time. It is also a perfect time for teachers to bring in special objects from nature, such as a bird’s nest, a beaver stick, or a chestnut with its prickly shell still on. It is especially powerful for the children when the teacher shares a personal passion or hobby such a painting, pottery, knitting, cooking, or photography – or when the teacher tells a personal story from their childhood or life experience.
Hand puppets are a fantastic tool at circle time, and you don’t have to be a puppeteer or an actor to use them successfully. All it takes is a little imagination and spontaneity -and the ability to alter you normal voice a bit. Introduce your “special friend” to the children and let your friend tell the children special news for the day or a special story. Then you can invite the children to ask your special friend some questions. Primary students will be completely taken in by the dramatic play, while elementary students (even older ones!) will gladly play along for the joy of it.
Community meetings (all school gatherings provide even more possibilities for activities which unite, enlighten, and uplift the whole school community. Ideally, community meetings should be held weekly, but if that is too much, then once month is a minimum,. Otherwise the energy and feel of the community is lost and becomes difficult for the children to remember the special routines and procedures necessary.
To make community meetings inclusive and warm, and to get full participation from all students, it is best to first establish a buddy system among the students. Match older students up with younger ones whose interest or temperaments might make them a good match. This takes a bit of discussion and planning at a faculty meeting. It is important not to match buddies too close in age. Buddies can be changed from time to time, but it is important to keep the buddies together for at least six or eight weeks to allow them to build a comfort level and rapport with each other. In addition buddy teams do not have to be limited to two children but can have three or even four students together. I would not recommend more than four for a buddy arrangement. Having the buddy system in place will encourage the older students to be much less self-conscious and much more participatory in the community meetings. Meanwhile the younger students will simply glow with the joy of being with their older buddies.
It is vitally important to invite parents to attend community meeting. Announce the theme or special activities of the community meeting in advance and make the parents feel welcome to attend. When they do come, invite them to sit with the children on the floor if they wish. And by all means, encourage them to participate.
Community meeting is a time when the whole school can join in song, in games or in creative movement activities. Each teaching team can take turns planning activities for the community meeting. After a few weeks, you will have built up a “repertoire” of favorite activities that can be repeated at future community meetings. Parents will tell other parents about how much fun it is and more parents will attend. Examples of popular group activities include simple partner/group dances, tai chi exercises, brain gymnastics, hand slapping games, and songs with hand gestures or body movements. Although community meeting does not provide the same intimate setting for sharing as circle time, students can be invited to share news of things going on in their classrooms or at home that week.
Community meeting is an excellent time for performances – individuals as well as groups. Individual students can be invited to play the violin or piano, to demonstrate a martial art, to recite a poem, or to display something they have built or created. Classes can perform group songs or dances or portions of dramatic performances they are working on. Community meetings serve a great “dress rehearsals” for performances that the children are preparing for a special occasion later that week or that evening. If your school has after school enrichment programs in dance, soccer, basketball, chess club, woodworking, etc., the students who participate in these can demonstrate something they have been working on. The teachers of these enrichment classes can also be invited to attend and or to present with their students.
Community meeting also provides an opportunity to invite special guests to speak or make presentations. It is easier than you might think to get representatives of local sports teams to come to your community meeting. Local city council members, crafts people, firemen, policemen, and artists all make excellent guests. Ask your parents to make suggestions for guest speakers they might know. In some cases, the parents themselves might make excellent speakers or presenter at community time. Always review the subject and duration of the presentation with your speaker ahead of time. and never assume that the presenter knows how to address a mixed age group that includes younger children. Some helpful hints to the presenter about level of vocabulary, interaction with the audience, and duration of presentation are usually welcomed and found to be very helpful.
At our school we close every community meeting with a period of silence. This might take some practice at first, but the children soon respond very positively to this activity, especially if they already do similar silence activities in their classrooms. Cues such as “Lets’ see if wee can be so quiet we can hear the crickets or the birds outside” can be helpful to begin the period of silence. And asking the children afterward to share what they heard during the silent time is a nice finishing touch.
In summary, circle time and community meetings can be the linchpins of the school day and week. They can harmonize the community and weave together the various stands of the curriculum. The provide an essential forum for introducing and reinforcing school values and guidelines. And they are opportunities for everyone to just “be” – not to have to “do”. With the right intention and a little effort circle times and community meetings can bring great joy and memorable experiences to all.
by Ann Epstein Ph.D | Brain Development, Communication, Language, Language & Reading, MFA, Montessori Curriculum, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Teachers, Parent Education, Reading
The development of language in early-childhood classrooms is an umbrella for the entire Montessori curriculum. Often teachers and parents consider activities on the shelves of the Language area as the heart of actual language learning. Certainly these activities provide powerful opportunities, but language learning occurs most profoundly in the moment-to-moment life of interactions within the classroom. Twenty years ago, working as a speech pathologist, I discovered the wonder of language development in young children. Although I detoured away from speech and language pathology into Montessori early-childhood education, I maintained my awe of how children learn to listen and speak and, later, to write and read. I have had the opportunity to share my language interests as a teacher educator with several Montessori teacher-education programs.
During the last four years, I have continued my learning in a slightly different context. As a supervisor for the University of Maryland’s undergraduate early-childhood special-education program, I have worked with teachers, students, and children in both inclusive and segregated special education settings, often working with children with language delays. In this article, I will suggest a foundation for the development of language skills, review key Montessori language materials and activities, and present suggestions for expanding language practices in Montessori early-childhood classrooms. Language Everywhere, All the Time, with Everyone: A Foundation for the Development of Language .
We know that the development of a young child’s language skills begins at conception. An infant is born into a family with a unique communication style. Family members may be quite open, freely expressing their wants, needs, and feelings. Alternatively, communication may be reserved or even restrained. Babies listen to and absorb not only what family members say but how they say it. A balanced environment, one that is open yet not chaotic or inappropriate, is the most conducive to language learning. We need to talk often and meaningfully with babies. Babies learn to trust their surroundings as older siblings and adults hold and cuddle them, engage them with smiles and coos, and most importantly, acknowledge their communications. Essential communication occurs when a busy father or mother looks directly at a little crying one, rocks her, and says in a comforting way, “Yes, I know, you are upset. You are having a hard time getting to sleep.” As distant as it seems, Dad and Mom are laying the foundation for listening to their child’s requests and statements. Reciprocally, their child is learning to trust that Dad and Mom can be counted on to listen and provide comfort. Years later, this child may enter a Montessori classroom. She enters with a consistently effective communication experience. Her past experiences have proven to her that she can initiate communication and be heard. She is learning to reverse these roles in order to be an effective listener and responder. These communication experiences are the foundation for language learning in the classroom.
Teachers, parents, and administrators need to recognize communication as the foundation for the meaningful development of language concepts and skills. Effective communication depends on authentic relationships between communicative partners. Teachers have the responsibility (actually, the opportunity) to develop and expand learning relationships with young children. This is truly the ultimate opportunity to make a difference. Seen in this light, conversations with young children on the playground, during field trips, on the way to the bathroom, in the midst of conflict resolution, during lessons, and countless other times create the context for the development of language skills. Relationships of trust are built between children and teachers and among peers. Classroom work further contributes to language concept and skill development within this context of meaningful communication. Montessori Language Work for the Young Child: Early Literacy Activities Activities related to the development of early literacy skills often greet young children when they visit the language area of a Montessori classroom. Loosely known as “reading readiness” during the 70s and 80s, these activities include opportunities for young children to expand vocabulary, listen carefully to common sounds, and look carefully to find likenesses and differences among objects and pictures.
Young children (particularly three and four year-olds) delight in matching sets of objects from cars and trucks to zoo animals. They enjoy learning the names of household tools, unusual fruits and vegetables, and geometric shapes, to name a few. The tape recorder corner is a popular spot as children listen to city, household, and garden sounds as well as favorite stories and songs. Teachers need to observe the “DQ” (dust quotient) carefully for when to change these early literacy activities. By rotating an engaging, dynamic array of vocabulary-building, auditory-. and visual-discrimination activities, teachers are providing children with continual opportunities to expand and refine their literacy skills throughout the three years they spend in primary classrooms. Dr. Maria Montessori personally developed only three language materials for the early-childhood classroom; however, the metal insets, the sand paper letters, and the movable alphabet have proven to be astoundingly effective. In fact, educators outside the Montessori world have recognized the effectiveness of these materials and created similar activities now being used in a variety of early-childhood settings.
Metal Insets Dr. Montessori designed the metal insets to provide appealing opportunities for young children to practice the component strokes of letters. Appalled by the tediousness of the early 20th century practice of requiring children to make rows and rows of straight and curved lines, she designed an alternative approach. Dr. Montessori reasoned that tracing complete shapes would be more satisfying for young children and still provide opportunities to refine pencil control. Children of the 1990s often make booklet after booklet of ovals, pentagons, quatrefoils, and trapezoids. As they first trace the frame of the shape and later the more challenging free-standing metal shape, they are gaining fine motor control. Why provide children as young as three and four with opportunities to strengthen hand control in order to write? Isn’t this too young? And don’t children learn to read before they write anyway? Montessori answered “no” to both the second and the third questions. She observed children in the slums of early twentieth Rome writing on whatever surfaces (floors, chairs, table tops) they could. Rather than seeing this as misbehavior, Montessori interpreted children’s writing behavior quite literally. She recognized their strong interest in writing. Montessori countered the prevailing practice of teaching reading before writing by providing purposeful opportunities for children to write.
Sandpaper Letters and the Movable Alphabet Long before early childhood educators began talking about multi-sensory education, Montessori recognized that young children learn by touching, listening and looking. She reasoned that stroking a sandpaper letter while hearing the sound of the letter and simultaneously seeing its form provided children with multiple opportunities to learn the sound and the visual shape of each letter. Once children learned to associate sounds and forms of letters, Montessori searched for a way for them to compose words. She had designed the metal insets to assist the development of children’s fine muscle control and the sandpaper letters to associate the sounds and forms of letters. How could children put these skills and concepts together to form words? Foreseeing struggles with pencil and paper, Montessori provided children with multiple sets of cut-out letters housed in a compartmentalized box. Children could then select individual letters to compose whatever words they desired.
Composing words is not the same as spelling words. Children at this stage of literacy are expressing themselves through print. Later in the elementary program they will learn to apply spelling rules. Thus, invented spelling is very much a part Montessori early childhood classrooms. Kathy Gray, Montessori directress at Doswell E. Brooks School in Prince George’s County, Maryland and language instructor with Œ kos, a Foundation for Education, shares this example: Yue miet not bee aible tue reed this but mie teecher can!! Are children reading as they compose words with the movable alphabet? Usually they are encoding (writing) print without decoding (reading). Montessori recognized writing as the process of sharing one’s own thoughts and reading as the more difficult process of interpreting the thoughts of others.
Recent research concerning early literacy confirms the importance of providing children with meaningful opportunities to see and use print. These experiences will then lead to meaningful reading. Reading in Contemporary Montessori early-childhood classrooms house carefully designed, sequential opportunities to assist young children as they build beginning reading concepts. Teachers have found that dictating sets of three letter rhyming words (sit, bit, fit, pit) for children to build with the movable alphabet provides them with a structured, success-oriented early experience. Again, children begin by “writing” (composing) the words and later discover they can read them. Often children enjoy the follow-up activity of writing these words and making lists or, even better, small booklets. Parents need assurance from teachers that the focus of this activity is not reading the words but building them.
Dr. Montessori wrote of the power of a very simple activity to help bridge children into the world of reading. She encouraged her directresses to assemble a collection of interesting small objects, slips of paper, and a pencil. After asking children to name each object, she wrote the name as the children watched. She then simply placed the labels next to corresponding objects and repeated the words. In today’s classrooms, children watch as the teacher writes and listen as he/she states the word. Children see the concrete connection between the word and the object. The teacher then invites the child to mix up the labels, look at them individually, recall the word and find the appropriate object. Often children recognize the beginning sound of the words. They use this and the overall configuration of the word as they decode.
Decades later, teachers recognize the above lesson as an example of a “whole -language” approach to reading. In Montessori classrooms, teachers incorporate both phonetic and whole-word strategies. The leading reading researchers acknowledge that we still do not know exactly how children learn to read. To meet the needs of all children, teachers need to use a variety of strategies. Our culture holds reading as an essential skill. Teachers and parents feel accountable for teaching children to read. Somehow, we have come to believe that the earlier a child reads, the smarter he or she is; however, solid research tells us otherwise. Teachers and parents need to remember that six and seven year-olds are often just learning to decode. Children this age are usually not demonstrating delays.
Parents of children in Montessori classrooms who begin reading around age seven report feeling anxious and even pressured. I recently asked Heidi Arseneault, a “Montessori Mom” and office manager for Œ kos, a Foundation for Education, to share her thoughts. Both Aidan (age 11) and Gabe (age 8) seem to have learned to read differently than many of their Montessori peers. Both boys are in a Montessori program that they began when they were three. Aidan learned very gradually. He did not remember sounds. He struggled through Max the Cat (the first in a commonly used reading series published by Modern Curriculum Press) at the end of his Kindergarten year and was very proud of his accomplishment! But he definitely knew that his friends were reading more than he was. Now he is a passionate reader. This summer he read the Redwall series and loved reading many Star Wars novels. He reads in the car, after school, and on week-ends — whenever he can! Gabe is just beginning to enjoy reading. We encourage him to read words he knows from bedtime books. We take turns reading sentences and pages. When Aidan was younger we read as many as six or seven stories a night and we still try to read as many as we can with Gabe. I guess both boys began with more of a whole word strategy. They often had difficulty and did not sound out words, particularly Gabe. Instead, I think they memorized words. They both would look ahead to figure out what the sentence was about and then come back to the word they were having trouble with. I remember being very relieved when one of their Montessori teachers told me that brain synapses are still forming when children are five and six years old. I felt anxious, and I worried that maybe I had not given them good enough genes! I was also concerned that the boys would feel pressured. We tried to keep them feeling good about themselves as readers, but it was especially hard with Gabe, maybe because of his personality. He often would tell us (and his teachers) that he was too tired, that he already did that work yesterday, that he couldn’t read, and that he just didn’t want to. We learned to compromise and work out deals. It really helped to be able to take home books that he was working on at school and relax with them in the evenings.
My advice to teachers and parents of children who are not learning to read at an early age is to be both patient and persistent. I believe it is important to realize that whether a child reads at five or eight really does not make a difference in the big scheme of life. Children can still grow up to be rocket scientists or whatever they want to be. It is crucial for teachers and parents to understand Heidi’s experience. In particular, teachers need to keep children feeling positive about themselves as they employ a variety of reading strategies. Some children actually have dyslexia (difficulty with an aspect of print resulting in a variety of reading and writing problems). Professor Jeanne Chall of Harvard University reports researchers agree that 10 to 15% of the population is dyslexic. Teachers and parents may not agree. While this figure suggests that teachers are right to be concerned about children like Aidan and Gabe, my experience leads me to believe that usually only one child (or two at the most) out of a class of twenty-five are truly struggling with dyslexia.
It is crucial to remember two points. First, children are indeed still developing at this young age. Second, dyslexia can be confused with a wide range of reading and writing problems (including auditory and visual discrimination, information processing, and coordinating one’s hand with one’s thoughts) that can be overcome with maturity and a variety of successful early experiences. On the other hand, parents and teachers need to be ready to seek out professional help for children who cannot overcome early problems on their own. Dr. Montessori advised us to design environments where children can learn on their own. A carefully designed language environment is characterized by an open, respectful, nurturing, communicative tone. Under this umbrella children select activities, from matching to the movable alphabet to Max the Cat, which lead them, like Aidan Arsenault, to become passionate about print.
by The Montessori Foundation Staff | Children with Exceptionalities, Language & Reading, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Teachers, Parent Education, Reading, Writing
Katya was the youngest of the three sisters. She was about to become seven years old that coming Christmas time. Her birthday was December 26. She was a Christmas present that came a day late, her father used to say.
Katya had a pretty face and delicate hands but was crippled with bones that grew crooked rather than straight. She was loved greatly by her parents and protected from the harshness of the world.
Anna and Marion, her sisters, loved her, too, but in an appreciative rather than simply an affectionate way. They pitied the unfortunate Katya as one would pity a bird with a broken wing. When seeing Katya they would think: “Poor, unfortunate thing. I’m glad it’s not me.”
They gave her small gifts almost weekly as payment for bearing such a heavy curse of misery and shame on her shoulders. Like the wind which is known only in what it does,
Katya’s unbearable load was invisible to the eye, but was recognized in how severely the great weight bent her back and legs.
Something unseen but massive had been buckling her since birth. She never could crawl when she was a baby but only lie on the floor and slither like a worm when she
Her two older sisters in a way were paying Katya off for being the cursed one of the family. I do not believe Anna or Marion could ever reveal this truth openly to even their own conscious minds, but down below in the darker depths of their hearts they surely felt grateful that it was on Katya and not on themselves that this cruel affliction had fallen. Katya would sit for hour after hour curled up on the cottage’s west window seat with the family cat, both still as statues. The cat’s eyes were mostly shut, but not Katya’s. Her hazel eyes were wide open all day, for Katya wanted to see everything that existed in the world embraced by that window’s view. Although not as busy as her older sisters, Katya had so much to see. Her absorbent mind took in daily feasts of friendly familiar things like the old apple tree planted by her great grandfather, the thick bushes where the rabbits lived, the gray wooden fence in the distance that separated their yard from the cow pasture, the rolling rye fields that never ended but became the blue sky of God’s heavenly ocean which was above everything else forever.
And then there were the varied clouds that sailed throughout the day, ships of all sizes. There was always something absolutely brand new that would come walking or flying into view for a wonder filled while.
Katya saw everything and by the power of her seeing simply took everything into her bright mind and then deeper, deeper into her soul, there to be kept as the stuff her dreams were made of in the much later sacred and secret life of her sleep. You and I cannot appreciate what a blessing the night was to Katya.
Her whole life expanded in the night. It was as if she were magically changed into a rare moth and set free by the evening breeze to fly on beautiful wings within the midnight forest. During the day she was a humble caterpillar feeding her hungry soul by chewing and chewing every person and every thing her eyes came upon in that small but interesting world of the cottage yard. But in the night, sleep would come with its dream world where Katya’s bones were straight, and she could walk and run and dance for hours and hours. Her joy in being there in this land where wishes fly like doves was unbounded, and she would sense her feet leave the ground completely whether she was dancing, or running, or walking. In her heart’s heart, so alive within the magical world of her dreams,
Katya knew what it was like to be one of the free things of this world—what it was like to be a winged one. In the dark of night, Katya would dream her dreams—-dreams in which she always became just a little bit less than an angel. When the hidden passages of a mountain become superabundantly filled with the seep water of many rains and melting snows, a spring will burst forth into our world, a virgin spring of sweet, pure water. What a surprising blessing it is for the wild animals of the forest. The same happened for Katya after seven years of experiencing life. On the day after the great holiday of Christmas, she suddenly produced a virgin spring of written words.
The letters of these first words were at once so beautifully shaped that Katya astounded her parents and sisters. It seemed a miracle for no one had ever schooled Katya. Her parents never considered allowing Katya to go to the village school as did her sisters. Although her mind was the brightest of the three children, her grotesque and twisted body condemned her to home life. All that Katya learned, she learned from seeing and listening to what went on within the familiar but defined circle of her experiencing. She learned unconsciously yet constantly as did the feral kittens that lived in the hay barn. It all happened naturally, wonderfully, without formal schooling.
Katya was a keen listener and learned just from absorption how to talk with perfect pronunciation and unusual clarity of thought. Katya was perhaps even more keen at seeing details, and she mastered the meanings of those little black squiggly shapes printed on the pages of story books when she was but six and one half years old. Yes, she learned how to read even though she was never taught. She learned how to decipher written words by embracing each of them with her mind/heart/soul in a very intimate way. You see, her mother would place Katya curled up like a little rag doll in her comfortable lap whenever she would read stories to Anna and Marion.
The two big sisters would sit on the hearth rug looking up into their mothers sweet face as she read aloud. Katya, however, would be looking right at the open pages of the storybook, and as each word was spoken she would imagine that word coming right out of the black joined shape of the letters. She was probably helped at this by the fact that her mother read while moving her index finger along under each word to help her keep track while reading by the candlelight. Every next day when she was left alone in the house, Katya would gimp her way clumsily but surely to find the storybook. And then sitting wrapped up with it on the window sill, she would take her pleasure with the words, focusing on each of them intently, moving her thin finger slowly under them, remembering the spoken word that mysteriously came out of each configuration. It was a wonderful game to Katya. It was magical, for it seemed that her finger was like the needle of a phonograph moving on a record, and as it passed under each printed word she would hear it said aloud deep within her self.
And what was best of all, she would hear it spoken in her mothers’ sweet voice. Then, like an echo, she would repeat the word in a tender whisper to herself and to her angel listening. Each word so mastered by Katya was almost as personal to her as were her very sisters. This secret read language was just like all her other experience of words: it was profoundly personal and real. Words became familiar to Katya in this so basic family way to the total amazement of her own family! It was the best of schooling. It was as natural and as surprising as sneezing for Katya to then take up a thick black crayon on the day after Christmas and begin to draw the letter word configurations on a sheet of white paper. She was a pretty, crumpled up little girl of seven who now had discovered how to write words! It was as natural a happening for her as was learning how to read.
Writing words for Katya was from the start an act of pure artistry. She had long ago drawn pictures of the outside tree and the hills behind the fence. Why, she had even drawn a wonderful picture of the cat asleep in a spot of sunlight on the cottage floor. There seems to be this great desire within the heart/mind/soul of every person to capture the fleeting moment of an experience and then to represent it somehow later on to others as if asking the question: “Do you see what I see? ”
When personal seeing becomes passionate it becomes perceiving. You really take hold of something so that it will not fade away but last. When you perceive something especially good, true, or beautiful you want to make it a “keeper” and so you copy it, you draw it, or photograph it, or translate it into a poem, or even sing it as a song! Well, crippled and hunchbacked Katya had become just such an artist. A day never went by without her drawing the line of something. And she would not be satisfied until the lines she was drawing created the whatever more beautiful than ever.
She had discovered the magic about art that makes the drawing more special than the thing drawn. When she finished drawing a bird on a branch, somehow that bird took on something more ? it now contained her soul within it, and that made it peculiar in a perfected kind of way. The first time that Katya moved to draw words, she was not simply learning how to write like you or I did once upon a time. No, the first time she took up pencil and paper to copy words from a story book onto a sheet of blank white paper, she did so as an artist. She drew the letters and so also the words. She would make every letter shape a beautiful thing and therefore every completed word a gorgeous creature. The ancient word for such art is calligraphy which is Greek for beautiful writing. And so it was that Katya’s family discovered to their astonishment at Christmas time, that this little misshapen unschooled sister had not only learned how to read and write by herself, she had become an absolute master of such linguistics. Katya revealed herself to be not merely a reader and writer of words. She was an absolute genius, a magician with words. More than her big sisters, and more than her parents, it was plain for all to see that Katya delighted in making words come out of the tips of her fingers right on to plain paper as little works of art. Yes, it was pure magic when Katya began writing her own words that Christmas time. And best of all, as she wrote each dear word, she would read it aloud with a voice that sounded like that of a bird. Her face glowed with great joy as she did this before her wondering family. Katya had become all by herself a creator and a lover of words. And so she would always be.
Peace To you all — my brothers and sisters who love the Children of the World —
by The Montessori Foundation Staff | MFA, Montessori Education, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Teachers, Practical Life
Margot Waltuch, who died in 2003, was one of the best known and dearly loved members of the senior leadership of the international Montessori community.
She was one of the last remaining Montessorians who actually knew and worked with Maria Montessori. She spent a long, productive life in Montessori education, setting down in her wonderful slim volume, A Montessori Album, many of her reflections and personal memories and photos of the children and schools with whom she worked.
In 1996 Margot wrote an article for the NAMTA Journal that described the typical day at the school with which she is best remembered, La Maison des Enfants in Paris, France during the years from 1933 to 1938. I believe that there could be no better description of the classic Montessori experience than hers:
“The children attended school all day. Sometimes we would take the cots outside for their naps. …
Sometimes at the beginning of the school year, when first meeting the children, it would be enough simply to let them talk. We would listen to music, or we would share some food, or simply go on a little walk and pick wildflowers. Presentations were much shorter and fewer than what are done with a new class today.
There was not a separation between outdoors and indoors. They were treated as one. No division should exist. Laughingly, we used to say, “There is never any bad weather, only wrong clothing.” The terrace was easily accessible for outdoor work. The only requirement for working on the terrace was to put on outdoor clothes when necessary. We worked outside in all weather.
Sometimes we would go out, and other times nature would come in. When a grasshopper would hop among the tables, that would be the start of a research. Magnifying glasses were all around. Little flowers were also on each table, freshly cut, water changed daily, and labeled. Many times the children would pull them apart: “Where is the stamen?” Children planted seeds and subsequently made graphs of plant growth. We always allowed time for observing and questioning.
Paris was an ideal setting. Oftentimes in the afternoon we went out simply to sit and embroider-to enjoy the sun and trees. No bell rang. No command was given. “Now it’s time for this exercise or that exercise.” Throughout the day, mental work and physical exercise were held in balance as a result of this constant contact with the seasons and the natural world.
Walking of the line was a daily occurrence about midday-often out-of-doors. This involved bringing out a little table with flags, glasses with water, and other things to carry. The children took a stick or small shovel and made a large circle or oval on the ground. Of course it was not perfect as an indoor line. Music played on the piano indoors, or sometimes we brought the phonograph out on the balcony. I was in the background, usually, observing but seldom directing. And yet informally this activity meant daily exposure to music, rhythm, and coordinated movement.
There is quite a contrast between enforced silence and silence “from within” the children. Children sometimes want silence-they play statues or hide-and-seek or simply sit opposite each other to see who can last the longest without moving or even smiling. They love silence and immobility and practice it spontaneously. …
Our children gardened, sometimes an hour a day. The materials were always there: wheelbarrows, rakes, hoes, shovels, spades, watering cans, and baskets. Children chose the activity. And of course, all knowledge takes off from gardening. You must choose a place for your garden. It must be flat, or the rain will roll away the seeds. Let’s measure for a space that can be well taken care of as opposed to a garden too big for total attention. Find a place in the sun. Plants need sunlight to make food. What to plant? Foods for salad, foods for soup, and foods to eat right off the plant-all these make for a garden of variety. …
The work that the children enjoy most is the harvesting, and because our school went nearly year round, the children could reap what they sowed. …
Through cooking, children are introduced to a whole new world of sensations-tastes, smells, colors, textures, blending and changing-all that cooking entails. They are given the opportunity to explore the otherwise forbidden realm of knives and fires. Working with the tools of cooking develops manual dexterity. And of course cooking and eating is an occasion for interaction with one another.
We had a full-course meal daily. We ate with the children and discussed their experiences in the parks, the museums, their parties, etc. They talked about future events and past events, always making laughter and jokes. The French children were masters of conversation at the table. Also typically French was the style of waiting on the table. The eating and talking alone usually took an hour.
Introduction of foods and their preparation is still another form of sensory exploration. Noodle-making, bread-making, peeling, cutting, grinding, chopping, slicing, grating, squeezing-these are not only ways of extracting from nature what you need to eat, but great builders of hand-eye coordination, sequence, and social life.”*
* Waltuch, M. (1996). The casa of Sèvres, France. The NAMTA Journal, 21 (3), 43-54.
