Dr. Maria Montessori
(1870-1953) was Italy's first woman doctor of medicine. Dr. Montessori studied
the behavior and development of children and by this created a prepared
environment for learning. She founded the first Montessori school in Rome, Casa
dei Bambini (Children's House), in 1907.
What is the Montessori
Method?
Montessori
is a philosophy or method of education that recognizes in children a natural
curiosity and desire to learn. Certified Montessori directresses and special
Montessori teaching materials encourage this curiosity into a learning
experience. Dr. Montessori perceived the years from birth to six years as a
period when a human being showed the greatest potential towards learning. For
this "sensitive period" in a child's life Dr. Montessori designed the "prepared
environment" where, "...the child, set free from undue adult intervention, can
live its life according to the laws of its development." The Montessori
directress, the Montessori equipment, and the prepared environment all
stimulate and encourage the child to learn. Children enjoy using Montessori
materials as they learn not just by memorizing, but by associating an abstract
concept with a concrete sensorial experience.
What are Montessori
Materials?
The prepared environment
of the Montessori classroom is supplied with didactic (self-teaching) materials
which can be manipulated by the children. The materials are designed to foster
independence, develop a healthy self-concept, encourage thinking and give an
appreciation of nature and the world. The prepared environment includes the
following five areas: Practical Life, Sensorial, Language, Math and Cultural.
Practical Life
The
exercises of Practical Life are the foundation of the Montessori Philosophy for
future academic learning. They encompass a great diversity of activities to
help the child grow toward greater concentration and independence. In the
Montessori classroom the child has the opportunity to participate in caring for
the environment, e.g., sweeping, dusting, washing furniture, caring for plants
and animals and in caring for themselves, e.g., washing hands, polishing shoes
and dressing. These activities, designed sequentially, enable the child to come
to realize order and logic in the classroom environment. Concentration,
attention, order, independence and muscular coordination originate with this
work. The child may repeat the sequence of each activity independently to
develop these qualities.
Sensorial
The Sensorial exercises
are comprised of a series of objects which are grouped together because they
share a physical, palpable quality such as size, shape, sound or color. Each
piece of sensorial material is designed to emphasize one salient quality but in
different degrees which are perceptually observable. Learning to perceive
minute differences between objects is an important byplay of the sensorial
apparatus. To train a child's senses is to create an astute observer. Practice
at judging, classifying and discriminating gives a perceptual "alphabet" with
which a child can organize their mind and world. Montessori sensorial materials
offer a wealth of concrete objects to manipulate which sequentially lead to
abstract concepts. This is a long process but the sensorial equipment provides
"materialized abstractions" that are the ground work for the concepts of number
and numeral. The sensorial area gives the child a perceptual idea of basic
mathematics. It is indirect preparation for the mathematics area, language area
(sound discrimination, visual perception, eye-hand coordination) and the
cultural area (awareness of classification).
Language
The
young child has a natural sensitivity for language development. Therefore, the
Montessori language program begins immediately and is continuously woven into
the life and work of the class. The children are free to talk to one another in
the classroom, and there is always time devoted to discussion, poetry, songs
and interpretation of stories. The language materials themselves aid the
development of all three aspects of a child's language: speaking, writing and
reading. In the area of vocabulary enrichment, the child in a Montessori
classroom is exposed to a tremendous vocabulary enrichment, a variety of names
(leaf shapes, prehistoric animals, geometric shapes, seashells, geographical
locations and famous composers) following the child's natural curiosity.
Learning to read and write requires the mastery of many skills. Each of these
skills is pursued by the child in separate exercises. Only when the child has
mastered the separate skills is the child encouraged to unite them into the
operations of reading and writing. The language area includes reading, writing,
and grammar. Reading is presented in a very eclectic manner starting with a
phonetic base, adding a sight work vocabulary and extending into a language
experience program. Writing begins with use of the metal insets to gain control
of the pencil and move into manuscript. Grammar is based on concrete
experiences with objects, actions and descriptions. The children experience a
noun, a verb, an adjective and a preposition.
Mathematics
Children must have a
multitude of sensorial experiences with size, dimension and form before they
are introduced to mathematical quantities and their symbols. Before formal
lessons, the children need casual practice with rote counting. Once they are
certain of quantity and symbol of numbers 0 through 10, an overview of the base
10 system with numbers 0-9999 is begun. Next in the sequence comes counting the
squares and cubes of sets of numbers from 1 through 10. Simultaneously,
children are taught simple one-digit, concrete, static addition and
subtraction. Once the children can skip-count from memory, multiplication is
introduced and is followed by division with no remainders. Fact memorization
follows with use of finger boards.
Cultural
The cultural studies
curriculum for the 2 1/2 to 6 year-old children includes: botany, zoology,
scientific experiments, geography, history, music and art. This is a cosmic
approach to education that enables the child to have a sensori-motor experience
based on the practical life activities, where the child names the reality,
learns to compare, grade and calculate.
North
American Montessori Child Care, Inc.
424 S. Clay
St. Louis, MO 63122
Telephone (314) 822-8400 - Fax (314) 821-3838
Montessori
is a philosophy or method of education that recognizes in children a natural
curiosity and desire to learn. Certified Montessori directresses and special
Montessori teaching materials encourage this curiosity into a learning
experience. Dr. Montessori perceived the years from birth to six years as a
period when a human being showed the greatest potential towards learning. For
this "sensitive period" in a child's life Dr. Montessori designed the "prepared
environment" where, "...the child, set free from undue adult intervention, can
live its life according to the laws of its development." The Montessori
directress, the Montessori equipment, and the prepared environment all
stimulate and encourage the child to learn. Children enjoy using Montessori
materials as they learn not just by memorizing, but by associating an abstract
concept with a concrete sensorial experience. 
The
exercises of Practical Life are the foundation of the Montessori Philosophy for
future academic learning. They encompass a great diversity of activities to
help the child grow toward greater concentration and independence. In the
Montessori classroom the child has the opportunity to participate in caring for
the environment, e.g., sweeping, dusting, washing furniture, caring for plants
and animals and in caring for themselves, e.g., washing hands, polishing shoes
and dressing. These activities, designed sequentially, enable the child to come
to realize order and logic in the classroom environment. Concentration,
attention, order, independence and muscular coordination originate with this
work. The child may repeat the sequence of each activity independently to
develop these qualities. 
The
young child has a natural sensitivity for language development. Therefore, the
Montessori language program begins immediately and is continuously woven into
the life and work of the class. The children are free to talk to one another in
the classroom, and there is always time devoted to discussion, poetry, songs
and interpretation of stories. The language materials themselves aid the
development of all three aspects of a child's language: speaking, writing and
reading. In the area of vocabulary enrichment, the child in a Montessori
classroom is exposed to a tremendous vocabulary enrichment, a variety of names
(leaf shapes, prehistoric animals, geometric shapes, seashells, geographical
locations and famous composers) following the child's natural curiosity.
Learning to read and write requires the mastery of many skills. Each of these
skills is pursued by the child in separate exercises. Only when the child has
mastered the separate skills is the child encouraged to unite them into the
operations of reading and writing. The language area includes reading, writing,
and grammar. Reading is presented in a very eclectic manner starting with a
phonetic base, adding a sight work vocabulary and extending into a language
experience program. Writing begins with use of the metal insets to gain control
of the pencil and move into manuscript. Grammar is based on concrete
experiences with objects, actions and descriptions. The children experience a
noun, a verb, an adjective and a preposition.