Montessori is an approach to education with the fundamental belief that a child learns best within a social environment, which respects each individual’s unique development.
Maria Montessori found that young children learn best in a homelike setting, filled with developmentally appropriate materials that provide experiences contributing to the growth of self-motivated, independent learners.
Every parent of children in their second year of Montessori begins to ask questions about continuing their child in the school for the kindergarten year.
WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT TO CONTINUE IN A MONTESSORI ENVIRONMENT FOR THE KINDERGARTEN YEAR?
In the Montessori environment, the child is presented with endless opportunities to develop all his senses and his motor skills with the aid of self-correcting materials in a prepared setting. During the third year a child can not only work with these materials in more depth, thus gaining more insights from them, but, using this base, can move into the academic areas.
All preparations for later academic work and for social and emotional development, which have been so carefully nurtured in the three and four-year old child, are reinforced in the kindergarten year.
Once the child has established critical learning habits: concentration, self-discipline, a sense of order, persistence in a completing a task, creative self-expression and a love for learning, (invaluable preparations for life) these behaviors are reinforced in a supportive, exciting environment.
Most importantly, having learned from older children during the first two years, shared with peers and helped younger children, the student has the opportunity in his third year to assume leadership within the classroom. Statistics show that when an older child helps a younger child, it is actually the older child who benefits most from the experience. There are many opportunities for the five year-olds to help the younger ones. Besides reinforcing their academic knowledge, this experience enhances their self-esteem and develops their self-confidence-two qualities, which enable them to try new things in later learning. To deprive the five year-old of this experience is to deprive her of her year of leadership. The self- confidence and self-esteem gained in the third year of Montessori help prepare the child to be successful in any learning environment.
The emphasis, in a Montessori classroom, is on individual growth. The transition to academic work occurs naturally during the third year without stress, pressure, or praise. At this point, the child who is ready will begin reading and working with math materials, in addition to other equally important activities. Few traditional and conventional kindergartens are geared to do this, or have children who are prepared for such work, and so the types of work Montessori children are ready for is usually not presented until first grade.
In the Montessori classroom, a five-year old can gain an early understanding of many difficult concepts, which are the usual stumbling blocks later in grade school. Long before he is faced with such abstract terms as Peninsula, History, Verb, Unit, or Fraction, he meets them in simple concrete materials, which are fun to manipulate. He can make a peninsula, put pictures on a Time Line of History, act out verbs, or “carry one” in addition by going to the bank and exchanging ten Units for a Ten Bar.
The opportunity to learn to read at his own pace is, perhaps the most important advantage for the five year-old in the Montessori classroom. He receives individual help as he works with the reading materials and is neither pressured to keep up with other youngsters, nor bored by having to wait for others to catch up with him. As he masters the phonetic skills, the reading Corner invites him to spend comfortable hours with books he selects himself, thus fostering his desire to read. Many children begin reading and math at four but the most exciting work is done when they are five.
Children do their best when they have good learning habits, a sound basis in numbers and math, and the ability to read. The first two years of Montessori prepare the child for the third and most productive year. If you transfer your child before this year of fruition, you will probably lose the best return on your financial investment in pre-school education.
Moving a third year Montessori student into a classroom with a structured curriculum when he is still in a sensitive period for movement, and needs a wide variety of activity to meet his needs can be a problem. Not only does he need the stimulation of academic challenge, but also comfort and reassurance of jobs previously mastered. (ie. Practical life)
Some parents may feel their child has been here so long, he has probably done everything and may become bored. It is almost impossible to imagine a four year-old finishing and tiring of the academic materials. The golden Beads, which illustrate the decimal System, could, for example, be used for such difficult maneuvers as square root and long division. In reading, as in math, because the necessary materials are at hand, a child can go as far as his interest and ability will take him.
