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“We cannot know the consequences of suppressing a child's spontaneity when he is just beginning to be active. We may even suffocate life itself.” — Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method (p. 88) Over the last few weeks we have been looking at equality and achievement in literacy as it relates to gender. We know that during the sensitive period for writing and reading (age 4–6) children spontaneously begin to read. By using the Montessori materials designed for learning to write and form words — the Metal Insets, Sandpaper Letters, and Moveable Alphabet — the child has already had exposure to the sounds of the written word. “Indeed, writing prepares the child to interpret mechanically the union of letter sounds of which the written word is composed.” (Montessori, p. 297) Reading, however, is more than mechanics. It requires fluency and comprehension. The question, then, is how do we keep the enthusiasm of early readers as we move from mechanics to fluency? The Montessori environmen...

“The child has his own laws of development, and if we want to help him grow, it is a question of following these, and not of imposing ourselves upon him.” – Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p. 162 Around the age of two, the child begins to make great effort physically, mentally, and spiritually. He is doing more than imitating adults. By his actions, he is building the person he is to become. When we intervene, or disrupt, his actions, we are directly interfering with his development. Montessori says that “if his cycle of activity be interrupted, the results are a deviation of personality, aimlessness, and loss of interest.” (Montessori, p. 160) Studying the Works of Montessori - The Absorbent Mind, Chapter 15: Development and Imitation For example, children, says Montessori, need to walk. Walking develops their leg muscles and coordination. It is instinctual to walk and explore both new and familiar places. Unlike adults, children don’t take walks to get places; they walk for th...

“If writing serves to correct, or rather, to direct and perfect the mechanism of speech in the child, reading assists in the development of ideas and language. In brief, writing helps a child physiologically and reading helps him socially.” — Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child , p. 230. In 1995, a study was done in by the UK Office for Standards in Education that concluded that girls always out-performed boys by a considerable margin when it came to reading. (Coles & Hall, 2002) The authors, Coles and Hall went on to say that it is now widely accepted that boys have more difficulty with basic literacy than girls. The study also found that girls read more fiction than boys and that girls view reading more positively than boys (59.2% vs. 47.1%). (Coles & Hall, 2002) Gender and Literacy Another study cited by Coles and Hall, called The Children’s Reading Choices Project (1994), compared and quantified children’s reading choices by gender over a period of 25 years. This s...

Therefore, it is clear that we must not carry the child about, but let him walk, and if his hand wishes to work, we must provide him with things on which he can exercise an intelligent activity. —Maria Montessori The Absorbent Mind, p. 155 The Absorbent Mind, Chapter 14: Intelligence and the Hand Newborns are weighed, measured, and compared against developmental milestones. While not all children develop at exactly the same rate, there are general guidelines and norms for development. Growth and mobility, such as when a child rolls over, sits, crawls, stands, and walks, are all duly recorded and noted for discrepancies in development. These are the exciting milestones of mobility. Montessori tells us that while these are important, it is the work of the hand that is “in direct connection with man’s soul.” (Montessori, 1964) Mobility requires balance. Controlling one’s balance is a difficult skill that takes months of practice and years of refinement, with the main purpose being to tran...

“To have a vision of the cosmic plan, in which every form of life depends on directed movements which have effects beyond their conscious aim, is to understand the child’s work and be able to guide it better.” – Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind , p. 147. “It is high time that movement came to be regarded from a new point of view in educational theory.” (Montessori, p. 136) Those words are as true today as they were when Maria Montessori first said them. What parent doesn’t dread the parent conference where they know that will hear “Johnny cannot sit in his seat”? What new teacher, who after dreaming of neat rows of desks filled with silent, attentive students, doesn’t find himself at a loss when he learns that the children know multiple ways of sitting in chairs and that the simple act of opening a textbook can cause a whole class to start talking? In her article “What schools can do to help boys succeed,” Christina Hoff Sommers states that many people feel children need to sit sti...

A few weeks ago, my friend Katherine Brekke invited me to attend an Usborne book fair she was hosting at a local Montessori school. Usborne is a children’s book publisher that is known worldwide, and it is the leading independent children’s book publisher in the UK. At the book fair, I saw several Montessori lower-elementary students with pencils and clipboards in hand as they busily made wish lists. In typical Montessori fashion, the students were very serious about the choices they were making, asking pertinent questions about content as well as asking Katherine for her recommendations. When their shopping time was over, the students politely thanked Katherine for her time and assured her that their parents would be back for parent night that evening. As I watched the students shop, I couldn’t help thumbing through the books myself. I have a young niece and nephew, and I enjoyed looking at the books with them in mind. As I browsed through the books, I couldn’t help but notice that se...

“…the child’s sensitiveness is greater than anything we can imagine.” – Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind , p. 131 There is an old English nursery rhyme that says, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” However, when I reflect back on times of pain or trauma in my life they were not due to physical distress, but to mental and emotional attacks. At times of emotional distress, I can remember such vivid details, including what I was wearing, doing, and thinking. And if I am not careful, I can get caught up in the negativity all over again. Dr. Montessori understood how the mind stores and remembers the impressions that emotions leave behind and the impact this has on very young children. “It is that both the impressions the child’s mind receives, and the emotional consequences they provoke, tend to remain permanently registered in it.” She likens the impact of emotions as leaving an imprint on the child like the “mark of on a photographic plate…which app...