Montessori Academy

To answer a common question: Why Stay?

A child who transfers from Montessori to a traditional kindergarten program will probably miss out on a great deal of learning that normally occurs during this crucial year. The kindergarten year is a critical component of the three-year Early Childhood Montessori program. This is the year when children's earlier experiences are internalized and reinforced. When they leave Montessori before kindergarten, many of their earlier learning experiences may be lost because they are not reinforced or commonly understood.

To answer a common question: Why Stay?

A child who transfers from Montessori to a traditional kindergarten program will probably miss out on a great deal of learning that normally occurs during this crucial year. The kindergarten year is a critical component of the three-year Early Childhood Montessori program. This is the year when children's earlier experiences are internalized and reinforced. When they leave Montessori before kindergarten, many of their earlier learning experiences may be lost because they are not reinforced or commonly understood.

Five-year-olds are normally the leaders and role models in the Primary Montessori classroom. They help set the tone and serve as an example of appropriate behavior for the younger children. They often help the younger children with their work, actually teaching lessons or correcting errors. One important difference between what Montessori offers the five year-old and what is offered by many of today's kindergarten programs has to do with how it helps the young child to learn how to learn.

A great deal of research shows that quite often students in traditional programs don't really understand most of what they are being taught. Psychologist Howard Gardner, goes so far as to suggest hat, "Many schools have fallen into a pattern of giving kids exercises and drills that result in their getting answers on tests that look like understanding.” Montessori is focused on teaching for understanding. In a primary classroom, three and four-year olds work with the concrete Montessori learning materials, gradually forming a mental picture of concepts, such as: How big is a thousand? How many hundreds make up a thousand? and What is really going on when we borrow or carry numbers in mathematical operations?

Research is very clear that this is how young children learn best, observing and manipulating their environment. The Montessori materials give children a concrete sensorial impression of an abstract concept, such as long division, that is the potential foundation for a lifetime of understanding.

Montessori gives children a foundation for abstract understanding, but the process is an1'thing but complete as they begin kindergarten. Two-, three-, and four-year-olds absorb impressions from the world around them like sponges. Their learning is generally unconscious. Five-year-olds are beginning to reflect upon the world. They pay closer attention, notice more details, ask more questions, and begin to explain the world in their own terms. The kindergarten year is a time when the child begins to integrate everything she learned in the first few years.

When children do not have the opportunity to complete their kindergarten year in Montessori, they miss out on experiences that are rarely duplicated in other types of schools, and they also miss the opportunity to experience playing the leadership role which gives the five-year-old the sense or autonomy and self-confidence.

Yours in Love,

Ms. Monica