Montessori Preschool Archives

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How to help your four-year-old transition into Montessori

Some parents who discover Montessori when their child is four years old are concerned about joining the mixed-age primary room mid-stream. “Will my child be playing catch-up? Some of the other four-year-olds are already reading ”, you might wonder. “I’ve just learned about Montessori, and I see how wonderful this environment could be for my child. She’s already four, though. Did we miss the boat?”

The short answer: Four is not too late! We’ve seen many four-year-olds blossom in our schools, just taking off in their personal development after joining our classrooms, and your child can, too.

It is true that younger is better when it comes to joining a Montessori program. Starting as a toddler or a young three-year-old gives children the best opportunity to benefit from the enriched, carefully prepared classroom environment. As Montessori educators, we understand that the time between birth and age six is the most critical in a human being’s development. During this stage of growth, children go through rapid changes and develop the most important aspects of their personality and intellect.

Dr. Maria Montessori discovered that much of this change occurs through active experiences children have with their environment — at home, outside, or at school. Children between the ages of three and six go through what Dr. Montessori called “sensitive periods,” periods where they are naturally primed to absorb skills and knowledge in a wide range of areas. During these sensitive periods children can, for example, effortlessly acquire language skills, develop what is now called “executive function skills”(such as sustaining concentration, learning self-control, and strengthen their working memory), learn to interact graciously with others, and refine all their senses.

While some of these sensitive periods begin at birth, four-year-old children are still in the midst of this amazing time. We regularly see four-year-olds join our class and become drawn to the materials on our shelves; they quickly begin “working” and become acclimated to their new environment. With the right support at home and at school, you’ll be surprised by how much joy both you and your child will get from his Montessori experience!

How to help your four-year-old transition joyfully into the Montessori environment

1. Enroll your child for five full days per week

By the time your child reaches four and is no longer napping, she is ready to attend school for five full days per week. A child who attends school for five days each week has the greatest opportunity for consistent spontaneous learning and will feel safe and relaxed in the classroom. The full day schedule (8:30 am to 3:00 pm) also allows the child to have more time to work through the materials during the morning and afternoon work cycles, and to receive many lessons from her teacher.

This consistent time is especially important for your four-year-old who is new to Montessori. Dr. Montessori observed that many issues that children struggle with, from temper tantrums to uncoordinated movement, from disobedience to physical aggression, disappeared when children are allowed freedom in an environment suited to their needs. Often, a child would find some activity that spoke to him, become immersed in it, and repeat it over and over again. Once a child connected to an engaging activity, he became happier, more curious to explore more learning materials in class, and even became kinder and more benevolent to his peers.

For an older child, this process may take some time; he may need to wander, try different activities, and observe his peers, before he discovers something that would like to work with. By enrolling your child for five full days, you can give him that luxury of time, and help him get the most out of his two Montessori primary years.

2. Be open to keeping your child in Montessori through the 3rd year of Primary

The third year in Montessori Primary (the equivalent of traditional kindergarten) is the year when much of the foundational skill development solidifies, and many children suddenly experience huge growth spurts in writing, reading, math and overall confidence.

Since your child would be joining during the second year of Montessori Primary, it is even more important for him to get to experience the third year. From age four to five, he’ll be working hard on many foundational skills, from fine motor control to concentration, from learning to observe carefully to mastering multi-step processes. If you keep him in Montessori for only one year, he’ll never get to experience the astounding mastery he will attain from his hard work. He’ll likely be just at the cusp of reading, just about ready to tackle the fun advanced math materials, and eager to move from being the rookie to becoming a classroom leader.

Parents are often amazed at what they see during the kindergarten year. Please do consider giving your child this experience! While we do not, of course, require you to sign on for two years now, we do want to caution you against viewing Montessori as a one-year, pre-k experience aimed at getting your child ready for traditional kindergarten. That’s not how Montessori works, and we wouldn’t want you to sign on with wrong expectations!

3. Learn about Montessori

The best way to help your child thrive in a Montessori environment is to better understand Montessori yourself. We make this easy for you: When your child joins our program, you’ll receive eight short, one-page handouts explaining key aspects of Montessori, and suggesting simple ways you can align what you do at home with what your child experiences at school. Throughout the school year, we offer Parent Education Events, where we discuss a wide range of topics: from how to support independence to learning math in preschool. Our blog also offers plenty of helpful articles. Your child’s teacher is also a great resource: Our trained head teachers are available via email or in person after school to answer all kinds of Montessori-related questions you may have and to help you understand how you can best support your child.

4. Support independence at home

“Never help the child do something that he thinks he can do for himself” — this is one of Dr. Montessori’s most famous quotes! Our classrooms and activities are set up so your four-year-old child will quickly learn to take care of his own needs such as getting dressed without help, pouring his own drink, and preparing snacks. Children love this new-found independence, and you can help your child feel just as empowered at home. Here is a blog post that describes some simple changes you can make to support your child’s budding independence at home.

5. Don’t compare your child with other children in the classroom

One of the beauties of Montessori is the profound respect for the individuality we give each child. Montessori teachers do not compare their students with each other. We know that your four-year-old may need some time to get used to his new school, and that it would not help at all to compare him to other four-year-olds who had started before him. Each Montessori teacher allows her students to develop at their own pace, and she trusts that the Montessori classroom will enable her students to reach their individual potential at their own unique pace.

We encourage you to take the same long-term perspective: Be patient and do not rush your child. Don’t put performance pressure on her by comparing her, even subtly, to the other children in the class. Yes, it can be hard to see other four-year-olds reading, while your new Montessori child may be preparing snack or working with the color tablets instead. Just know that by stepping back and letting her discover and explore her surroundings, you are enabling her to do very important foundational work. Once she’s ready, she may just surprise you with how quickly she “explodes” into writing and reading!

6. Do not introduce other academics at home

With today’s competitive environment, it’s easy to feel that your four-year-old needs to learn her letters or start to work on addition facts. Some parents become anxious and to want to accelerate their child’s learning by providing extra academics. Often, well-meaning, conscientious parents buy workbooks for their children to complete or enroll their preschoolers in structured academic programs, such as Kumon. We strongly advise against this!

Trust that your child’s teacher is introducing your child to academic skills that are developmentally appropriate for her. Support what your child is doing at school and do not introduce other academics at home that are contrary to what your child is learning at school. Enrolling in Kumon, making children complete worksheets, teaching letter names, writing letters and counting on fingers will only confuse your child! If you want to do more to foster literacy, this blog post provides some Montessori-consistent ideas you can follow at home.

7. Read, read, read at home

If you want to support your child’s academic development, the best way to do this is to read with your child. Read a lot! Read a variety of books, discuss what you read, ask her questions about what you’ve read, follow along with your finger under text as you read, and explain vocabulary. That way, when she does finally master her letter sounds, she’ll be able to move along much faster. Find suggestions for setting up an environment that fosters literacy here, and view our thoughts on selecting books (and actual book lists), in this blog post.

We hope these points helped you understand how giving your child a Montessori education is a true gift that will last her a lifetime, and that with your enthusiastic support, your four-year-old will thrive in her new Montessori environment.

Taking the Anxiety out of Starting Preschool

Starting preschool for the first time, or transferring to a new preschool environment, is an exciting time, but often also an anxious one. Many parents are concerned about how their child will handle this big transition. “Will he cry when I drop him off?” “Will he be ok when I leave him?” “Will he be so sad and upset that he disrupts class?” “Will someone comfort him?” “Will he make friends?” These are the questions you rightly ask yourself as a parent. Every year, our team welcomes many new children to our preschool programs. Here are three key lessons we have learned about easing transitions:

Separation anxiety is NORMAL. In fact, we expect children to be upset, and we are prepared for different children to deal with their anxiety differently.
Easing separation anxiety happens both inside and outside the preschool classroom. Our teachers take pride in being proactive in helping your child adjust by connecting him to his new preschool environment and to the people who will care for him every day at school. Beyond that, LePort Schools offers many opportunities for you to connect with our community of families and staff.
You can make a big difference. There are a lot of things you can do to help get your child and yourself ready.

You can learn more about each of these lessons by reading this handout, as well as by watching our video about easing transitions. When my daughter first started preschool three years ago at age 2 ½, she, much to my surprise, had a difficult time adjusting. She had always been a very outgoing child, eager to meet new people, chatty and social. She’d been with a nanny while I worked and had several weekly play dates with different children. She had also attended a mommy & me preschool program, as well as several other group toddler activities. Still, starting preschool was surprisingly difficult: she was fine for the first two or three days, then she became increasingly clingy, crying at drop-off and being visibly sad at school for several weeks. We tried a number of things. She’s now super excited about school, and has made many friends. It’s hard to even imagine the initial struggles we had to overcome! What made the difference? Frankly, there’s no silver bullet. It helps to have caring teachers and a good process in the preschool classroom (see the handout for more on that.) As a mom, here are some things I did which I think helped my daughter manage this challenging transition:

- Prepare by reading together. The handout provides a list of good books on transitions and separation anxiety: pick one or two you think will resonate with your little one and read them both before and during the initial few weeks at preschool. My daughter loved “Llama Llama Misses Mama” and we shared it together many times. Reading this story helped her see that it’s ok to be sad – and that preschool can become fun, even if it isn’t at first.
- Develop a fun, short good-bye routine. An experienced nanny suggested that my daughter may want to gently “push me out of the door”, to take an active role in separating. And sure enough: initially somewhat reluctantly, and then with great gusto, I got kicked out of school! We also came up with an ever-longer series of fun rhymes, from “bye-bye butterfly” to “see you soon, raccoon.” Make suggestions if your child is younger; offer some choices for an older child. Then try to practice this routine, even before the first day of preschool, to have something familiar to ease the transition to the new environment.

Build a community. After my daughter struggled for several weeks at her first preschool, one of the teachers finally suggested we schedule play dates with 1-2 other children. We did – and it made a huge difference! While a group of 10 children may be overwhelming, some one-on-one time (at home or in another familiar environment) can really help kick-start closeness between two little people. When my daughter transitioned to her current Montessori preschool a year later, we set up play dates right away. We also invited some families with their children to a casual potluck at our house. Both these efforts made a huge difference, and the transition was much smoother. Whether you organize an outing to a park with several families, or just a play date at home, make sure to take advantage of your child’s class directory, which you will receive by mid-September from LePort, to help your child connect with her classmates right from the start.

I hope that these anecdotes and materials help your family manage any upcoming transition to preschool, whether at LePort or elsewhere. We hope we’ll get the opportunity to welcome your child to LePort Schools at some point in the future and to work with you to help all of you have a great start at our school.

How do you develop social skills in preschool?

For many parents, “socialization” is one of the most important goals of sending their children to preschool. But what exactly do we mean by socialization? And what preschool environment helps children learn good social skills, rather than pick up bad ones?

As a parent, you are right to be concerned about socialization. There is evidence that the wrong preschool environment can actually be detrimental to social skill development, causing children to become stressed out by too much, too complex peer interaction.

It turns out that just exposing your child to interactions with peers in preschool is not a magic bullet to develop social skills. In fact, same-age peers, left to their own devices, are not good teachers. As Gwen Dewar, a biological anthropologist, explains:

You do need people to learn people skills. The question is–which people? Preschoolers need to learn empathy, … patience, emotional self-control, social etiquette, … and an upbeat, constructive attitude for dealing with social problems.

These lessons can’t be learned through peer contact alone. Preschools are populated with impulsive, socially incompetent little people who are prone to sudden fits of rage or despair. These little guys have difficulty controlling their emotions, and they are ignorant of the social niceties.

Yes, preschoolers can offer each other important social experiences. But their developmental status makes them unreliable as social tutors. A child who copies other children may pick up good habits–but she may also pick up bad ones.

Gwen Dewar

That’s why, in our view, helping a child develop social skills in preschool needs to be approached as thoughtfully and deliberately as teaching him reading or math. That’s why social skill development is purposefully integrated into every aspect of our Montessori preschool classrooms. It is woven into the fabric of what we do, from morning greeting routines to the rules for who can work with a material and when; from the way a preschool teacher models lunch-time manners to the way we guide students to sit attentively during circle time.

Developing strong social skills, to us, means appreciating the value other people bring to our lives, dealing with peers and adults fairly (both one-on-one and in group settings), developing the grace and courtesy skills necessary for mature interaction, and developing a basic benevolent attitude towards people.

For this newsletter, we want to highlight two specific areas of social skills learning which happen in our preschool classrooms, “Grace and Courtesy” skills, and social behavior in the classroom.

1. “Grace and Courtesy.”
  This Montessori term refers to a number of specific lessons, large and small, which we give to our preschool students to help them interact maturely and politely with each other and the adults in their world. Grace and Courtesy lessons cover more than just manners. They equip our young charges with the tools they need to grease the wheels of social interaction. We explicitly show preschool children how to interact through modeled lessons, as well as through our own general example, and we encourage children to practice these skills daily. For example:
  - Greeting someone–by shaking hands and saying “good morning,” while ensuring proper eye contact.
  - Requesting help constructively–by approaching a teacher, gently making her aware of one’s presence, then waiting patiently until she has completed her current task and is able to respond. Students apply the same lesson when asking more experienced peers for help. They also learn how to politely say “no” when they are asked for help and cannot (or may not want to) give help at that time.
  - Giving and receiving compliments–how to notice something well done or a nice behavior, and appropriately compliment the doer; how to graciously receive and respond to compliments.
  - Apologizing appropriately–learning to acknowledge a mistake or a slip in behavior, and to sincerely apologize and make amends to young friends and teachers.
  - Expressing emotions using words–from the toddler years onward, we teach our students to identify and name their emotions, so they can communicate and deal with their feelings without lashing out at others.
  - Table manners–from chewing with one’s mouth closed, to politely asking for seconds at snack time; from answering “yes, thank you” or “no, thank you” when offered a snack, to handling utensils appropriately: nothing that happens at snack or lunch time goes unobserved. Our teachers are constantly on the lookout for the opportunity to impart new skills to our students.
2. Social Behavior in the Classroom.Imagine the potential for chaos in a preschool classroom in which up to 24 young children work together simultaneously on numerous diverse activities, each child allowed substantial freedom of movement. This chaos simply does not exist in our Montessori preschool rooms. This is because preschool children learn to follow certain conventions and rules of conduct. Modeling these group and classroom behaviors is an important aspect of a teacher’s role, especially early in the school year. It is also a skill set that is essential to your child’s success, both in further schooling and in life. Whether it is a 7-year-old who needs to raise his hand in a group discussion in a classroom, or a 20-year-old who needs to know how to speak up appropriately during a work discussion, learning to interact maturely in a group setting is a critical life lesson.
  - Circle Time.
    While the majority of the work in a Montessori preschool classroom happens individually or in small groups, we incorporate some whole class activities, such as singing, joint read aloud and perhaps reviewing the calendar each day.During these group times, we teach our preschool students how to sit cross-legged in a circle with their hands in their laps, so everybody can see and hear the teacher, without being disrupted by a neighbor moving about. We show them how to actively watch a demonstration, and how to attentively listen to the words of others, so they can learn together. We show them how to raise their hands and wait to be called upon before speaking, showing their respect for their peers, and ensuring that they will be heard when it is their time to talk.
    
    While it may seem odd at first to see children follow such specific instructions, it is easiest for preschoolers to learn social rules in a simplified, straight-forward manner. Clear rules also make it easier to ensure that each child can participate: a shy child who might not speak up or find a voice in a free-for-all environment, will, over time, learn that he can speak up and will be heard in our carefully designed social environment.
  - Individual Work Time.
    During the bulk of our preschool day, children freely choose what to work on, and who to work with. All social interactions during these times are voluntary: no child is forced to play with others, to share a toy, or to help a peer. Instead, we set up clear rules to foster respectful, mature, genuinely inclusive interactions, rules which ensure each child’s work, personal space and autonomy are respected by his peers. For example:
    - A work need not be shared. In contrast to many preschools, where “sharing” may be a requirement, our approach is different. Once a child picks an activity from a shelf, he is free to work with it for as long as he wants. Another child may ask to join, and he is free to agree or, politely, decline this request. (If he declines inappropriately, he is gently encouraged to reconsider.) Only when the activity is placed back on its shelf may the next child take it. This clear rule, that only material that is on the shelves is available to be chosen, prevents much of the stress-inducing fighting over toys so typically seen in groups of young children–fighting that is absent from our preschool classrooms.
    - Work spaces must be respected. One of the first lessons our preschool students learn is to walk around the mats on the floor, where their friends have put out their work. We also show and remind our students to keep their hands to themselves, and not to touch another student’s body or activities without first asking for permission. This is an expression of respect, for the value of the work each child is doing, and for the general concept that a person’s personal space is not to be entered without permission.
    - Voices must be quiet, indoor voices. In our preschool classrooms, children are free to talk with each other during their work period. In fact, older preschool children often like to work with friends. To ensure everybody can work, we teach them to speak quietly, and to get up and move across the room, if they want to interact with somebody who is not right next to them, rather than calling to them.
    Because social interaction in a Montessori preschool classroom is voluntary, and because the children are encouraged to act toward each other with “grace and courtesy,” a Montessori preschool classroom is the embodiment of a benevolent and civilized social environment. Quoting Dr. Montessori:
    
    As visitors to the Children’s House have noted, [the children] seemed to be “little men” or as others have described them, “senators in session.”
    
    The children are so engrossed in their work that they never quarrel over the objects. If anyone does something extraordinary, he finds someone who will admire and be delighted with his work. No heart bleeds at the good of others; the success of each is the joy and wonder of the rest. And this often creates eager imitators. All seem to be happy and satisfied with doing what they can. The activities of others do not arouse their envy or painful rivalry.
    
    …A little child of three works peacefully alongside a boy of seven and is as contented with his own work as he is about the fact that he is shorter and does not have to envy the older boy’s height…
    
    All this might give the impression that these children are excessively repressed [but] for the fact that they are utterly lacking in timidity. Their bright eyes, gay and disarming countenances, and their readiness in inviting others to observe their work . . . make us realize we are in the presence of individuals who are masters of their own homes.
    
    Dr. Maria Montessori

It is this benevolent, positive interaction among happy individuals that we seek to foster in our Montessori preschool classrooms, and which we offer to your child, should you choose to enroll him at LePort.

What Sets LePort Montessori Apart From Other Montessori Schools?

If you are reading this, you may be looking for a preschool–and may be curious about whether Montessori is a preschool education that makes sense for your family.

As you research Montessori, it is important to know that Montessori isn’t a trademarked term, nor a franchised system, not even a national brand you can trust. Unfortunately, it’s not true that every Montessori preschool delivers on the promise that Montessori offers. As education-journalist Peg Tyre correctly states:

A school can call itself a Montessori program, and many do, without knowing a single thing about the educational philosophy developed by Dr. Maria Montessori.

Peg Tyre

In many major metropolitan areas (think Orange County, LA, or San Diego), you have many Montessori preschools to choose from. (The last time we counted, there were over two dozen Montessori preschools in our home market of Orange County alone, and we probably missed some!) If you’ve done your research and agree that the Montessori method is right for your child, the next step is choosing one of those preschools.

So what do you look for when you tour different Montessori preschools? What differentiates an authentic preschool program that takes the methodology seriously, from one that may be more interested in utilizing the Montessori name as a means of attracting parents, but does not really strive to apply the method in the classroom and preschool community?

Or, put from our perspective, why do we think you should choose one of LePort’s Montessori preschools?

A few years ago, I was in your shoes: when my daughter was about 2 years old, I toured a handful of Montessori preschools in Oakland, CA, where I lived at the time, and enrolled her in what I thought was a good program, conveniently located near our home. Unfortunately, as I educated myself about Montessori and joined the LePort leadership team, I discovered that while the school was a nice, friendly preschool, they were not serious about applying Maria Montessori’s educational principles. (They also fell woefully short on customer service to me, a working parent.) After more research, and much soul-searching, we moved her to another, better Montessori preschool, where my daughter and son experienced a good bilingual Montessori education. (We later moved to Orange County, where both of my children now attend our LePort Montessori elementary school program.)

Now, when friends ask me for a cheat-sheet for touring Montessori preschools, here’s what I tell them to look for:

1. Head teachers who have completed a year-long, intensive Montessori training program, preferably from an AMI training center. At LePort Montessori, our preschool head teachers typically have a Bachelor’s degree, and a credential from AMI, the Association Montessori Internationale, which is the original training organization founded over 60 years ago by Dr. Maria Montessori. While there are other good training programs we occasionally hire from (most are MACTE accredited), we have found that AMI consistently selects highly-motivated and skilled candidates, and provides them with the most rigorous training possible. Be aware that some schools conduct quick “in-house-trainings”, sometimes lasting only a few weeks, and that some teachers at other schools have learned their skills from books or online-only self-study curricula. Also ask about teacher experience and training: ideally, teachers new to Montessori have experienced mentors to work with and learn from, before taking over their own classrooms!
2. Mixed-age preschool classrooms, which combine 3- to 6-year-olds into a family-like community. Many so-called Montessori preschools have succumbed to the traditional preschool approach of splitting children into the “Twos”, “Threes” and so on, or are separating out Kindergarten-aged children into separate groups. A mixed age group is essential to a real Montessori preschool program: it allows children to learn at their own pace, to learn from older peers and become mentors in turn, and to build a strong bond with a teacher, who gets to know a child closely over the three years she’s in her preschool class, and can guide her as an individual. The final year–the Kindergarten year that the child starts when he has turned five–is a critical, cashing-in year, and allowing children to complete the full three-year-cycle in one classroom community is critical to reap the tremendous benefits from Kindergarten in Montessori.
3. Extended, uninterrupted, child-led work periods, preferably 2-3 hours in length, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Montessori is about enabling the child to follow his own interests, to learn at his own pace and on his own schedule. A good Montessori classroom offers him plenty of space and time to explore what interests him, in contrast to the adult-led, group-focused programs common in typical preschools.
4. A high-quality, clean, bright, peaceful preschool classroom environment, equipped with a full range of Montessori materials.It should go without saying that a child’s preschool environment should be clean, bright and beautiful, but unfortunately, we’ve seen a lot of clutter and messiness at some preschools we’ve visited. Equipping a school with a full set of Montessori materials is not cheap (we budget about $20,000 for materials for each preschool room, and regularly invest in improving our programs, such as buying thousands of dollars in new books for our phonetic reading program!), but it is essential to ensuring the children get the most out of their Montessori preschool experience.
5. A mature school organization, with well-honed hiring and teacher-training programs, and a strong leadership team. Finding great teachers is a learned skill, as is training them. Our schools have many head-teachers who have been with us for years. When we hire new teachers, we typically give them the opportunity to co-teach with an expert for several months to a year or two, so they can give your child the best instruction when they take over his classroom. Several part-time and full-time Montessori experts at all levels–from infants to middle school–and a full-time Head of School at each school, help us ensure that every classroom consistently delivers the highest quality experience for our students. Plus, they enable us to put on a lot of Parent Information Events and social get-togethers, which help you to be a part of making your child’s education the best it can be, and finding a community of like-minded parents, thus creating your own chosen village for raising your child.

A professional administration that understands how important convenience and customer service are to you as a busy parent. While your primary concern should rightly be your child’s experience, a good preschool also looks out for you as a parent. Nothing is more annoying than holiday schedules that leave you scrambling to find alternate child care, or not knowing what your child does at preschool day-to-day, or not being able to reach your teacher or the preschool staff when you have an urgent question. We take pride in running LePort to high standards in customer service, and always welcome parent feedback that helps us improve.

We hope that you are making progress in your preschool research, and we’d be thrilled if after careful consideration, you chose LePort Montessori as the preschool for your child.

Why Choose a Montessori Preschool

What if you could send your child to a preschool that follows methods which align with the latest, cutting-edge insights from neuroscience, and which have been proven for over 100 years, in thousands of preschools?

Such a combination is possible, and accessible to your child!

Authentic Montessori preschools, like LePort, educate your child in a carefully prepared environment, under the guidance of teachers trained to diligently follow the approach first developed by Dr. Maria Montessori over 100 years ago, based on her careful field study of how preschool children actually learn. Now, a century later, modern science is validating at a brain-cell level and in large-scale studies what Dr. Montessori observed as a field scientist over a century ago.

Unfortunately, Montessori is not widely known today, despite the compelling evidence that it works wonders for young children, and despite the fact that many famous people, such as Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google, credit their Montessori education with helping them become the innovative, successful people they are.

Trevor Eissler, a jet pilot turned Montessori advocate and author of the book Montessori Madness! A Parent to Parent Argument for Montessori Education, describes how he discovered Montessori:

It just so happened that during the several months that my wife and I were discussing [preschool] options, a new friend of ours asked my wife if we had considered the Montessori school her daughter attended. We had not. Did we know anything about Montessori she asked? We did not. Had we heard of Montessori? Nope.

Trevor Eissler

You may be in a similar position, and we recommend the same next step Mr. Eissler took: come and observe in a Montessori preschool classroom. A Montessori preschool education is so revolutionary that you have to see it to believe it. Recalls Mr. Eissler:

I remember setting foot in that Montessori classroom. I sat down on a chair–a very, very small chair–near the door. I had just stepped into someone’s living room. Or was it a science laboratory? Or maybe an office building? I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly was different at first, but this was unlike any classroom I had ever seen. It felt different, too. Peaceful. Purposeful.

Trevor Eissler

Mr. Eissler’s book is an excellent introduction to the Montessori Method of preschool education. He gives a tour of all the aspects that make Montessori unique. In the end, when asked why he chose Montessori, he boils it down to a simple paragraph:

Inside a Montessori classroom, children are laying a foundation for a lifetime of self-fulfillment. They learn to choose a project, work on it to completion, and reap the internal rewards that come with newfound knowledge and a job well done. They are not doing work for the good of a political system, a nation state, or a parent; nor to increase the gross domestic product, compete with the Chinese, or get a good report card. The children are learning to control the entire creative, planning, productive and evaluative processes from start to finish. They are learning to be fulfillment junkies. […]

The snowball effect of self-fulfillment is a gift that keeps on giving. Children in Montessori schools experience this process repeatedly every day. The design of the educational method strengthens the natural bond between positive feelings and learning.

Trevor Eissler

Interested in learning more about Montessori preschool? Here are a few easy steps you can take:

Call us to set up a tour, if you haven’t already done so. If you are interested in spending some time observing in a preschool classroom, do let us know when you call, and we’d be happy to set that up for you, too.
Read more about the Montessori Method on our web site, where we explain the overall Montessori philosophy, and walk you through the main preschool classroom areas, from “Practical Life” to the “Sensorial Exercises”, from “Language” to “Mathematics” and “Cultural Subjects.”

We hope you are intrigued, and we look forward to answering your questions, and to hopefully welcoming your family to our Montessori preschool.

Be Choosy: Not All Preschools Are Created Equal

Deciding on a preschool for your child is one of the most important decisions you’ll make as a parent. Choosing a preschool is certainly more important than buying a car or even a house: the environment your child is in during the formative years between three and six can shape his very being. That’s why it is important to research preschools at least as thoroughly as you’d research a new car, or a house you’ll buy.

That’s why we want to encourage you, in the words of Peg Tyre, long-time education journalist, to “be choosy” about the preschool at which you enroll your child. Ms. Tyre’s book, The Good School: How Smart Parents Get Their Kids the Education They Deserve, explains the importance of judging carefully:

When you visit a preschool, it’s hard to see past the endearing and hopeful aspects of nearly any program. Four-year-old human beings–small, active, wide-eyed, and endlessly curious–seem almost by design to fascinate and delight us. To the untrained eye, all but the most troubled programs look like reasonably happy places. What we know, though, is that all preschools are not created equal. There is good data to suggest that our gauzy and trusting perceptions of preschool can hide a troubling reality: there are badly run preschools or badly run classrooms within an otherwise acceptable preschool.

Peg Tyre

She also explains that a label, even one as prestigious as Montessori, doesn’t make a good program: “[A] school can call itself a Montessori program, and many do, without knowing a single thing about the educational philosophy developed by Dr. Maria Montessori.”

At LePort, we know how important the preschool decision is for your family, and we want to do our part to help you be an educated, smart consumer. If you are on our preschool newsletter list, you’ll receive a short email from us every 1-2 weeks, with information we hope will help you make the right preschool decision for your family. (If you don’t find these emails helpful, there’s an “unsubscribe” link at that bottom of each email, so feel free to opt-out at any time!)

To get you started, here are four key areas Ms. Tyre recommends that parents explore in evaluating whether a preschool program will help your child maximize his potential:

1. Will the preschool program ensure your child is actively engaged in learning? Neuroscientists have demonstrated that the right type of environmental stimulation enhances brain activity in children, and may make a permanent impact on mental capacities. You want a preschool that engages your child’s brain.
2. Will the preschool program lay the foundations of literacy? You want a preschool program that enables your child to build “phonemic awareness”, isolate the sounds of language, and to connect them to the letters of the written word. A number of intensive research studies, including the national “Reading Panel”, have concluded unequivocally: “the central building blocks of literacy must be laid down before kindergarten.”

Will the preschool hire highly-educated, smart and caring teachers? Your child’s first teacher is a key influencer of her love for school: she has to be a kind, nurturing positive person who treats your child with respect and caring on not only your child’s good days, but also her bad. She also needs to be intelligent and perceptive, so that she can observe your child and identify how to effectively introduce a wide range of skills. Many preschools hire high-school graduates who have earned only the minimum State-mandated twelve Early Childhood Education Units. Rare exceptions aside, that is simply not enough.
Will the preschool program purposefully develop “executive functioning”? Executive functioning refers to that all-important set of cognitive skills, which enable a child to be able to choose an activity and stick with it to successful completion. Writes Ms. Tyre:

Intellectual ability without self-regulation, it turns out, is like a Porsche with a lawn mower motor. Flashy? You bet. But it’s not going to take you very far. What we used to consider soft skills, like the ability to focus, to drown out distractions, to plan, and to persevere, are starting to seem like bedrock traits for sustained and lasting achievement. And research bears this out: kindergarteners, for example, who show high levels of self-regulation, do better in school than kids who know a lot of letters and numbers or who have a high IQ. Peg Tyre

We encourage you to actively judge LePort Schools by Ms. Tyre’s list of criteria for selecting a preschool. If you haven’t already, call us to schedule a tour. Read about each of our preschool teacher’s qualifications on our web site. Read detailed descriptions about our curriculum, from preschool to middle school. Attend our Parent Education Events and Open Houses, or try-out LePort for your toddler with our Mommy & Me Montessori Program.

At LePort Schools, we want parents who are “choosy”, because they’re the ones who recognize the importance of a good education. We are here to help you learn as much as you need to make the best preschool choice of your child and family.

When to start preschool: why earlier may be better

When is the right time to start your child in preschool?

Often, the answer depends on your personal circumstances: if you have the opportunity to stay home with your child; if you have the time, energy and knowledge to create a stimulating, orderly, Montessori-like environment in your home; and if you are able to enrich your child’s experience with regular excursions out into the world, it may well make sense to delay preschool until your child is around 3 years old.

On the other hand, if your child will be in someone else’s care, it might as well be a quality preschool, rather than merely a safe, fun daycare setting!

Here are a few questions to consider, as you make your daycare decision:

- Will your child be in an environment optimized to meet a toddler’s unique needs? Toddlers are at a prime age for learning, and everything in them is oriented towards this need. Yet all to often, a toddler’s needs for order and exploration are perceived not as natural opportunities for them to grow, but as challenging obstacles for parents and other adults (think tantrums, constant “no’s”, hyper-activity, and toilet training struggles!) Dr. Montessori observed that many of the allegedly abnormal behaviors toddlers exhibit occur because their needs aren’t being met. Toddlers want to be independent, yet our homes make it hard for them to be (think adult-sized sinks, toilets, shelves; adult-paced transitions like getting out of the house or rushing through a grocery store!)Toddlers’ brains are growing, and need mental stimulation just as urgently as nutritious food, yet often, parents, grandparents and daycare providers aren’t educators and don’t have the knowledge to consistently provide optimal mental nutrition for toddlers (think noisy plastic toys, too much stuff in overloaded boxes, TV time, and constant adult-led activity.)
  In contrast, an authentic Montessori toddler program is carefully designed around the child’s needs and offers much more than just daycare. The physical environment is child-sized, with low sinks and toilets, low open shelves with a few, carefully selected activities displayed so children can easily access them. The daily routine is slow-paced, which allows a toddler to do much more for himself: for example, snack time may well take 45 minutes, during which the children set the table, serve themselves, eat with their friends, and clean up afterwards. The activities selected have specific learning objectives. Usually, they are made from wood and other high-quality materials; there are no noisy plastic toys, nor is there ever any TV or video game screen time in a Montessori class! Trained Montessori teachers know just how to simplify the steps of a task so a toddler can understand it and, in fact, do it by himself.

- Who will be the adults your child will model? Toddlers learn by modeling after the adults they interact with. The adult’s approach to childrearing, and her ability to consistently, kindly implement it, matter a lot, especially at this tender age. In a Montessori toddler program, trained teachers consistently follow the Montessori approach. Their aim is to enable your child’s independence; they teach self-care skills (putting on shoes, pouring water, cleaning up spills) rather than merely taking care of your child’s needs (dressing your child, serving drinks in sippy cups, spoon-feeding your child to minimize meal-time messes.) They have a support system that enables them to be calm and patient all day: they have regular breaks to recharge their energy; coverage is available when they are out sick or for them to go on vacation; they have refresher courses and workshops to ensure continuous professional development; and they have colleagues and supervisors available to help them address any situation they encounter.
- Is there a clear educational plan to ensure your child maximizes his potential during a time of rapid brain growth? Toddlers have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn a tremendous amount, effortlessly. Dr. Montessori observed that during these early years, a child’s entire being is molded: his intelligence itself is being formed! A toddler has an urgent need to learn, and a Montessori environment enables him to do so in a deliberate, systematic manner that’s often not possible in a traditional daycare setting.

- - Supporting the sense of order. Young children need their environment to be predictable, orderly. Experience shows that if a child learns at age 2 to place his shoes on a mat upon coming in and to hang up his coat; if he learns to take out an activity, work with it, and replace it on its proper spot on the shelf; if he learns to sweep up crumbs he dropped and wipe clean a table—he will solidify his natural sense of order, and attain good habits that last a life time.
  - Developing an active mind and exploring with all senses. Toddlers love to explore: they are into everything, touching, smelling, tasting the objects around them. A Montessori toddler program enables your child to safely use all his senses to explore: there’s clay to be pounded, oranges to be squeezed and juice to be tasted, songs played together and mystery bags to be explored. We say our students work: their explorations are too important to be labeled as mere play!
  - Language development. Our trained Montessori teachers are deliberate about providing your child with rich language exposure, all day long. For example, we use full sentence, not short commands (“Let’s clean up, so we may come together for a story”, rather than “Clean up! Story time!”) We provide precise vocabulary through daily experiences (“Notice how sour this juice tastes!”, or “Look at how tall this tower is!”), as well as specific games to learn new words, such as matching objects/card games. We even start on phonemic awareness, with 2 ½ or 3-year-olds!

Does the toddler daycare you choose provide a good start for your child’s longer-term educational journey? Even if you aren’t convinced that the daycare choice at 18 months is critical, it’s worth thinking ahead. Quality Montessori preschool programs are in high demand. Often, children need to join as toddlers to be assured of admission to the preschool program! Additionally, Montessori preschool programs require children to be fully toilet independent by age three, and to be able to act independently (take off clothes, wash hands, follow directions…) If you want your child to join a quality preschool, it may well make sense to enroll him as a toddler, rather than opt for a different daycare setting that is closer or less expensive. In the case of LePort Montessori, access to the preschool program also means access to our elementary school Montessori program, which is generally filled from within, as Montessori preschool students seamlessly move up to the 1st grade. Plus, we offer several incentive programs to make it more affordable for families to stay for kindergarten and into elementary, so an early start can pay off financially, too!
What is the cost/value trade-off? There are many home-based daycare options cheaper than Montessori toddler programs: in many places, you can find in-home daycare providers that charge as little as $700 or $900 per month for 2-year-olds. Yet compared to a nanny, a Montessori toddler program can be a steal: one-on-one nanny care typically runs above $2,000 per month for full-time care; and even a 2-way nanny share is often around $1,400 per month, for 9 hours of childcare (with all the drawbacks of having only one childcare provider, who doesn’t get breaks, and may be out for illness or vacation time!) The question you should ask yourself is whether you believe that toddler daycare is a science, demanding a professional, nurturing approach. If you think the answer might be yes, we suggest you evaluate Montessori programs further.

If you need full-time daycare for your child, irrespective of whether or not you can afford a nanny, we believe your child will be best served by the benefits of Montessori toddler program. And even if you need less than full-time daycare, or have the luxury of staying home with your child, enrolling your toddler part-time in Montessori may well be worth it, to maximize his growth during these critical early years.

A True Learning Community: the Mixed-Age Montessori Preschool Classroom

In addition to the unique Montessori materials, one of the first things you notice when you observe a Montessori preschool classroom is the wide range of ages in the class: 3-year-olds work alongside and sometimes with 5- and 6-year olds. Children stay in the same classroom community for a full three years: the traditional kindergarten year is integrated into the 3-year Montessori Primary program.

Often, parents new to Montessori preschool wonder: how will this 3-year-cycle work out for my child? Will my 3-year-old be intimidated by the much larger 6-year-olds? Will my kindergarten-aged child revert back to babyish behavior because she is around younger preschool children? And, maybe most importantly, how can one trained Montessori teacher possibly ensure that 20 or 30 students in her classroom are challenged and engaged, when she has such a wide range of abilities to accommodate?

The Montessori materials are one key factor that enables the 3-year cycle to work. But, in amazing ways, it is the 3-year, mixed-age environment itself that provides an optimal learning environment for all students!

In contrast to most other preschool or school settings, in Montessori preschool, your child will typically stay with the same teacher for three years. This has many benefits:

No annual “getting to know you period.” In most other preschools and elementary schools, a teacher has to get to know a whole new group of 20+ children, each September. She has to assess their academic, motor and social skills. She has to get to know their strengths and weaknesses, discover their temperaments, learn about their home environments, and build relationships, with 20+ children. In contrast, in a Montessori preschool class, only about 1/3 of students are new each September!
The teacher can really get to know each child. Because Montessori teachers have each preschooler for about three years, they can get to know this child well: Is she shy and needs time to warm up? Is he a strong-willed little person who needs very firm limits and immediate consequences? Does she love flowers—or machines? Does he love to tell and write stories, or would he rather work quietly with puzzles? Every detail that a Montessori teacher knows about a child is an insight that helps her to tailor the curriculum to that child.
Teachers as partners to parents. Over a three-year period, you can build a relationship with your child’s teacher. This means you have a knowledgeable adult at your service who knows your child really well. She is also a professional who spends significant amounts of time with many children of your child’s age, and can be a valuable resource if concerns arise regarding learning or behavior.

And while parents may initially be skeptical of the mixed-age preschool classroom, there are benefits that are not immediately evident:

Older children—and their advanced work—inspire the younger ones. Children who are new to a Montessori preschool class often learn much from the older students. A 3-year-old may observe carefully as a 4-year-old works with the Sandpaper Letters, for example—and he will learn a lot in the process. One of our teachers reports being stunned when a little friend of 3½ years knew all the letters on the initial presentation: she had observed her older friend’s lessons and work, and absorbed all that knowledge! Just as importantly, the younger students desperately want to be as capable as the older students they adore. This is a great motivation for them to master the early materials: they know that there is a progression of lessons, and that in order to do the exciting Golden Bead work, for example, they have to first master their numbers to 10!
An ability to be the youngest and the oldest child, in turn. Most children have a fixed role in life: the big sister, the little brother, etc. In a Montessori environment, each gets a chance to have all roles: big sisters suddenly are the youngest when they arrive, and are able to find older friends as role models and mentors. Little brothers who complete the three-year-cycle finally get to be the leaders, to be admired by and to mentor their younger peers. This exposure to different roles fosters the astounding kindness and nurturing nature about which parents and others so frequently remark when they observe our classrooms or encounter Montessori children in the world!
A benevolent, non-competitive, growth-focused community. In a typical single-age setting, where all children do the same thing at the same time, it’s easy for children to start comparing themselves to others, rather than to focus on getting better themselves. They think, “I can read more than Susi,” instead of “now I can read books with phonograms: I’ve learned a lot since the summer.” In the Montessori preschool class, in contrast, each child works independently, at his level. The result? A benevolent community of young learners, each focused on growing, and none jealous of the others’ achievements nor frustrated by an inability to keep up with more advanced peers.

A tremendous opportunity to develop real confidence and leadership for those children who stay for the entire 3-year-cycle. Click here to read more about the significant non-cognitive benefits earned by those children who stay for the critical 3rd year of the 3-year-cycle.

The hidden benefits of your child’s third year in Montessori preschool

The third year in Montessori preschool has sometimes been called the cashing in year or the leap year. It’s the time when students put together all the different skills they have indirectly and directly prepared for throughout their Montessori toddler and preschool years.

Academically, the third year is often a flurry of activity. If you are the parent of a 3rd year student, you may already have noticed some of the interesting new work your child brings home: booklets of math facts practice; Books to Remember books to read to you; sentences cut into little pieces for analysis, and map shapes traced and labeled.

Students also tackle progressively longer tasks: they might spend multiple days creating booklets of different leaf shapes carefully colored and labeled; they might illustrate and author multi-sentence stories, or complete math problems using more abstract materials such as the Small Bead Frame.

In the third year of Primary, a typical Montessori preschool student achieves cognitive growth far above grade level. He goes from walking to leaping, as a Montessori mother put it. And yet, as impressive as this academic achievement is, the most important benefits of the third year in Montessori preschool may well lie elsewhere.

Over the past decade, researchers have come to question the role that cognitive skills by themselves play in a child’s success in school and life. While academics matter greatly, some researchers now say that

[w]hat matters most in a child’s development … is not how much information we can stuff into her brain in the first few years of life. What matters, instead, is whether we are able to help her develop a very different set of qualities, a list that includes persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence. Economists refer to these as noncognitive skills, psychologists call them personality traits, and the rest of us often think of them as character. Wall Street Journal

The third year in Montessori preschool is a time when children mature in their personality traits or character. It’s the time when students become self-possessed learners, confident in their abilities. It’s where they emerge as leaders, benevolently sharing their skills with their younger peers.

After two full years, the Montessori preschool class is a familiar environment to these 5-year-olds. They know the daily routines inside and out; their teachers know them well and can readily work with their strengths and encourage them to take on challenges. They are conscious of being the oldest students in the room, having traveled the road from 3-year-old to 5-year-old.

When my daughter had just started her third year in Montessori preschool, I remember asking her what lessons she had gotten in the past week. She looked at me as though I were out of my mind. “Of course, I didn’t get any lesson this past week. Mom, it’s the first week of school, and my teachers are helping our new friends. I don’t need the teachers to tell me what to do. I just walk around class, pick my work, and do it.”

Third year students may indeed start the year by walking around the room, picking work independently but somewhat impulsively. Over time, their teacher works with them on bigger, more ambitious work, sometimes setting multi-day goals, in preparation for the increased independence and responsibility of Montessori Elementary.

But within this Montessori preschool classroom, when a child struggles a bit with these challenging tasks, she can take a step back, look around the classroom, contemplate the activities on the shelves, and observe the work that younger friends do. She can realize that I know how to do all that!

No, a 6-year-old does not explicitly think this thought. But she knows that at some point, for example, it was challenging for her to form a letter, just like it is now for this 4-year-old friend—and that with hard work, she mastered it. She has come to expect that the tasks she tackles in her Montessori preschool classroom may require persistence and repetition to master. She knows that she’ll make mistakes—spill water or even break a beautiful ceramic bowl—but that these mistakes are okay, and that we can learn from them, move on, and still have fun in the process.

During the second week of school this year, one of our Heads of School shared this story: In one of her larger Montessori preschool classrooms, a 3-year-old girl was working on a Practical Life activity that involved spooning lentils from one bowl into another. Lentils had spilled all over the table, and the little girl looked as though she were about to cry. A 5-year-old boy who had been watching her from nearby then came to her side and helped her. He showed her how to pick up the spilled lentils. He showed her how to hold the spoon level when transferring the lentils, moving slowly, just like his teacher had shown him, two years ago. He stayed by the girl’s side, encouraging her in her work. Then, when she was done, he helped her put the activity away, demonstrating how to roll up the little mat and how to put the whole tray with the materials back properly in its spot on the shelf.

3rd year students in Montessori preschool naturally have many opportunities to become classroom leaders, and usually take them on eagerly. A teacher might ask a 3rd year to help welcome new friends to class or to give lessons to a younger peer. A 6-year-old might spontaneously read to a few younger preschool classmates, or even be asked by the teacher whether he’d like to read a book to the class at group time. Younger Montessori preschoolers naturally search out the 3rd years for help: when a teacher is busy with a lesson, it’s just as easy to ask your friend to help you with a tricky word on a command card or to assist you in tying a bow! And because the 3rd year student is so familiar with his classroom and has learned to value its beauty and order, he’s often the one who takes the initiative to tidy up or water a plant with limp leaves.

While accelerated academics are a great benefit of the third year of the Montessori preschool cycle, realize that your child is acquiring potentially far more powerful assets, whether you call them noncognitive skills, personality traits or character.

What’s the big deal with independence in Montessori preschool?

Montessori preschool and toddler programs emphasize helping children become independent far more than traditional education approaches. Why is that?

According to Dr. Montessori, “If teaching is to be effective with young children, it must assist them to advance on the way to independence.”

Toddlers are naturally eager to learn how to accomplish new things. “Do it myself” might well be the motto for the toddler years! Enabling a toddler to become more independent has benefits, both now and in the long term.

So if independence is vitally important, how do we go about fostering it?

Let’s start by quoting some hard-hitting words from Dr. Montessori:

“We believe that children are like puppets. We wash them and feed them as if they were dolls. We never stop to think that a child who does not act does not know how to act, but he should act, and nature has given him all the means for learning how to act. Our primary duty toward him is to assist him to perform useful acts.” Dr. Maria Montessori

A goal in our classroom is to act as an educator, someone who guides your child toward independence. We do this, in part, by preparing the environment, teaching individual skills step-by-step, slowing down, and embracing error. By following those same concepts in your home, you can support your child as they gain independence.

For example:

Prepare the environment.

Give your child access in the kitchen. Arrange plates and silverware for him on a low open shelf, or in a drawer. Provide a step stool so he can reach the counter to work with you, or place a small table and chair in the kitchen for him to work at.
Organize the family room so he can participate. It’s best to offer low shelves with only a few toys out at a time and a place for each item. That way, he can put his things away, and find them, when he needs them.
Set up his room and bathroom to support his growing independence in dressing and washing up. Look for a high step stool that will enable your child to access the sink. In his room, display a few (3-4 at most) sets of clothing on a low shelf or in shallow baskets. Make sure there is a clothes hamper for him to place dirty clothes in at the end of the day.

Teach individual skills, step-by-step. There are many tasks your child can accomplish on their own, if the time is taken to show them how.

He can set his place at the table. You can make him a placemat with outlines of plate, spoon, fork and cup. Or you can show him one thing at a time.
She can feed herself. Start with finger foods, then introduce spoon and fork. Allow ample time for your 2-year-old to feed herself—and resist the urge to take over!
He can carry dirty dishes into the kitchen. An older toddler can scrape his plate into the trash can, and perhaps even place it in the dishwasher with some coaching.

Slow down. One of the benefits of the Montessori preschool and toddler environment is the abundance of time. We are careful to preserve an unhurried day for our students, so that we can go at a toddler’s pace. If weekdays are just too crazy (we understand!), then set aside an hour or two on the weekend. Spend time together in the kitchen, for example, to jointly prepare a meal.

Embrace error. When toddlers and preschoolers learn, it can get messy. Things can and will get broken; liquids will spill; food will land on the floor. In Montessori preschool, we view all of this as a natural part of learning, not as mistakes. Cleanup is therefore a part of every activity, not something separate from it. The common phrase regarding learning from one’s mistakes is well-known for a reason. We learn our lessons best through trial and error, and that is often accompanied by messes and broken pieces!

Independence is a big deal in Montessori preschool for many reasons. At a very fundamental level, though, the motivation for independence is clear. As Dr. Montessori says, “These words reveal the child’s inner needs: ‘Help me to do it alone.’”

Selecting Early Readers For Your Child

As a parent of a new reader (my daughter is 5½ and will start the 3rd year of Primary this fall), I recently browsed the “early reader” shelves of my local bookstore. As much as I love bookstores—and browsing Amazon after the children are asleep—this particular excursion was not a pleasant experience.

Too many of the early readers available are plainly not suited for children who are just starting to read!

In Montessori Primary, children usually learn to read phonetically quite early. They become proficient at sounding out phonetic words, that is, words that can be decoded using the basic sounds individual letters make. They also learn 2-3 dozen puzzle words or sight words (such as the, was, one, they, to, do, he),words that appear frequently and can’t be decoded.

Following this work, students are introduced to English phonograms: those tricky letter combinations (such as <ch>, <ir>, and <aw>) that make English such a challenging language to read and write. There are more than 40 phonograms in English!

This is a big task for a new reader. It can take many months for a child to master enough phonograms to give her the fluency to tackle regular books. Within the Montessori prepared environment, a child has a variety of materials that help her to practice phonograms.

But where does that leave parents—who naturally want to provide their child with things to read outside of school?

If you turn to the commercially available early readers, such as the Ready-to-Read series or the I-Can-Read series, you’ll find that your Montessori emergent reader will struggle. Why?

These books define themselves as “early readers”, not by introducing a carefully sequenced progression of phonetic skills, but by using short sentences, 1- or 2-syllable words, and big print. The biggest problem is that a child cannot sound out many words in these books using basic letter sounds—and the phonograms that they do use are so frequent and mixed, that your Montessori child will flounder. (The idea behind these books is that children are supposed to learn to recognize words by sight through repetition. This sets a dangerous example to a young child that reading means memorizing whole words.)

Here are a few random example sentences, with the non-decodable letter combinations highlighted:

“Class, don’t forget!”, Ms. Glass says. “Tomorrow is…” “Pajama Day” we shout in unison. (That’s a fancy word for all together.) –from Fancy Nancy: Pajama Day, a Level 1 I-Can-Read book.

He could ride him in a circle without knocking over the chair or the dresser. –from The Horse in Harry’s Room, a Level 1 I-Can-Read book

It was almost school picture day at Robin Hill School. “There will be many empty spaces in our picture,” said Mrs. Connor. “Look at the Tooth Chart.”—from A Tooth Story, Ready-to-Read, Level 1

Ironically, almost every one of these highlighted sounds are standard English phonograms. They are predictable letter-sound patterns that should become a central part of a child’s arsenal of decoding skills—if they’re presented to him in a sequential manner that provides sufficient repetition and review.

But don’t despair: there is an alternative available: Flyleaf Publishing’s Decodable Literature Library. These books, written by former Montessori teacher Laura Appleton-Smith, are a treasure of decodable literature for Montessori preschool students who are becoming fluent readers. That’s why we’ve invested in a full set of these books for each of our Montessori Primary and Lower Elementary classrooms.

Flyleaf Publishing’s books outshine the alternatives. It’s the one series we have found that enables our students to read independently and joyfully, and to acquire fluency and phonogram knowledge in the process. Here are just a few reasons why this series is the best early reader library that we have found in years of perusing offerings:

A focus on offering decodable text. Reading Series 1 is over 95% phonetically decodable!
A careful progression through phonograms, providing lots of practice along the way. Take a look at this excerpt from Frank the Fish Gets His Wish, with the phonogram highlighted:

Frank would sit in his pink shell and wish his wish, “I wish that I had a pal to swim with; to splash and swish and jump with. I would swim the rest of my swims in a dish if I just had a pal to be with.”

What’s more, Ms. Smith is a master at introducing many words with these phonograms, without sacrificing the quality of the prose!

A slow build on length and complexity of stories. Children move gradually from short, simple sentences to longer sentences with more on the page, and more complex stories to follow.
Great, engaging, fun stories. While many early readers are contrived constructions that are of low interest, this series offers wonderful stories children can relate to, and which are fun to discuss with our young readers.
Elaborate, beautiful language. In place of the choppy, repetitive sentences found in other early readers, these books have interesting vocabulary. This list of words is just a random selection from Pearl Learns a Lesson, the book focused on the /ûr/ sound and its different spellings: flabbergasted, hurled, alert, respect, blurted, disturb, smirked, fungus, damsel, goblet, velvet, perplexed, dismissed, lavender, yearned…
Beautiful illustrations. While many early readers’ illustrations are cartoonish, these books feature beautiful art that wonderfully complements the story, bringing it alive and supplying context clues to help readers make sense of the stories they read.

If your child is enrolled in LePort’s Montessori program, once he or she reaches the stage of reading the Flyleaf series, you’ll notice that she’ll bring them home to read with you as part of our 3rd year Primary and early Lower Elementary programs. (If you aren’t a LePort family (yet!), you may want to search out these books for your emergent reader; they are sold directly from Flyleaf Publishing via their web site.)

We hope you enjoy listening to your child—and rejoicing in her achievement—as she reads to you from this special series!

Don’t Redshirt for Kindergarten–Eliminate Fixed Timeline

Over the past year, much has been said about the right time to start students in Kindergarten. Starting in fall 2012, California will move up the age cut-off, so only students who turn 5 before September 1^st can enter Kindergarten. (Previously, the cut-off date was December 2^nd.) Researchers have reported on a growing trend that parents are holding back children who would otherwise be eligible for Kindergarten, so as to give them an extra year of maturity. Much of this concern is due to the “increasingly academic nature” of Kindergarten, and worries that students may not yet be ready, at age 5, to sit still and pay attention in class.

These concerns are understandable and valid in the traditional public school model, and many parents rightly agonize over the decision of when to start their children in Kindergarten.

Fundamentally, though, the issue is not when children should start Kindergarten, but whether the transition into Kindergarten needs to be as difficult and consequential as it is in the public school system (and many private schools). What is it about Kindergarten that makes it such a negative experience for so many children?

More than anything, it is the artificial and unnecessary change in behavioral expectations and academic methodology. At age 5, public school children are suddenly expected to shift from a preschool’s free-play environment to the rigorous, group-based structure of a traditional classroom. They are required to sit still, to be quiet and listen, and to follow a tightly-scheduled plan of 30 minutes of this subject, then 30 minutes of that. They are expected to transition from playing with Legos or trains or doll houses, to completing monotonous worksheets. They are, on a dime, required to stop following their own interests and impulses, and to adhere instead to adult-set, adult-led procedures and goals. Without preparation or training, children are expected to transform their entire approach to school. No wonder parents are concerned about when and whether their children will succeed at making this transition!

This is all very unfortunate, because there is such a beautiful alternative to this whole manufactured struggle: Montessori education. Montessori schools do not require such a black and white decision about when to start Kindergarten. They do not subject a child entering her Kindergarten year to abrupt, radical changes that are inconsistent with their actual needs. Nor do they leave a preschooler unprepared for the actual, gradual changes that are forthcoming.

In a well-run Montessori school, students aged 3-6 are grouped together in one classroom, called the Primary classroom. The classroom is equipped with a wide range of educational materials. It offers simple “practical life” exercises, such as pouring or sorting, for the youngest children, as well as very advanced academic materials, which can take some 6-year-olds all the way through reading chapter books, studying introductory grammar, and doing arithmetic into the thousands (skills typically not taught until 1^st grade or later in most other schools.)

In a Montessori program, each child progresses through the sequence of materials at her own pace, under the guidance of a trained, observant teacher. Because all of the work is individual, because children practice as long as they need to achieve mastery, because children move ahead only if and when they are ready, there is no need to make each child transition into “academic Kindergarten.” Academic challenges get tackled naturally, as the child is academically ready—not when it suits a school system’s artificial schedule. [Many Montessori schools also move children up to 1^st grade when they are developmentally ready, not on a fixed September timeline.]

In fact, Montessori students are never forced to make the radical shift in behavior that public schools demand. Not in their Kindergarten year, and not in the higher grades. Instead, they gradually grow over time into more scheduled routines and abstract content (including class lectures and group lessons as it becomes age-appropriate). Using the Montessori materials, they steadily build their attention spans, learn to pace and plan their own work, and progress from concrete to abstract. For example, they first learn to solve multiplication problems with the Golden Bead materials, then, as they solidify the principles involved and become able to hold them more abstractly in their minds, they move to solving them with just pencil and paper.

By the time they graduate from the “lower elementary classroom” (ages 6-9), students are ready for the more conceptual, abstract studies of upper elementary, as well as for the more structured schedule, and are eager to discover the exciting insights that come next.

Fundamentally, the question is not when children should start Kindergarten, but why a system that so clearly violates children’s most fundamental developmental needs continues to be accepted as the norm for schooling in this country.

Heike Larson

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