Yue miet not bee aible tue
reed this but mie teecher
can!
Meral And Myriem
El Dia De Montessori
 Who was Maria Montessori?
 What were her philosophical foundations?
 Montessori and early years literacy
Who was Maria
Montessori?
 Born in 1870
 Italy’s first woman to receive a medical degree
 Worked with special needs children, spoke on their behalf
 Worked with children from the slums of San Lorenzo in Italy –
Founded the House of Children (Casa dei Bambini) where she
observed children and developed her theories on child
development
 During World War II Maria Montessori was exiled to India
because of her anti-fascist views and developed her work
Education for Peace – She was nominated twice for the Nobel
Peace Prize
Philosophical Foundations
 Whole child/whole language approach
 “All children are endowed with the capacity to
absorb culture.” –Maria Montessori
 Education is not something that the teacher does, it
is a natural process which develops spontaneously
(“auto-education”)
Philosophical Foundations
Cont.
 Children learn best in an open, respectful, nurturing and
communicative environment
 The concept of normalization: to become a contributing
member of society
 The three step cycle
 Educators must know themselves, educate themselves in
their work and give appropriate help (The Absorbent
Mind)
 Classes of mixed ability and age with minimum adult
intervention to reinforce natural equitable development
Montessori and early
years literacy
 Early years language development (language skills
begin at conception, during infancy)
 Effective communication relies on authentic
exchanges between teachers and children
 Encoding versus Decoding (writing come before
reading)
 Providing children with opportunities to see and
use print, using both a phonetic and whole-word
approach
Literacy Strategies
 Self-correcting language materials developed by Maria
Montessori
 Classroom set up adapted to children’s size/ carefully
selected high quality materials
 Children should not be taught to read and write before
age 6 or 7, but children often teach themselves using the
material by age 3 or 4
 There are four stages to language development: spoken,
phonetic awareness, creating words, reading
 The three period lesson and I Spy
Three Period Lesson
 We can use the three period lesson to directly teach
specific vocabulary for everything (real objects,
photos, illustrations)
1.
2.
3.
Touch object and clearly speak it’s name
Ask the child to identify objects we name
Point to each object and ask “What is this?”
 I spy (letter sounds)
Montessori Materials
 Metal inserts: children are gaining fine motor skills
by tracing shapes to practice the strokes of letters
 Sandpaper Letters: children are provided with
multiple sensory experiences to learn letters by
touching, listening and seeing
 Movable alphabet: children can choose cut-out
letters to compose words (also multi-sensory)
Metal Inserts
Sandpaper Letters
Movable Alphabet
Conclusion
 Is the Montessori approach still relevant and
applicable today?
 Is it still good practice and do we want to
incorporate it into our classrooms?
 How does it apply to multiple intelligences and
diverse populations?
Resources
 http://montessori.org
 http://briarwoodmontessori.net/docs/Literacy%20
Handbook.pdf
 http://montessori.edu
 http://www.michaelolaf.net/maria.html