Yes, children as young as 2.5 or 3-years-old can joyfully and effortlessly learn phonograms (two letters put together to make a single sound like ch, sh, or ee). We’re not talking about academic preschool here! We’re following the natural interests of the child. Let me show you what I mean.
First, if you prefer to watch videos, we’ve made a whole host of free video lesson plans with details on how to play all of the phonogram games we describe below. We’ll sum up the key ideas and fun activities here.
]]>Yes, children as young as 2.5 or 3-years-old can joyfully and effortlessly learn phonograms (two letters put together to make a single sound like ch, sh, or ee). We’re not talking about academic preschool here! We’re following the natural interests of the child. Let me show you what I mean.
First, if you prefer to watch videos, we’ve made a whole host of free video lesson plans with details on how to play all of the phonogram games we describe below. We’ll sum up the key ideas and fun activities here.
“I spy with my little eye something on the rug that starts with “m” and ends with “th.” This is how we play the sound game (level 2) where we isolate the beginning and ending sounds in words.
To play this game, you can either (1) prepare a small collection of objects or images or (2) guide the children to gather their favorite items from the room. They will naturally bring things that include phonograms (book, for example, has the oo phonogram).
The key here is not to get stuck on beginning sounds (level 1). Be sure that you are helping children hear ending and middle sounds too. Read our blog post on the I Spy Sound Game in Four Steps for details on this essential activity.
Trace a letter, say its sound, think of a few words that include that sound (anywhere in the word), and give the child a turn. That’s it! The key is to do this with vowels, consonants, AND phonograms. There is no need to hold phonograms back for older ages. In fact, holding them back hinders literacy development. Don’t get caught in that trap! Children anywhere from 2.5 to 4 years of age love to trace and say the letter sounds.
When you trace the letter, do it like it is the BEST thing you’ve ever done in your life! Keep asking for a turn. You want the children to trace these letters again and again and again as they say the letter sound. This helps them develop the part of their brain known as the letterbox (or visual word form area).
Tracing and saying the sound is the first step of the 3-period lesson. The next step is to play little games where you ask them to move the letters around, pick-up certain sounds, etc. This is super fun and where most of the learning takes place. Finally, when you’re 99% sure the child will be able to give you the right answer, point to a letter/phonogram and ask them to tell you what sound it makes. This is the hardest part so don’t go here too soon.
Because you have traced those sandpaper letters and played sound games, your children are now ready to start building words with alphabet letter tiles! We call these movable alphabets and we begin with both the single and double letter alphabets. Why? Because together these create all the key sounds we need to phonetically spell any word in English.
Don’t worry about accurate spelling yet! Phonetically spelling words is a normal developmental step on the path to literacy. The more children write and read, the more curious they will become about which words are spelled which way. When they start asking about how something is really spelled, explain that in English, everybody got together and agreed on how to spell everything and sometimes it doesn't make sense. This opens them up to the fascinating world of the history of language (etymology).
When you get here, have fun trying to pronounce words like they used to be pronounced way back when English actually was a phonetic language. For example, try sounding out the word knight just like it’s spelled; this is how Kings and Earls used to say it back before Shakespeare’s time. The children will just giggle like crazy over this, all while effortlessly learning how to spell.
After lots of writing practice, the children will naturally start sounding out words. When this happens, we can introduce 3-part cards that help them read independently.
Use these by laying out the photo-only cards. Then, invite the child to read the word labels and match them to the correct photo. When they’re done, they use the control card (photo and word on one card) to check their own work.
By offering the children lots of opportunities to read independently at the word level right from the very beginning, we help them build their internal dictionary of words they know. This gives them the knowledge and confidence they need to later dive into books of any length.
After phonogram 3-part cards, we can increase the challenge with phonogram lists. These isolate the phonogram of interest in red, but only in the top word. Do you see how we ease them away from the supports? By incrementally increasing the challenging, we don’t overwhelm them. Instead, they feel confident that they can handle the task before them.
Use these lists for reading activities but also for movable alphabet games. A child working alone can read a list and try to write as many words from memory as they can. Two children working together can play “dictation” where one child reads a word and the other child tries to spell it accurately. Then, they correct each others work: the peer-teaching and learning model in action!
There are so many ways we can use the solid color movable alphabets to help children gain experience with phonograms. We can make lists of words that feature a particular phonogram. We can try to write fun sentences that include many words with the same phonogram. We can try to remember how to spell words from the Phonogram Spelling Folders (see below). We can write the two unique words in compound words in different colors. The possibilities are limitless.
If you want to go deep into all the ways to use the alphabets, check out our Language Album/Manual for teachers.
English spelling is a tangled web of history mixed with phonics. But there is an orderly way to introduce some of the common spelling variations so that children don’t feel overwhelmed by our tricky language.
The Phonogram Spelling Folders group common ways to spell a key sound together into cards and booklets. The children can read the booklets, match them to their cards, and even try mixing up and sorting out all the cards.
This approach draws attention to the parts of English spelling that make sense and follow some rules. Then, we can use these rules to figure out the words that don’t make any sense at all (although, for example).
Are your children coming up to you all the time asking you how to sound out new words? Then this is your solution! The next time they come across a word with a spelling variation they do not recognize, show them how to look for that variation on the tab, open to the corresponding page, and reveal the corresponding key sound. Voila! The answer is right there on the page.
This is a great support for independent reading.
Maitri Learning makes many materials that ease the child towards learning the complexities of English. If you want to go deeper with any of these activities, take a look at our Language Teacher Education Manual.
Let us know what you think by adding your thoughts in the comments below. Your experience will really help the rest of us!
]]>The ability to hear all the sounds in words (phonemic awareness) is a key step to learning how to read. The young child's brain is primed to do this and we can help by playing a simple little game called the sound game or I Spy.
There is more than one way to play this game but we like to do it in four steps:
Let me show you what I mean.
]]>There is more than one way to play this game but we like to do it in four steps:
Let me show you what I mean.
In Level 1, we just focus on the beginning sound in something super obvious (in your hand so they can't fail). Our goal here is to help them learn how to play the game, how the game works. Later, after we are 100% sure they understand the game, we add in more objects.
You can use a collection of objects specially prepared for the game or use found objects from around the room (we recommend this approach). Feel free to use whatever you have on hand.
Play this everyday until the children can succeed with finding the right beginning sound among several objects. Then, move on to level 2.
Now that they are confident with playing the game, we add in more complexity to keep it interesting. Guide the children to walk around the room with you to collect several objects to bring to your work area. Don't worry if you have a few that have the same beginning or ending sound. It's okay if they have more than one correct option on the rug. The act of gathering and then putting away items from the room actually helps connect the children deeply with the space. This ownership is part of what makes it their space: the Children's House.
Once you have your objects collected together, you'll play I Spy but say the beginning AND ending sound of one of the objects on the rug. Don't just say the ending sound; it's too hard! But this is a common mistake we adults make. Our goal is actually not just to get them to hear the ending sound in a word, it's to help them hear ALL the sounds in a word. Focusing on beginning and ending sounds is the next step.
Play this daily until the children are excelling and can consistently find the object you're looking for based on its beginning and ending sound. This could take a few days or several weeks.
Once the children are excelling with Level 2, we add in a little more complexity to keep it challenging and fun by adding in middle sounds. Some teachers like to have a prepared basket of miniatures for this level but others prefer to gather items from around the room as in Level 2. Either way can work.
Once you have your objects collected at your work area, play the game just as before but look for something based on its beginning sound, ending sound, and middle sound IN THAT ORDER. You might want to choose objects that have only three sounds (like rock or mug) to start but it's also okay to use words with multiple phonemes (like basket or elephant). Don't stress out about it. Just choose one middle sound to start with. They can tell you there are other middle sounds and that is fantastic!
Again, we are not trying to teach them to hear middle sounds in words, we're trying to help them hear all the sounds in a word. This unexpected order (for adults) makes perfect sense to the child because the beginning and ending sounds in words are the most obvious. The middle sound is harder so we save it until now. Make sense?
Play this daily until the children are confident and feel like they can find any object based on its beginning, ending, and middle sound. Then, move on to Level 4.
We are finally at the culminating stage of this game where we invite children to hear all the sounds in a word. This includes words with more than one middle sound (like pumpkin or cactus).
Start like we do in Level 3 but be sure the children are choosing the objects (from anywhere in the room) to use for the game. Then ask them if they can hear any other sounds in that word. Say the word slowly, emphasizing each phoneme.
Once the children consistently succeed with Level 4 and can recognize all of the sandpaper letters by sound, they are ready for the Movable Alphabet.
What do you think? Have you tried this and it works for you? Have you tried something else? Let us know below so that we can all benefit from each other's wisdom and experience!
]]>Cultural geography is about more than where things are located on the earth. It's about what life is like all over the world. How do people live? What do we have in common? What is different?
If we really want to show children about life on different continents, we need to show them the SAME kinds of life on each continent. That means we show them a school on every continent, fishing on every continent, a wedding on every continent, a market on every continent, etc.
]]>If we really want to show children about life on different continents, we need to show them the SAME kinds of life on each continent. That means we show them a school on every continent, fishing on every continent, a wedding on every continent, a market on every continent, etc.
Many of us have built our geography folders from magazine or printables that feature beautiful vistas or people/animals from around the world. But, these may not get at the heart of what we hope these materials teach: an understanding and appreciation of the similarities and differences of life around the world.
Presenting this equitable view is foundational for peace education. It helps us recognize that we are beautifully diverse in our cultural choices and fundamentally the same in our humanity. And it's so simple. We just need to compare apples to apples.
Our geography cards create an equitable and balanced view of life around the world because each continent packet within a series contains one image for 10 clearly defined concepts/themes. This allows children to compare and contrast clothing, food, transportation, etc. from continent to continent.
For example, in series two, there are the following 10 themes for each continent:
But in series one and three we present 10 entirely different themes. Why? So we can maintain interest by rotating these pictures out from time to time. We don't want these materials to be dusty and old on the shelf. We keep them alive by keeping them new and fresh.
Try greeting the children in the morning and say, "There's something new in the geography folders today. I wonder if you can find what it is!" Then, sit back and watch the engagement as they sort and study and investigate.
Once you have themed geography cards, there are so many ways to use them. Here's a short list:
I hope this has inspired you to go with themes for your geography cards. In all of the work we do with children, we are creating a model for what humans are all about. We can use these materials as another opportunity to lay down strong roots for an accurate and equitable understanding of humans everywhere.
]]>Okay, sorting is fun. I admit it. I feel a strange sort of joy when I can organize things. Although I don't always do it in a timely fashion, having those piles of laundry folded Maria-Kondo-style in little piles on my bed gives me such a sense of satisfaction.
And yes, sorting is a key skill children develop in early childhood. Sorting games guide children to group things into categories. In literacy research, we call this developing 'gist.' When we get the gist of something, we understand the basics about how it is connected with other similar concepts.
Think about all the different collections of things we have in our homes and schools. We have collections of pencils, different types of papers, types of chairs, types of brushes, types of cups, and the list goes on and on. Learning how to organize items by similarities and differences is not only important for cognitive development, but inherently interesting for young children. They want to figure out what goes together.
Here are some of our favorite sorting activities for early childhood.
]]>And yes, sorting is a key skill children develop in early childhood. Sorting games guide children to group things into categories. In literacy research, we call this developing 'gist.' When we get the gist of something, we understand the basics about how it is connected with other similar concepts.
Think about all the different collections of things we have in our homes and schools. We have collections of pencils, different types of papers, types of chairs, types of brushes, types of cups, and the list goes on and on. Learning how to organize items by similarities and differences is not only important for cognitive development, but inherently interesting for young children. They want to figure out what goes together.
Here are some of our favorite sorting activities for early childhood.
Okay, why is this a sorting game? Because we're sorting people! Think of something that is true for a few of the children you are with. Here are some ideas:
When you start doing this game, the children will start noticing what they have in common with other children. This is a great way to help build friendships. The children are so open to social connection and this gives them the opportunity to reach out to others that they share something in common with (even if it's as simple as a red shirt).
These are particularly helpful games to play at dismissal times when you need to send a few children away at a time. Use these to avoid over-crowding at the cubbies or other places.
These activities start when children are quite young. You can ask them to help with the laundry by sorting all the napkins from the washcloths or all the socks from the shirts. When putting the dishes away, ask them to put all the spoons away first, then the forks. When setting out a snack, guide them to put all the olives in one bowl and the pickles in another.
You can see that some of these tasks are simpler and others more complex. You can adapt the complexity based on the capacity of the children you're with. Remember that you always want them to think that they are too smart for the job, not that the job is too hard for them. Try to keep things challenging but just a tiny bit more challenging than the last thing they've been able to do. Make sense?
When children are ready to move to pictures from objects, you can start sorting vocabulary cards and that really opens up a world of possibilities. Now you can sort anything that the child is interested in: dogs, wildflowers, butterflies, insects, plant kingdom, animal kingdom, you name it.
And when they're ready for finer levels of distinction, move on to sorting vegetables from fruit (harder than you think) or mammals from amphibians or fish from reptiles. The sky's the limit! We've created a small collection of Sorting Cards to help get you going with this level of sorting work.
These games are so fun. Just ask the children to bring you categories of objects like anything that is shaped like a rectangle, or things that are blue, or things that are made of metal or wood. You may need three or four rugs to hold everything they find! There's really no end to the possibilities here and the children love it.
This game also connects the children with where things are in the room and exercises their working memory. I mean, they have to remember where they found everything so they can put it away, right?
Once you've played the sound game and introduced the sandpaper letters, you can put a sandpaper letter or movable alphabet letter on your rug and say, "Let's see if we can find things that have the sss sound in them." Then, invite them to bring the pencil, sunset picture, brass elephant, or whatever is in your space that includes the ssss sound.
It doesn't have to be the first sound in the word. In fact, you want them to notice all the sounds in the word so if they bring you a glass for the ssss sound, that is excellent! It is showing you that they can hear ending sounds. Well done.
Believe it or not, you don't need a collection of objects or pictures for each key sound in English. Instead, you can use objects or pictures that you already have on hand to support children who are beginning to associate sounds with letters and phonograms.
Remember that the child learns by interest. Most children do not need to go through each letter of the alphabet and match it with objects that start with that sound. But, our adult minds want everything organized without a single letter/sound omitted! I've seen rooms with an entire shelf unit devoted just to initial sound sorting. I say save your money and shelf space for other things.
You can rouse the child's interest in sound sorting by using items you already have on hand. If you're playing sound games, teaching them the sandpaper letters, and offering a great variety of spoken language activities/opportunities, you do not need initial sound sorting materials. Don't distract the child from the work that will truly help!
Blindfolded sorting is one of my favorite activities. Try this with a collection of beads that are all made of the same material (like wood or brass) but have different shapes. Put on the blindfold and try to sort them out of a mixed-up pile. Take off your blindfold when your done to see if you were right! Children love this game but I say grown-ups do to! If you're having a hard day, try doing this for a few minutes and see if it doesn't settle you right down.
You can really go to town with this activity, especially if you're a crafter with lots of fabric scraps hanging around. Cut them all to the same size (you can use crimping sheers on the edges so they don't unravel) and set out a collection in a basket. Then, sort them, match them, put them in order by soft to rough, etc. Of course you can also sort them by color or pattern, but fabrics are especially good for focusing on texture so be sure to have a blindfold handy.
You can learn more about the Montessori sensorial materials for teaching the concept of touch/texture in our Sensorial Teacher Education Album.
This is a great game to do with herbs from your spice rack. Try to sort out the ones that smell sweet or savory or acrid. Or, try sorting out the ones you want to put in chicken soup from the ones you want to put in apple pie or just the ones you like from the ones you don't. Add in a blindfold for even more fun!
You can learn more about the Montessori sensorial materials for teaching the concept of smell in our Sensorial Teacher Education Album.
You may not notice it, but an empty glass sitting in a room feels much cooler than a piece of wood in the same room. Different materials hold/conduct ambient temperature differently. Of course we know this inherently (think about how long a baked potato stays hot compared with toast) but playing this game makes that abstract idea concrete.
The underside of your wrist is a good place to check the temperature of something. (Our fingers tend to change/adapt to the surrounding temperature much faster than our wrists.) Just move about the room and start checking the temperature of objects. Sort them into columns on your rug from cool to warm. Then, you might notice if the sorted groups share certain qualities (like all the wood objects are in one column and the glass in another).
You can learn more about the Montessori sensorial materials for teaching the concept of temperature (thermic sense) in our Sensorial Teacher Education Album.
The ability to sense how much something weighs is also known as the baric sense. It's a complex sense because we have to move in order to figure out how much something weighs. Think about it. You can't tell how much a rock weighs until you pick it up. You can guess that a large rocks weighs more than a small rock but you won't actually know until you lift it. Then, if we want to compare its weight to something else, we'll have to move our hands up and down. This is why weight is considered a complex sense; you have to use multiple senses (touch and proprioception) in order to figure it out.
You can informally sort by weight for something like grocery bags or you can formally do it with the beautiful Montessori baric tablets. For grocery bags, ask the child to find the lightest one or the heaviest one. They'll have to pick them all up and put them down and then keep track in their mind (working memory) in order to figure it out! The Montessori baric tablets are similar in concept but let the child repeatedly isolate the concept of weight by comparing heavier wood tablets to lighter wood tablets to even lighter wood tablets. It's hard to do but fun!
You can learn more about the Montessori sensorial materials for teaching the concept of weight (baric sense) in our Sensorial Teacher Education Album.
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I hope this has inspired you to up your sorting game! There are so many fun ways to engage children with the world around them all while supporting their development. Please add your ideas and comments below. Your experiences can lift us all up!
]]>Here is a recording of their conversation. They covered some pretty killer topics including:
This talk is worth the time. Get some lemonade, gather a few friends, and enjoy!
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Shouldn't we show children the big, cut-out alphabet first? We say no!
Why? Because whenever we introduce a new activity, we want to isolate the difficulty. If we add one new challenge each time, we increase the chances that the child will succeed. When we use the cut-out alphabets, we're adding in several new difficulties all at once.
]]>Shouldn't we show children the big, cut-out alphabet first? We say no!
Why? Because whenever we introduce a new activity, we want to isolate the difficulty. If we add one new challenge each time, we increase the chances that the child will succeed. When we use the cut-out alphabets, we're adding in several new difficulties all at once.
The first time we introduce the alphabet, we want children to learn the magic of being able to write something: to express themselves with letters without making a sound! We are sharing with them the incredible power of written language so that they can have the possibility of written self-expression.
When we start with the large, cut-out alphabet letters, we may notice that alphabet work is not thriving in our room. Think about the obstacles the young child has to overcome to succeed with that alphabet:
The box is huge and unwieldy (for the first try, later, they love it)
They have to orientate the letters in 3-dimensions (a great challenge for later work)
They have to build phonograms or be DEPENDENT on the adult for dictating words that don't have phonograms
Some children will be able to jump into that level of challenge but many children will not. One of the strengths of the Montessori pedagogy is that it is careful to isolate the difficulty in each new lesson. For example, before we teach a child how to wash a table, we teach them how to use the apron, how to fill a pitcher, how to empty a pail, etc. When they have the fundamentals down, they are set-up for success.
Luckily, there is a movable alphabet alternative that isolates the stimuli of building words and expressing ideas. We can use the card alphabet (pink/blue) alongside the phonogram alphabet (green). This approach works because it:
Matches the look of the sandpaper letters (making it easier to transfer that knowledge to these alphabet letters)
Frees the child to write anything they want to write because they have all of the key sounds of English in front of them (no need to build phonograms)
Empowers the children by using a smaller, child-size box
The alphabet is designed to free the children so they can express THEIR ideas, not just write down what we suggest or the names of objects we have preselected (that may or may not interest them). If we introduce the alphabet as a tool for self-expression from the very beginning, then the children have the possibility of truly being independent with the alphabet. They can be confident that what they have to say is worth writing down and inspired to write like the wind.
Later, when they are confident with the card alphabet, they adore the added complexity of the large alphabet, its enormous box, orienting letters accurately, and building phonograms. If you can, you want to have both the card alphabets (use those first) and the cut-out alphabets (use those later).
What do you think? Please add your thoughts in the comments below. It takes a village!
]]>When Juneteenth became a US Federal holiday, I wondered if I should add it to the list of Maitri Learning holidays. I had never celebrated Juneteenth and all I knew was that it marked the day when the last slaves (theoretically) were freed in the US. That was back in 1865 in Galveston, Texas, two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
But, of course, there is what is said and there is what is done.
A core aspect of the scientific Montessori pedagogy is that we adults are aiding children towards independence. This means we are preparing them for increasing levels of freedom from day one.
But freedom is not willy nilly. It doesn't mean children can do whatever they want with no boundaries. Independence and true freedom must entail responsibility. Slavery, of course, is in direct opposition to these ideals.
]]>When Juneteenth became a US Federal holiday, I wondered if I should add it to the list of Maitri Learning holidays. I had never celebrated Juneteenth and all I knew was that it marked the day when the last slaves (theoretically) were freed in the US. That was back in 1865 in Galveston, Texas, two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
But, of course, there is what is said and there is what is done.
A core aspect of the scientific Montessori pedagogy is that we adults are aiding ALL children towards independence. This means we are preparing them for increasing levels of freedom from day one. We support children and families from all walks of life; those who develop typically and those who develop uniquely; those who are wealthy and those who are not; those who are privileged and those who are treated unfairly. All humans can find a home in this scientific approach to aiding human development.
But freedom is not willy nilly. It doesn't mean children can do whatever they want with no boundaries. Independence and true freedom must entail responsibility. Freedom means you are allowed to make choices that are both skillful and unskillful,... but they are your choices and the results of those choices are also yours.
In Montessori, we are instilling the human right of freedom coupled with inner-discipline from the first days of life. We encourage children to make choices (from skillful options). We show children how to care for themselves, for their environment, and for those around them. We aid children towards achieving independence.
Freedom itself is founded in the underlying idea that humans are essentially good. That when given the right causes and conditions (like a supportive environment, loving caregivers, education, etc.), we will make intelligent choices. And that, in part, is what Juneteenth is celebrating. First and foremost, Juneteenth is here to remind us the truth of our history. But it is also celebrating the inherent goodness of humanity; our ability to notice our errors and address them. Freedom depends on this! If the overwhelming majority of us were not basically good, freedom would never work.
We humans are social creatures. We need each other. But, we are happiest when we can witness our own capacities and offer our strengths to others. We both need each other and need to allow each other the freedom to make choices and realize the consequences of those choices. That's what freedom lets us do.
Freedom with responsibility is what makes peace possible. If we truly want a peaceful society, we must help everyone learn not only what it is to make an intelligent choice, but also how to respond to the consequences of our choices. That is what we did when we ended slavery. We overcame egregious cultural errors (repeated in cultures around the world). We learned from humanity's mistakes and we (finally) chose a more skillful path.
For me, this is why Juneteenth is a day worth celebrating. It reminds us of our resilience both in overcoming the wrongs done to us and in righting the wrongs we have done to others. It asks us to remember how precious freedom is.
]]>Since I first did my AMI Montessori training, back in the 90s, people have been asking, "But aren't children different today than they were when Maria Montessori first developed her method?" The answer is a resounding YES!
In some ways, children are most certainly different today than they were even five years ago because we humans are biologically programmed to adapt to our culture: our time, place, and group. But that is actually not news. Humans have been doing this since we became a species.
What teachers are reporting now is that children seem to have:
In some ways, children are most certainly different today than they were even five years ago because we humans are biologically programmed to adapt to our culture: our time, place, and group. But that is actually not news. Humans have been doing this since we became a species.
What teachers are reporting now is that children seem to have:
So is this true or is it misperception by the teachers? I think teachers are pretty accurate reporters of what they see in child development. I mean, seriously, they're actually trained to be accurate reporters! So, let's just get off the teachers' backs and listen to what they are saying.
The real question is, why are teachers seeing these changes? To figure this out, we have to look at what has happened in our culture in recent years. How about EVERYTHING! So, I'm just going to throw out a couple of tiny little things that have happened in the US in the last five years like the rise of social media and, oh yeah, finding out out of the blue that no one can leave their house for 18 months for fear of dying from or spreading a deadly disease.
These huge events have led we humans to change our behaviors as we adapt to the realities of this new world. And, as Dr. Montessori and Charles Darwin taught us, that is what we humans do. We adapt. That is why we survive.
Sometimes we adapt in skillful ways (like shifting our lifestyles to be healthier because we've seen the data) and sometimes we adapt in unskillful ways (like binge watching Netflix to escape from a reality that we just can't handle at the moment). But no matter how we adapt, these changes in our ways of being change our brain physically. These changes are so profound that there's actually a whole field of science that studies this: cultural neuroscience.
I can't cover everything that has changed in the world in a blog post. So, I'll focus on the low hanging fruit of screen time. Both children and adults are using screens way more often than we used to (see Trott, et al., 2022 for a review).
But, is using screens more than we used to actually interfering with we adults being "normal" humans? And what does it mean for young children to regularly use screens?
I'm not going to get on a soap box here. I mean, I'm a mom who lives in the US. I remember one time when my daughter was three and couldn't stop vomiting. After the first hour in the bathroom when I realized it wasn't ending anytime soon, I got us a big bowl for her to throw up in and popped Sound of Music into the VCR (yes, it was that long ago). She kept throwing up for hours but both of us were not as upset about it while Julie Andrews was singing about the beauty of life.
So, is there a good place in the world for movies, etc? Absolutely!
I'm actually not here to judge. I'm just going to report on what's happening developmentally with children in 2023 that is different from how it was in 2003 or even 2013.
Children are driven to become humans like the adults around them. So, if the adults they see are often using screens, their brains become programmed to think that regularly using screens is what normal humans do. And, of course, these same adults are giving young children screens to use as well.
There is a growing body of evidence that shows that increased internet screen time is associated with depression (Kandola et al., 2022) and externalizing behaviors (see Eirich et al., 2022 for a review). It's important to note here that, at least in adolescents and adults, playing video games may actually be associated with a decrease in depressive symptoms (Kandola et al., 2022). So how we use screens matters.
One thing I'm seeing a lot of is parents giving their phones to their toddlers and preschoolers whenever they need a minute to speak with a store clerk or focus on their chores, etc. Are you seeing that too? And it's not just in the US. I was in Poland last week and saw this happen again and again.
My major concern here is what children aren't doing because they are being entertained by a screen. They aren't, for example, learning how to wait. If they're given the screen to calm themselves down, they don't learn how to work with their emotions skillfully; they aren't learning to self-regulate.
This lack of opportunity may lead to deficits in executive function development. Remember that before age six is where humans are programmed to learn how to be flexible (cognitive flexibility), keep track of things (working memory), and inhibit unskillful behavior (inhibitory control). These are experience-dependent skills which means we only learn them well if we get a chance to do them. So, we need to allow children the opportunity to wait, to calm down without a screen (but with emotional support), and to regulate their impulses. When we're looking at young children, screen time means they are missing key opportunities to actively develop their neural architecture.
Increased screen time may also mean that we aren't getting the preferred amount of physical activity. And physical activity is incredibly important for healthy brain development.
So, have children changed? Yes. Do we need to change? Yes and no. I think the core guidance that Dr. Montessori gave us is still valid. The difference is that we need more patience.
It may take longer for children to find the appeal in our lovely calm environments. In the short-term, they may not seem as compelling as bells, whistles, and animations. But, if we keep enticing them to connect with the environment and to exert themselves on meaningful work, normalization will come.
I encourage you to be persistent, consistent, and tenacious in adhering to the principles Dr. Montessori taught us. Honor the human tendencies; those haven't changed but they may be a bit obscured.
References
Eirich, R., McArthur, B. A., Anhorn, C., McGuinness, C., Christakis, D. A., & Madigan, S. (2022). Association of screen time with internalizing and externalizing behavior problems in children 12 years or younger: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry.
Kandola, A., Owen, N., Dunstan, D. W., & Hallgren, M. (2022). Prospective relationships of adolescents’ screen-based sedentary behaviour with depressive symptoms: the Millennium Cohort Study. Psychological Medicine, 52(15), 3531-3539.
Trott, M., Driscoll, R., Irlado, E., & Pardhan, S. (2022). Changes and correlates of screen time in adults and children during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis. EClinicalMedicine, 48, 101452.
]]>There is nothing as beautiful as the sound of a young child speaking. They are just learning how to articulate, choose the words that make sense, and put those words together in a logical order. It is easy to want them to stay that precious forever! But of course, our job is to prepare them for life and aid their developing independence. But how do we do that and when?
The truth is that young children (before age six) are in a sensitive period for language development. They are eager and interested not only in learning the names of everything they see, but also in learning what the heck those little squiggly lines (you know, the ones we look at when we read) are all about! When they are as young as 2.5 to 3 years old, they become keenly interested in learning to distinguish all the sounds within every word, the sounds that letters make, and how those sounds fit together.
So, the time is ripe to support their natural interest! Just as when they were younger, we continue to offer them the best spoken language possibilities we can by reading aloud together, reciting tongue twisters and poems, singing, telling stories, listening to music, and more. But, as children grow, they can also benefit from specific materials designed to not only build their vocabulary, but to inspire them to express their thoughts.
]]>The truth is that young children (before age six) are in a sensitive period for language development. They are eager and interested not only in learning the names of everything they see, but also in learning what the heck those little squiggly lines (you know, the ones we look at when we read) are all about! When they are as young as 2.5 to 3 years old, they become keenly interested in learning to distinguish all the sounds within every word, the sounds that letters make, and how those sounds fit together.
So, the time is ripe to support their natural interest! Just as when they were younger, we continue to offer them the best spoken language possibilities we can by reading aloud together, reciting tongue twisters and poems, singing, telling stories, listening to music, and more. But, as children grow, they can also benefit from specific materials designed to not only build their vocabulary, but to inspire them to express their thoughts.
We've put together a small collection of core materials that can help you support your child's developing ability to express themselves, increase their vocabulary, and prepare them for reading. These materials help build their vocabulary knowledge (internal dictionary), phonemic awareness (ability to hear the sounds in words), letter-sound knowledge (matching the symbols of language with their sounds) and their ability to segment (link letters to build words).
We start with a focus on developing their vocabulary and their ability to hear/say all the sounds in words with vocabulary lessons and sound games. First, teach them the names of everything in their environment using the three-period lesson. Then, you can use one set of the cards in our Matching packets for vocabulary games.
Once they know all the vocabulary, use both sets for matching games. Matching cards not only help reinforce the child's vocabulary knowledge, they also help them categorize information (by sorting), interact with the vocabulary they know (matching), and connect vocabulary with their daily lives (talking about the pictures they see).
From here, we want to increase their love of language and give them more opportunities to turn their ideas into words (expressive language). One way we do this is through the Fine Art Display cards.
The breathtaking art in this collection includes some of the most famous works of art from Europe, the United States, and around the world. Use them for two essential Montessori activities (and many others):
Some children will be completely in love with Fine Art. But others are interested in other things like animals, nature, and people. So, how do we expand the children's horizons and make sure we are finding what interests them? We want to open their eyes to the tapestry of life on all continents! That's why we introduce the Geography Cards.
To create an equitable and balanced view of life around the world, each continent packet within a series contains one image for 10 clearly defined concepts/themes. This allows children to compare and contrast clothing, food, transportation, etc. from continent to continent. So, they can compare apples to apples. Just wait until you hear the conversations that arise as children see what is similar and what is different from place to place!
Now that we have their vocabulary and expressive language supported, we want to move them on to letter-sound knowledge. Learning the visual appearance of each letter in English and the sounds that each letter makes is an essential beginning step towards literacy. In the Montessori approach, we have one primary tool for teaching children the shapes of each letter and their individual sounds: the sandpaper letters.
The key here is not to just teach them the sounds of the individual letters in the alphabet, but to also teach them the key sounds required to phonetically spell every word in our language. Think about the word thorn: you need the th digraph plus the or digraph to spell it phonetically, right? But first, children need to know that sometimes when we put two letters together, it makes a completely new sound! So, we teach the key phonogram alongside the individual alphabet letters.
Once children know the sounds of the letters/phonograms, they are naturally curious about linking those letters together to build words! That's where the movable alphabets come in.
If you are interested in learning more about Montessori and the Language Program, we offer a digital or hard copy of our Teacher Education Language Album. The Language Album is designed for teachers in primary/early childhood classrooms (ages 3 to 6+). It presents comprehensive lessons for the key areas of the Montessori Language program including:
We hope this helps!
We hear a lot of talk about the Montessori materials, but what exactly are those materials? How do we determine if something "qualifies" as Montessori or not?
There is actually a list of characteristics that must be considered when creating a Montessori material. Dr. Montessori developed this list because she knew that science is always advancing. The materials she developed in the early 1900s would necessarily need to evolve as our understanding of the world and human development grew.
]]>There is actually a list of characteristics that must be considered when creating a Montessori material. Dr. Montessori developed this list because she knew that science is always advancing. The materials she developed in the early 1900s would necessarily need to evolve as our understanding of the world and human development grew.
At the top of her list is the age and abilities of the student (from birth to dementia care). All materials must be sized to match the size of the humans they are designed to teach and also be matched to the capacities of those humans. So, the materials will necessarily differ when used to teach young children as compared with adolescents or adults.
Beyond that core, the material should have most if not all of the following attributes.
Self-teaching (auto-didactic). In Montessori, we say that it is the materials that teach. The teacher (more commonly known as a Guide) is there to inspire the child to use the material and show them how to use it. But, it is not the teacher who teaches. It is the student's repeated, uninterrupted experience, using the materials towards their intelligent purpose, that leads to learning.
Control of error. The material should allow the student to discover and correct their own errors without the need of teacher intervention. When an authority figure comes in and offers a correction, there is a chance that that will trigger an acute stress response in the student. Think about when your boss or parent tells you you are doing something wrong. How well can you hear that? But, if your friend tells you, it's usually not a big deal and seen as helpful, right? So, in Montessori, we try to let the students discover and fix their own errors. Designing activities that allow the student to recognize their errors without help is key. For example, the three-part cards (developed by Mario Montessori) are a reading activity where students (1) layout an image of an object, (2) read a word label and match it to that image, and (3) use a control card (which includes the image and it's name on one card) to check their own work. The control card acts as the control of error. So, if a student places the label peach under a picture of a watermelon, the control card will show them that they are wrong. No one else needs to be involved. We learn so much more from seeing our own errors than from being corrected by others.
Intelligent/Purposeful uses. If you agree with the concept that the materials teach the student, then the student must have ways of using the material, repeatedly, that encourages them to master what the material presents. Typically, the adult teacher/guide will show the student specific ways of using the material. But, sometimes, the student learns by watching other students or by receiving a lesson from another student. The key here is that there are specific ways of using the material towards an intelligent end. For example, the number rods are lined up, aligned on the left, to help children learn about quantity and its connection with length (e.g., the one rod is incrementally smaller than the two rod and the three rod, etc.). If a child picks up a rod and uses it like a lightsaber, that is not an intelligent end! It's not helping the child to understand what it is that the material teaches. So, when we see a child do this, we might approach them and say, "I love Star Wars too! But, the number rods are so special. We have to use them for counting work. Let's carefully put this back and I'll show you again how we use them beautifully."
Movement. Humans need to move. Period. At all ages, but particularly in early childhood, movement must be incorporated into the activities. This is the reason why you don't see children sitting lined up at desks in Montessori classrooms. Movement is not just a biological need, it is a way to help maintain the student's interest in the materials and extend their attention span. When a student uses a material that requires complex movement, the child must be aware of and focused on their movement in order to achieve the desired end. Dr. Montessori called this type of movement "synthetic movement." Think about it like a choreographed dance. There are certain steps we must remember when we do the complex activity of flower arranging. It's like a ceremony where there is a place for everything and a logical sequence to follow in order to elegantly complete the activity. Memorizing and practicing this movement pattern strengthens the brain in innumerable ways.
Isolation of a stimulus. Each material and lesson slowly adds in one more level of complexity. Why? Because we are always trying to isolate the concept being taught. So, for example, the first time we teach children how to use the moveable alphabet, we don't actually write any words. Instead, we just show them how to carry the box and take letters out of and put letters back into the box. Why? Because for a four-year-old, that is a complex series of movements, right? And if we skip this step, you will see alphabets being dropped all the time. Then, the children become averse to using the alphabets; they associate them with disaster. See how that happens? But, if we isolate one concept at a time, we prepare the student to succeed with whatever it is they are doing. So, one thing at a time is always the motto. It's better that the student thinks they are too smart for the work than that the work is too smart for the student.
Refinement of the senses. In the big picture, this means going from greater contrasts to finer gradations of difference. This concept is particularly relevant for early childhood, the time when the brain and body are synchronizing sensory perception. As an example, think about the fine art cards. We introduce cards that show art from around the world first and then hone in on art from the child's continent and then go deeper into many examples of art from within one continent. See what I mean?
Vocabulary. We always want to teach the student the names of everything we offer them. This is particularly important in early childhood where the child is in a sensitive period for learning language(s). But, in early childhood, we actually give the children a physical experience with an object before we name it. For example, when we introduce the geometric solids (like a three-dimensional cone, cube, rectangular prism, etc.), we guide them to touch and feel the objects first before we name them. And, when we introduce a practical life activity (something we do every day), we show the movements of the activity without any language at all so the child can focus on movement. Then, once they have experience with the items involved, we give three-period lessons on everything.
Materialized abstraction. This may be the coolest concept Dr. Montessori discovered. It refers specifically to math and sensorial materials because those represent abstract concepts in a concrete way. When we think about color, for example, we can't find anything that is red without being a red something. So, Dr. Montessori designed color tablets that are identical in every way except for their color. That makes the abstract idea of red a real thing. See what I mean?
Aesthetically appealing. Because we are inspiring students to use the materials rather than requiring them to do so, we need the materials to be enticing. They need to be beautiful, clean, and in good order. No one wants to pick up dusty cards! That's why things like cloth pouches to protect and beautifully display materials are so important in Montessori environments.
Indirect preparation. While many Montessori materials directly prepare a child for something (like the phonetic 3-part cards prepare them to read books independently), some materials are creating a foundation that is somewhat indirect. So, by showing a child how to scrub a table, we are actually indirectly preparing their hand to use a pencil. How? Because we show them to scrub in circles (like cursive handwriting) from left to right and top to bottom (the direction of English). It also strengthens their muscles and refines their motor coordination so they can control their hand in space. And yes, we are this thoughtful about everything we do in the classroom! That's what we call a prepared learning environment.
Repetition. We've all heard the phrase, "practice makes perfect." But, in neuroscience, we say, "practice makes permanent." Anything we do repeatedly the brain gets more efficient at doing. So, the materials should allow and even invite the child to repeatedly use them.
Diagnostic value. A key aspect of the Montessori approach (which is actually just the scientific method applied to education) is the importance of observation in understanding the humans we are working with. We must observe their behaviors to learn what we can about their developmental needs. The materials can help us do this. So, for example, if we suspect that a child may have a hearing challenge, we notice if they are able to place items down without making a sound, if they notice that something is noisy, if they can hear the difference in the sound cylinders, etc. Because the materials isolate a stimuli, they also isolate a possible learning roadblock or challenge. By observing how the student is able or not able to interact with a material, we open a window into that student's development.
Memory training. In everything we do, we are subtly training the student's attention and memory. We invite them to repeat what they have learned when they use a material again and again. This demonstrates their memory for what they have been shown. Even something as seemingly basic as asking a student to locate a material within the room is challenging their memory.
The materials you already find in an authentic Montessori school have been designed with these characteristics in mind. Each material might not contain every characteristic, but they will embody many if not most of them. The key here is that the materials meet the innate needs of human development, no matter the student's age.
So, before you add anything to the child's environment that isn't in your Montessori Teacher Education Albums, you should consider it from all thirteen of these aspects. We don't want to make the environment overly complex by introducing materials whose purposes are actually already met in other materials. Nor do we want to overlook a unique developmental need that requires a slightly different approach. Really, we have to be scientists and analyze the minutia.
When we are supporting learning/neurodevelopment, the tiny details matter. So, consider these characteristics of the materials and look to your own learning environment. Be skeptical in evaluating what you have made available to the students. Insist that your materials are of the highest educational value. By keeping your standards high, you demonstrate to your students what it means to raise the bar. They will embark on their lives with the bar raised high and that is a good thing.
]]>If you are interested in participating in Montessori research, you can become part of the Montessori Research Pool by filling out this form! We are looking for Montessorians from all walks of life, with or without a training credential. If you are involved in Montessori in some way, we'd love to include you!
Note: Signing up does not mean you will be included in a research study; it just gives researchers a way to contact you and request your participation. You can opt-out at any time.
There is a tremendous need for more high-quality Montessori research. The Montessori Research Pool will allow researchers to find a broad range of participants that precisely match their study’s focus (e.g., parents, homeschoolers, people working with dementia, early childhood, adolescence, in public/private schools, administrators, etc.).
Please include this sign-up link in your communications and share the QR code in your presentations. Together, we can create the foundations researchers need to delve deeper into the Montessori method!
The database will be managed by the University of Wisconsin, River Falls. Researchers can gain access to the database by presenting their ethics board (IRB) approval to the University.
Interested researchers should contact montresearch@uwrf.edu
]]>At the AIMS (Association of Illinois Montessori Schools) conference this past weekend, I was honored to meet with about 500 educators and administrators and teach about where Dr. Montessori's theory on the planes of development meets our current understanding of neurodevelopment.
The weather was a bit tentative for travel before I left, so I pre-recorded my talk in case the snow and ice prevented me from physically making it there. Luckily, my travels went smoothly but since I had this recorded anyway, I figured I might as well share it with you!
The key stages of child development in Dr. Montessori's view are divided as follows:
]]>The weather was a bit tentative for travel before I left, so I pre-recorded my talk in case the snow and ice prevented me from physically making it there. Luckily, my travels went smoothly but since I had this recorded anyway, I figured I might as well share it with you!
The key stages of child development in Dr. Montessori's view are divided as follows:
Plane 1. Prenatal to age 6: Sensorial explorationIn this talk (see video below), Julia takes a closer look at a few aspects of brain development, particularly in planes 1 and 3 that are well aligned with Dr. Montessori's theory.
In the big picture, neurodevelopmental research generally supports many of Dr. Montessori's ideas. For example, research has found that our senses and motor brain areas develop first (sensorial exploration in plane 1) and that those areas MUST develop before our association areas can develop (exploration of morality in plane 3). (But this is challenged by some new research by Tooley and colleagues in 2022.)
Why is this sequential development required? Because the association areas are integrating everything that has come before. If the basics aren't developed, there's not much to integrate, right? And, most of the sensory motor development happens in early childhood while most of the integration happens in adolescence.
This is pretty well aligned with Dr. Montessori's theory. She stated that in plane one, the child has an absorbent mind that is in the sensitive period for developing the senses. In fact, she describes the child in the first six years of life as a sensorial explorer.
Her ideas about the child having an absorbent mind is also well supported by research. I mean, just think of the sheer volume of effortless plasticity the brain has in the early years of life compared with later in life. In those early years, the brain changes with very little effort by the child; it is driven to grow and seeks out specific input to help that happen (experience-dependent plasticity).
Dr. Montessori also singled out adolescence as another period of development where a lot of growth happens and a time when the child is trying to find out how they fit into society. Again, research supports this idea and also suggests that there is a sensitive period for social cognition in adolescence. Moreover, during adolescence there is significant growth in the area of our brain that helps us recognize errors. This is why children are embarrassed by their parents! They are acutely focused on social cues and when they're parents don't seem to follow what they think the cues are (for adolescents), it freaks them out! But this isn't something we need to change in the adolescent, it is a natural result of neurodevelopment.
This is just a sampling of what you'll hear in the video below. We hope this helps!
]]>Okay, it's true, I'm always giving the children in my life Maitri Learning materials as gifts. This Thanksgiving, when 18 of us gathered at my sister's house, I gave my great-nephew Edison the Sports Equipment Matching cards lovingly housed in our cerulean blue two-pocket cloth pouch (yes, blue is his favorite color). And, of course, we played with them a lot!
Edison is 4-years-old and is very interested in learning the names of everything. He was really curious when I first gave these cards to him. He immediately opened the pouch and started taking them out. Then he became 100% focused on trying to remember the names of the ones he knew and learn the names of the ones he didn't. And that, just as Dr. Montessori taught us, is the first step: vocabulary comes before the matching work.
]]>Okay, it's true, I'm always giving the children in my life Maitri Learning materials as gifts. This Thanksgiving, when 18 of us gathered at my sister's house, I gave my great-nephew Edison the Sports Equipment Matching cards lovingly housed in our cerulean blue two-pocket cloth pouch (yes, blue is his favorite color). And, of course, we played with them a lot!
Edison is 4-years-old and is very interested in learning the names of everything. He was really curious when I first gave these cards to him. He immediately opened the pouch and started taking them out. Then he became 100% focused on trying to remember the names of the ones he knew and learn the names of the ones he didn't. And that, just as Dr. Montessori taught us, is the first step: vocabulary comes before the matching work.
Just watch and notice how noisy it is all around him (remember, it's Thanksgiving day in a small house full of 18 people) and how that doesn't bother him in the least. Dr. Montessori often spoke of the powers of concentration of the young child. But here you can see it first hand.
Once he felt strong with the vocabulary, he wanted to match the cards. But first, he had to sort them into two groups. Now, I don't know about you but often times, when we adults have to sort things or set up an activity, it feels like a chore. That is totally not the case for young children! Watch how happy he is,... like every card is a present.
When it's time to match, he is still focused on practicing his vocabulary. He also tells a few stories which is actually part of how the brain remembers things (by putting them into context). Watch below to see how he pushes himself to remember more.
To keep this work interesting, you can add distance by placing one column of cards on one side of the room and the other on the other side of the room. The child has to keep track in their mind (working memory) of the card they go looking for. It's really great work.
Then, to make it more challenging, try memory matching, just like you probably did when you were a kid. Lay the cards out in a grid but flip them upside-down. Then, turn one over and try to find it's match.
And don't forget about the value of cleaning up and organizing the work when you're done. As you see Edison do this below, you can see that he's noticing all kinds of things about patterns and relationships. Plus, he's exercising his working memory by keeping track of which cards go back into which pouch.
There is so much cognitive yummy stuff happening in this simple act of cleaning up. Remember to give your children the benefit of letting them do it. Yes, it is faster for us to do it for them and we may be more thorough and precise. But, if we don't give them the chance, they'll never get to develop their skills!
This goes way beyond putting toys away. Think about cleaning up after dinner. When you do it together as a family (starting at a young age), the children will effortlessly do it with you as they grow up. Notice how I said do it together? We don't want to abandon them to the cleaning up. Make it a collective thing, guiding them as necessary.
The coolest thing about this lovely activity was that without any prior instruction (Edison does not attend a Montessori school), Edison innately used the materials exactly the way we expect him to. Why? Because they call to his neurodevelopmental needs, just as Dr. Montessori described.
We hope this has inspired you to up your vocabulary and matching card game! Let us know if there are other ways we can support your work on behalf of the child.
]]>There is a long history of research looking into the importance of spoken language as foundational for learning to read and write. But, this isn't just about reading literacy, it's also about social cognition and connection. This is backed up both by science of reading research and by neurobiological research (Hong et al., 2018; Marks et al., 2019; McBride-Chang, et al., 2005; Romeo, et al., 2018; Rueckla et al., 2015; Zoll, Feinberg, & Saylor, 2023).
So, it is a clear priority of all of us who work with young children to intentionally focus on developing their vocabulary, background knowledge, and spoken language capacity. But, outside of Montessori environments and the world of specialists (like speech language pathologists), there is very little explicit work done with children to develop vocabulary.
This is a vast oversight that we can rectify quite simply. Here is some guidance from our Language Teacher Education Album on what we can do.
]]>There is a long history of research looking into the importance of spoken language as foundational for learning to read and write. But, this isn't just about reading literacy, it's also about social cognition and connection. This is backed up both by science of reading research and by neurobiological research (Hong et al., 2018; Marks et al., 2019; McBride-Chang, et al., 2005; Romeo, et al., 2018; Rueckla et al., 2015; Zoll, Feinberg, & Saylor, 2023).
So, it is a clear priority of all of us who work with young children to intentionally focus on developing their vocabulary, background knowledge, and spoken language capacity. But, outside of Montessori environments and the world of specialists (like speech language pathologists), there is very little explicit work done with children to develop vocabulary.
This is a vast oversight that we can rectify quite simply. Here is some guidance from our Language Teacher Education Album on what we can do.
We always want to begin with what is most relevant for the learner. When we're with an infant, toddler, or preschooler, that means we're talking about the parts of the body. This work begins with infants. When we're changing them, for example, we quietly narrate what is happening. We say things like, "Let's put your right arm in the sleeve. Now your left arm."
When they're a little older, we use the 3-period lesson. We touch our own nose and say, "This is my nose. Touch your nose." We continue for their leg, arm, head, etc. Don't be afraid to be precise. Name the wrist and chin and pinky finger! They will effortlessly absorb these new words and it will lay the foundation for their relationship with language throughout their life.
When they know some of their body parts, we stretch out to the other objects in their space. We walk to the rug, touch it and say, "This is an oriental rug." Then we repeat that first period for the aloe vera plant and the blue floral pillow.
Do you see how we're using detailed language here? This is your chance to have some fun naming everything you see (lavender triangular pillow anyone?).
Next, we move onto the second period and ask them to go touch the oriental rug and we repeat for the other objects. Finally, once we're sure they know the names of the items, we move to the third period; we touch an item and ask, "What's this?" For toddlers, we may never get to the third period. That's fine. We don't want to ask the child to name something until we're confident they're going to succeed.
You may have seen moments when children seem obsessed with learning the names of everything. And they memorize the names quickly! This is when their brain’s are ripe for effortlessly learning new vocabulary. If they love trucks and cars, teach them the names of every truck and car you see. For nature lovers, you'll want to have field guides handy so you can help them discover the incredible breadth of their area of interest. I mean, how many shapes, colors, and sizes of spiders are there in the Audubon field guide?
But for all children, you'll also want vocabulary cards. The big difference between the cards and a book is that the children can lay their hands on each individual creature or object. They can pick them up, examine them closely, stack them up, make piles of their favorites, etc. And, these cards should isolate their subject so it’s clear that we’re talking about a cat, for example, and not the bed the cat is lying on. Make sense?
In everything we do, we want to focus like a flashlight in a dark room on exactly what we are teaching. No distractions allowed! So, we want the subject we're presenting in a photograph to be all by itself on a white background. Further, we don't want any words at all on the cards. Why? Because having text on the page when a child has no possibility of reading that text gives the child a subtle message that they are missing something in the work. This may contribute to a self-efficacy decline (Volkman, 2017).
Once they know the vocabulary, you can show the child how to organize or sort it into groups. At first, do this with the laundry or other items around the house (like sorting socks from wash cloths or forks from spoons). Later, after they’ve used vocabulary cards, you might show them how to sort fruit from dogs (great contrasts). But, as they get more skilled, you can show them something harder like how to sort fruit from vegetables.
The point here is not accuracy. We don't have to make sure the child can sort the way WE think it should be sorted. They might sort based on color or size or preference rather than the categories we present. That is just fine. The goal is to give the child opportunities to work with the vocabulary and to practice categorizing. This leads to the development of gist.
Once they've learned vocabulary, children want (and need) to work with their new words to solidify their knowledge. Matching cards let children play with the words they love in lively games that help to train the memory while simultaneously helping to refine eye-hand coordination.
Start by have each set contained in its own basket or cloth pouch. This helps us focus on the activity of matching without getting lost in mixed up piles of cards (you know what I mean). Then, lay out one set of cards in a column and match the others side by side.
When they've got this down, add distance by placing one set of cards far away from the other set. This challenges the children, adds interest to inspire more repetition, and gives cause for purposeful movement.
Finally, turn the cards over and lay them out in a grid for memory matching games. For more information, download our free lesson plan describing how to use Matching Cards.
Just as with vocabulary cards, it is super important that your matching cards contain no written language whatsoever. This is a visual matching of picture to picture only. If text appears on the cards, it may subtly discourage the children from using them; children will want to read the words and if they are unable to, they may see it as a failure. So, save the words for the children who are doing solid movable alphabet work. Once they have the possibility of reading the words, cards with words can be used but not before.
When they're ready for more, you can slowly increase the difficulty by putting all the cards into one basket, mixed up! You choose a card and place it at the top of a column. Then choose the next card and put it beneath the first if it is in the same category or start a new column if it is a different category. Continue for a few more and let the child step in. It's a lot harder than it seems!
You can have so much fun with this. Just ask your child to do something like point to the book or sniff the flower. Let them have a turn and tell you what to do too. They love that! These games are great for helping children put their vocabulary knowledge to use and exercise their developing working memory abilities.
There's really no limit to this spoken language activity but try to include the following types of games:
Remember playing the game categories when you were a kid? That's what we do here. We start just like in the game categories. We think of a fruit, for example, then name it, and encourage the children to name other things in this category. You can do this just with spoken words or by also going around and collecting items in your category.
When they're ready for more challenge, we can ask them to name related nouns like animals and their young (bear, cub). Or we create compound words together (I'm thinking of a word that is two words put together. Rain... bow).
Continue this game for everything we want to lay the foundation for, particularly with word study. So you'll want to play the game for antonyms (I'm thinking of words that mean almost the same thing big...large...huge...gigantic), for synonyms, plurals and more. Do you see what I mean? If we do this preparatory work with the children now, they will excel when we get to the official word study work later.
Underlying all of this work, is the core spoken language work of talking, singing, rhyming, finger plays, reading books together, and more that we do throughout the day everyday. You can read all about that on our blog post on Spoken Language Lessons.
You can read more about teaching vocabulary in our blog post on All the Ways to Teach Vocabulary. If you'd like to go deeper with all of these activities, take a look at our Language Teacher Education Album. It includes all the steps in every one of the lessons listed here.
We hope this helps!
Hong, T., Shuai, L., Frost, S. J., Landi, N., Pugh, K. R., & Shu, H. (2018). Cortical responses to Chinese phonemes in preschoolers predict their literacy skills at school age. Developmental Neuropsychology, 43(4), 356-369.
Marks, R. A., Kovelman, I., Kepinska, O., Oliver, M., Xia, Z., Haft, S. L., ... & Hoeft, F. (2019). Spoken language proficiency predicts print-speech convergence in beginning readers. NeuroImage, 201, 116021.
McBride-Chang, C., Cho, J. R., Liu, H., Wagner, R. K., Shu, H., Zhou, A., ... & Muse, A. (2005). Changing models across cultures: Associations of phonological awareness and morphological structure awareness with vocabulary and word recognition in second graders from Beijing, Hong Kong, Korea, and the United States. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 92(2), 140-160.
Romeo, R. R. (2018). Environmental Influences on the Neural Basis of Reading and Language Development (Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University).
Rueckla, J. G., Paz-Alonso, P. M., Molfese, P. J., Kuo, W. J., Bick, A, et al., (2015). Universal brain signature of proficient reading: Evidence from four contrasting languages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(50), 15510-15515.
Volkman, J. (2018). Scaffolds and Spelling in Preschool: Using a Movable Alphabet to Measure Early Literacy. Harvard University (Master's Thesis). https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/37736756
Zoll, S., Feinberg, N., & Saylor, L. (2023). Powerful Literacy in the Montessori Classroom: Aligning Reading Research and Practice. Teachers College Press.
]]>Here it is, the second video recording my amazing interview with author Paula Lillard Preschlack! In this second in the series video, we talk about:
Here it is, the second video recording my amazing interview with author Paula Lillard Preschlack! In this second in the series video, we talk about:
Watch below to get your answers to these questions and more in this edition of our interview with author and Montessorian, Paula Lillard Preschlack. Or, read all about it in her new book, The Montessori Potential.
Stay tuned for more installments!
]]>Julia was absolutely thrilled to chat with her old friend and inspiring Montessori leader, Tamara Balis. They recorded another episode for the Greenspring Center for Lifelong Learning's podcast.
This podcast takes some of the everyday experiences we have with young children and connects them with neurodevelopment. We speak about:
]]>Julia was absolutely thrilled to chat with her old friend and inspiring Montessori leader, Tamara Balis. They recorded a new episode of the Voices in Montessori podcast developed by the Greenspring Center for Lifelong Learning.
This podcast takes some of the everyday experiences we have with young children and connects them with neurodevelopment. We speak about:
Come listen in on this wonderful conversation between two dedicated Montessorians.
]]>What is it like to grow up in a famous Montessori family and then work in a best-in-class Montessori school for 25 years? You can learn all the ins and outs in Paula's new book, The Montessori Potential, which is coming out in a few weeks.
Paula and I had a fantastic talk recently getting into what Montessori theory looks like in real life both at home (parenting) and in schools (teaching). This video is the first in the series recording that conversation. In this first in the series video, we talk about:
What is it like to grow up in a famous Montessori family and then work in a best-in-class Montessori school for 25 years? You can learn all the ins and outs in Paula's new book, The Montessori Potential, which is coming out in a few weeks.
Paula and I had a fantastic talk recently getting into what Montessori theory looks like in real life both at home (parenting) and in schools (teaching). This video is the first in the series recording that conversation. In this first in the series video, we talk about:
Stay tuned for more installments!
]]>Dr. Montessori originally developed her method for helping children learn Italian, a completely phonetic language. But it was Muriel Dwyer who used that method to tackle the complexities of non-phonetic languages like English and Swahili. Muriel Dwyer was a brilliant AMI Teacher Trainer who worked extensively in both London and Africa (in the Swahili language).
The Dwyer approach is founded in the traditional AMI language approach but has a few key adjustments. Here are the big ones:
Dr. Montessori originally developed her method for helping children learn Italian, a completely phonetic language. But it was Muriel Dwyer who used that method to tackle the complexities of partially-phonetic languages like English and Swahili. Muriel Dwyer was a brilliant AMI Teacher Trainer who worked extensively in both London and Africa (in the Swahili language).
The Dwyer approach is founded in the traditional AMI language approach but has a few key adjustments. Here are the big ones:
So, if you've ever been in Montessori preschool environments where the language materials are overwhelming, where movable alphabet work is an assigned task often viewed as a chore by the children, or where children struggle with missing the ending and middle sounds in words, you definitely want to check out the details of this elegant, tested approach!
You can read the specifics of the Dwyer approach in her wonderful little booklet called A Path to the Exploration of Any Language Leading to Writing and Reading.
If you'd like to go deeper, watch the talk Julia gave about the Dwyer approach for the University of Wisconsin La Crosse's annual Montessori conference. The video explains how to connect the Dwyer specifics with the traditional AMI approach to early language learning.
We hope this is useful. Please share your experiences in the comments below. Together, we can make it easier for those who follow!
Teaching a child how to use a new material or do a new activity is a sacred event. We treat it like a tea ceremony that includes precise steps to follow at the beginning, in the middle, and in the end.
While each activity has it's own precise presentation, the general way we introduce and complete lessons is fairly consistent for everything we do in early childhood. Here's an overview of how that looks.
]]>Teaching a child how to use a new material or do a new activity is a sacred event. We treat it like a tea ceremony that includes precise steps to follow at the beginning, in the middle, and in the end.
While each activity has it's own precise presentation, the general way we introduce and complete lessons is fairly consistent for everything we do in early childhood. Here's an overview of how that looks.
So why do we do it this way? When you think about it, half the time, we forget to name the material or go with the child to the shelf to get it. I mean, we teachers already know the material intimately! We took so much time finding the right containers and getting all the pieces needed and then practicing it. So, our brain's have already rehearsed the whole thing, right? But the child hasn't. This is probably the biggest challenge for us, to have a sense of beginner's mind with every activity and presentation we offer. Do you see what I mean?
If you're already following a similar technique, let us know if you have recommendations on how to refine it or how it has played out in your learning environment. If this is new to you, give it a try and see what happens. Remember to follow the scientific method. Introduce your approach, study the results, and then refine if needed. The Montessori method isn't a guru model, it is just the scientific method applied to human development. So, be a scientist in all that you do!
]]>You've all heard about it, this radical and elegantly simple way to teach vocabulary to anyone at any age. Really, if you're working with toddlers or teaching a new language, the Montessori 3-period lesson is THE go to strategy to help build vocabulary.
Once you've learned it, it is incredibly easy to use. Here's the big picture. The teacher follows the following three steps to teach new words:
The key points to remember are that:
Why? First, because receptive language (understanding what a thing is called) is much easier than expressive language (being able to produce the name of a thing). That's why we do a lot of work in the second period, especially movement.
Read the full article for details,...
]]>You've all heard about it, this radical and elegantly simple way to teach vocabulary to anyone at any age. Really, if you're working with toddlers or teaching a new language, the Montessori 3-period lesson is THE go to strategy to help build vocabulary.
Once you've learned it, it is incredibly easy to use. Here's the big picture. The teacher follows the following three steps to teach new words:
The key points to remember are that:
Why? First, because receptive language (understanding what a thing is called) is much easier than expressive language (being able to produce the name of a thing). That's why we do a lot of work in the second period, especially movement.
Keeping the second period lively is one of the core tricks in the pocket of every great Montessori guide. Here are some ideas.
There are more ways than this but, hopefully, you can see that the second period is meant to be a lot of fun!
As for the third period, that is really a test. We DO NOT want children to fail! If they don't know the answer, it's not because they're stupid, it's because we asked too soon (and need to observe them more closely). Does that make sense?
We're always trying to develop a child's sense of capacity and self-efficacy. So, we want them to succeed at the highest level they're able to. This is really the art of teaching. We're trying to guide them to work that is at exactly the right level of challenge and interest. If it's too easy or too hard, they loose interest. If it's not what they're interested in, they lose interest. But, when we find the magic combination of interest and ability, learning takes off like a meme!
Young children are particularly interested in learning the names of everything they see. So, they are eager to get these three period lessons. Start with teaching them the names of everything in the physical space. And don't limit your vocabulary here. Don't just say floor, specify the kind of floor like hardwood maple floor, blue tile floor, low pile carpet. Do you see what I mean? You can really go to town there.
Once they have experience with learning the names of real objects via the 3-period lesson, you can move on to pictures of objects (Vocabulary Cards). From there, the sky is really the limit. You can purchase or make vocabulary cards that give them exactly what they want to know.
I made a little video so you can see how this can work. If you have other tips, tricks, or questions, please leave a comment below. If we all work together, we can make the journey a lot easier for those who follow!
]]>
I presented this talk at the Montessori Foundation conference in St. Petersburg and participants were asking for my slides. So, I decided to post a video and slides in case they might help.
The big takeaways from the talk are,...
]]>Montessorians need to know more about the science underlying mindfulness because we are engaging children in mindfulness practices all day long! The way we focus our attention fully on a task, limit language on non-verbal tasks, move with precision, aim to perfect our movements, etc. These are all aspects of mindfulness. So what does this mean for our students?
The big takeaways from the talk are:
You can learn more by watching this short YouTube video I made to prepare for the talk.
I've embedded my slides below in case you'd like to go deeper. I encourage you to check out the references at the end and question my conclusions. Don't believe everything you read/hear! If we all work to be skeptical consumers of information, we will move closer to understanding the truth and realizing peace.
]]>When we go to Montessori teacher school we are taught to have gorgeous examples of art throughout our prepared environment. But it's not just meant to look pretty on the walls! It's means to actually bring culture alive for us and our children. And, I think most importantly, it gives the children inspiration and motives for conversation. Young children are just becoming masters of our language. They need opportunities to organize their thoughts and express themselves aloud. With art, this is easy to do because whatever they think or say about art, they can't be wrong,... it's art!
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Susan Stephenson, AMI Teacher/Trainer and acclaimed artist, wrote a wonderful chapter about bringing art to life in the classroom in her book The Red Corolla. When I first read it, I found myself in the hammock all weekend until I was done, it is that good of a read.
In this post, I'll paint a big picture of some key activities. But, I encourage you to look to Susan's book to get more detail. You can also read our Cultural Album/Teacher's Manual for precise direction on using Art in your child's environment.
The first thing I have to say is to get yourself to some museums!! If you can't go in person, take virtual tours on their websites. Enjoy yourself as you learn about the artists, the art, and the language used in the art world. The more you are interested in and engaged with art, the more the children will be. Truth.
Next, get yourself some art to put out around the room. This doesn't just have to be paintings for your walls. It can be woven art on your pillows or rugs, doilies under your lamps/flower arrangements, small sculptures, etc.
For your walls, you can use our Fine Art Display cards or cut out the pages from old books of art from library sales or used art calendars. I had parents donate a few books to my classroom and we were able to rotate our wall art every month with the large cut out pages! Even if you start out with only a few pieces, keep the goal of having enough art to change things up regularly (aim for every season when you're first starting out or every month once you're going strong).
Remember that when you put anything on your walls, it needs to be hung at the child's eye level and with plenty of empty space between featured items. They've actually conducted research to show that classrooms with busy walls make it more difficult to focus/learn. So, less is more. (You can read all about this in our blog post called Less is More: Crowding the Visual Field.)
Once your walls are feeling museum-esque, anytime you and a child have a few moments, invite them to have a conversation about one of the pictures. Walk together to one that is likely to interest them. If you know the painting's name and artist, introduce it. But don't let this be the point of the lesson (no quizzes today; this level of detail comes with the fine art folders). Instead, look at the picture and ask questions to prompt the child to discuss what they see. Spark a conversation about it on whatever level the child is interested in. Model your own responses/ideas as part of a dialogue. You might ask:
Remember that there are no right or wrong answers. They are discussing art! Whatever it makes them feel or think is valid. Your job is not to correct their perceptions but to encourage a conversation where their ideas can come out. You want to get the children speaking so that they gain experience organizing their thinking and expressing it in a logical, intelligent manner. This is particularly important for children coming from situations where they may have limited opportunities to speak and/or limited exposure to vocabulary.
Of course, with all of this exposure to gorgeous examples of art from around the world, the children are going to want to make art of their own! You can find full details about lessons on making art in our Cultural Album. But here's a short list of some key activities that tend to work throughout much of the US:
This is only a list to get you thinking; it's not a required curriculum. The specific activities you offer must vary depending on the materials you have available and the culture the children are living in. We want to offer them real art materials/tools that are child-sized but also relevant to their daily life. And, we want these activities to prepare them for future work. So, if we want them to make little books out of their handwriting work once they start writing, we can show them now how to make little books, even before they can write. Make sense?
Creating art empowers them in so many ways. First, it brings them into the moment (mindfulness) and develops their concentration along with their eye-hand coordination. They may also choose to use their art to make gifts or offer kindness to others. Think about how empowering this is for someone with a limited budget. Making art for others is a time-honored act of human generosity. Just remember that the art the children make is their art. They can choose to keep it, to give it, or to recycle it. It is not meant to be a "badge" to show others that they are good or that their teacher is doing something right. Susan Stephenson has helpful guidance on this point in her book The Red Corolla. Have I mentioned that I strongly recommend reading that?
When you prepare an art activity, remember to set it up so it can be done independently by one child. All materials should be on the tray, ready to use (no gathering things to get started). As we always do in the children's house, make your lessons precise and limit yourself to necessary language. Whatever you do, remember to practice ahead of time and have fun. Don't judge your results. Just enjoy the process of creating art.
Have your paper supply in one spot on the shelf with just enough on the tray to complete the activity (e.g., one piece of paper with crayons on the tray but a small basket of extra paper on the shelf). If you have scribblers who don't seem to be interested in what they're creating, limit the amount of paper available each day. Once it's gone, there's no more until tomorrow. Then re-present the activity and observe to see if there might be a different activity that would be of greater value for that child.
Another way to bring fine art to life in your room is to create a displaying art activity. You'll need a nice variety of fine art cards (six is a good number to start with) and a container with the same number of mini-art easels. The mini easels should be sized to easily hold a single art card without it slipping off the front. Take the cards and the easels to a table and show the child how to choose a favorite picture, place it on an easel, and display it in a lovely location in the room. At the end of the day, collect all of the art and easels and put them back, ready for use the next morning.
This activity is often done only once each day by one child or a few children. This is another great feature of having only one of each activity in your environment. If they're dying to have a turn, the children will think about it ahead of time and make a beeline to the work first thing the next day to make sure they get their chance.
The first fine art folders activity is similar to the work you do when discussing art on the wall. But, now the children are able to pickup, move, organize, contemplate, and just get their hands on the fine art. Think about approaching your art collections just as you would approach geography. We start with examples from every continent (World Art Display Cards) and then move to the child's continent and then expand back out to the rest of the world. Ultimately, you can create folders with classified art like a collection of landscapes, portraits, art by Gauguin or Monet, impressionist paintings, sculptures, metal-work, etc.
Choose about six fine art cards and place them in a lovely container (our large cloth pouches are one option). Take them to a work area and guide the child(ren) to take them out one at a time. Name the painting and artist and then guide the children to talk about what they see, what they like, what they don't like, what is curious, etc. You want to get things rolling and then, as soon as you can, fade away so that the children are chatting up a storm without you! Remember, there are no right or wrong answers: it's art!
When it's time to clean up, reinforce the names of the paintings and artists by saying, "Let's put the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci away first. Now let's do the Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh." This is a simple way to reinforce without testing/requiring. See what I mean? We want to make art inviting, not intimidating. (You can read more details about this in our Fine Art Cards Lesson Plan.)
Once they've had many opportunities to discuss the fine art, they are ready to play matching games with it. Now matching cards are not in everyone's Montessori training but it was in my AMI training back in the late 1990s. I still think these activities are incredibly valuable. They help children classify the things in their environment and organize like concepts. Matching cards also train the memory while simultaneously helping children refine their eye-hand coordination. So, matching cards are the next logical step after the fine art folders.
But, before you begin, make sure you've introduced all the names of all of the paintings and their artists; there should be no new vocabulary when working with matching cards. Why? Because the vocabulary creates context for the children and guides them to mentally "label" the images they see. (You can read more details about this in our Matching Fine Art Cards Lesson Plan.)
You can also use the Matching Cards or Fine Art Display Cards for writing activities with the movable alphabet or pencil and paper. Guide the child to choose a favorite painting and write about it. This is really a chance for them to solidify their expressive ideas.
The 3-part cards show us how the fine art materials truly grow with the children. Once the children start reading non-phonetic words, you can revive the artwork they've grown to love at a new level.
Here, children learn the importance of both the painting and artist name when identifying works of art. Like all 3-part cards, these are really built to be a self-administered vocabulary quiz. The children layout the pictures and then have to read and match the correct word label. The control card helps them check their own work. This format is great for all kinds of vocabulary/reading activities.
Okay, I have to fess up. I actually started making these 3-Part Artist Cards when I wrote my Montessori language album in 1998! It's embarrassing to admit that it took me over twenty years to finally finish this project. But, really, how else would you want to introduce artists to children than through their self-portraits? If self-portraits aren't available, portraits made during their life time or photographs of the artist are also good options.
As with all 3-part cards, be sure to use the photo-only cards first in 3-period lessons to make sure children know the vocabulary. Then, the 3-part format lets them independently test their knowledge.
You can read more about how to present these cards to the children in our Lesson Plan.
Now here is where we stretched our thinking to add challenge for the learner. Once the children succeed with the 3-part Fine Art Cards, challenge them to test their knowledge with the 4-Part Fine Art Cards. Try these for yourself to see how much harder and fun it is to match the artwork names AND the artist names to each piece of art. You could break this out at your next dinner party, it's that fun!
Once your children see these examples of art cards, they may be inspired to create their own. This doesn't just have to be for art, it can be for anything at all that interests them. I had a student in my class who was fascinated with reptiles. So, he made a "parts of" the alligator 3-part card set. He drew an outline of an alligator and asked us to make some copies of it. Then, he cut those out and colored in the alligator's head on one page, legs on another, tail on another, etc. He wrote the word labels too. Now that is great work that ties together language, science, and art in one child-inspired activity. Perfect!
Another child I knew loved ships. So, when we had a ship in the phonetic object box, he borrowed it so he could make a sketch.
Remember that the purpose of this work is to help children develop their capacity and see that their efforts have value. Perfection is not required (although they might want it). So, we have to be careful not to criticize our own art work when we make it in front of the children. Even if we are quite unsteady with the drawing pencil, we can still create art that has value. And we can model evaluating the strengths in our art as well as things we'd like to work on.
I hope this has given you some concrete ideas for how to bring art to life in your environment. Really, the first step is to love it yourself, whatever your style. Then, share your passion with the children. If art doesn't call to you, no problem. It will call to your children as long as you value it, even if you are not passionate about it. Model with the children that it is important and they will follow your lead.
Please let us know how it goes for you with your children by leaving a comment below. Your words can be quite inspirational or informative for others. Your voice matters!
]]>You may have noticed that we started offering our Montessori Teacher Education Albums for sale. Historically, in the AMI Montessori world, this is a big no no and I am a huge AMI Montessori fan (and an AMI graduate). So, why the heck am I offering the public our sacred teachings without requiring them to have access to a teacher preparation course? In a nutshell, because I'm a scientist.
I am offering these albums because science can not study what is hidden. If we want the Montessori method to be validated through research, we must make the method known to those who would study it. We can look to the success of other manualized programs (like cognitive behavioral therapy) as a model to help improve our teacher education programs.
Read on for details!
]]>You may have noticed that we started offering our Montessori Teacher Education Albums for sale. Historically, in the AMI Montessori world, this is a big no no and I am a huge AMI Montessori fan (and an AMI graduate). So, why the heck am I offering the public our sacred teachings without requiring them to have access to a teacher preparation course? In a nutshell, because I'm a scientist.
I am offering these albums because science can not study what is hidden. If we want the Montessori method to be validated through research, we must make the method known to those who would study it. We can look to the success of other manualized programs (like cognitive behavioral therapy) as a model to help improve our teacher education programs.
I learned about other "manualized" programs while I did my graduate studies at Harvard. Did you know that the very successful mental health support method known as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) often follows a manualized approach? What this means is that it presents therapists with a manual that gives them a precise, step-by-step approach to follow when offering CBT to their patients. They take a course to go through this manual with an instructor. Then, they use it. And, this manualized approach works (see references below)!
The manualized approach to professional education is not meant to replace the traditional approach. It just gives us another option that is known to work in other scientific fields. So, we can apply this where it fits, like in public Montessori programs.
Dr. Montessori knew this innately, long before CBT was ever invented. She had her teachers in training write their own manuals so they would both have them as a reference and learn the material deeply. At first, most teachers wrote out their lessons by hand and drew the illustrations. Over the years, of course, computers have become common place. Now, students in AMI courses are often given word templates to type their albums into. But, they have to create all of the text themselves. Their trainers then review what they write for accuracy and the student revises as needed.
Writing your own albums is a fantastic learning experience. Most AMI teachers I know love their albums, are deeply proud of them, and refer to them all the time. They are sacred to us. But, it does not meet the needs of all students, particularly those with dyslexia or who are entering public school following a summer-based preparation program. (You can read more about this in my blog post about a pilot teacher education program I helped to develop with a team of brilliant Montessorians at NCMPS.)
Montessori albums are THE resource that all Montessorians look to to support their classroom practice. They contain step-by-step instructions on how, when, and why to present all of the Montessori materials.
As I mentioned, in AMI teacher preparation programs, teachers-in-training write their own albums. In others, teachers-in-training are given prepared albums. While it may be more advantageous for the adult learner to write their own albums, it is not always feasible for them to do so. An alternative is needed that neither sacrifices the deep learning of the student nor the needs of schools to prepare teachers in summer-based courses. The challenge here is that the training program must adapt to the culture. We must follow the needs of the adult just like Dr. Montessori taught us to follow the needs of the child.
The burden on teachers, particularly those in public schools in high poverty districts, is too great to ask them to leave their training course in the evening only to go home and spend hours and weekends writing up their albums. We must not burn our teachers out before they set foot in the classroom!
This new manualized approach is significantly different from most programs that give students prepared manuals. How? There are two main reasons:
Our albums give teachers in training the text-based part of the album but asks them to add the theory and illustrations/photos. They are not given a complete album! Morever, students are not asked just to take a photo of a material on the shelf, but to take many photos/draw several illustrations of key steps in the presentation of each material: from layout to clean up. In order to create this level of graphic detail, they must rehearse the presentation.
The Student edition of the album is also called the Guide's Album because Montessori Teacher's aren't really teachers at all, they are guide's who connect the child with the instruction/materials they need. The children teach themselves by using the materials in the prescribed fashion.
In many "give them the album" training programs, different instructors teach different areas of the curriculum. You may have one person who teaches language, another who teaches sensorial, another who teaches math, etc. The challenge here is that each of these instructors uses their own album to do the teaching! But unless they all went to the same teacher education program, their albums will not be unified across curricular areas.
The lessons we offer in each area of the environment build upon and rely upon the others. For example, the way we present the red rods in Sensorial is foundational for how we present the number rods in Math.
Similarly, the very way we put the materials on the work area needs to be consistent across the classroom. Like the way we layout matching cards in the language area should be the same way we lay out the matched touch tablets in the sensorial area. The way we pick up the biggest card first when putting away our 3-part language cards, is the same way we pick up the biggest card first when putting away the decimal cards in the math area.
Why does this level of consistency matter? Because each time we predictably and consistently follow procedures, we make the environment more accessible to all children. Young children are particularly sensitive to order. This is pronounced in children with atypical development. They rely on the invisible and physical order in the space to support them in what they are doing. It grounds them and gives them agency. If we are obsessed with consistency and precision in our movements (like we are executing a choreographed dance), the children are confident that they know how things work.
If we want to be of the most benefit to the young child, we must embrace the precision and choreography of our lessons across content areas.
These albums are not just meant for teacher training programs. They can also be used as a professional development tool for schools trying to creating common ground across different trainings. For example, in a regular teacher team meeting, you can focus on one lesson and talk about how it is done in each person's album versus the Maitri album. It's not that one approach is necessarily right and the other wrong, it's just that they are different and diversity is inherently good. The point is to get the conversation going and to open the teachers to new possibilities that may address needs they see in their students. Then, we put on our scientist hats and test the approaches to see which one works best. After all, this is a scientific pedagogy so we should question everything!
I've spoken with many teachers who feel uncertain about the training they received. They think that maybe they aren't the smartest person because some parts of it didn't make sense or seemed to contradict other parts. And the truth is, I've read some of their "give them the album" albums and find them quite confusing! The research shows that sticking with the authentic Montessori materials is more beneficial for learning (Lillard, 2012). Reading the Maitri albums shows teachers what those are.
It took me years to finally get to the understanding I describe here and it was the late Jackie Cossentino who led me to the mountain top. As we worked on the NCMPS teacher education program, she helped me embrace doubt not as a flaw but as a scientific question. I am forever indebted to her encouragement and "permission" to be a scientist, unbound by a limiting cultural restriction that albums must not be shared.
So, I am dedicating these albums to Jackie. I'm sure those of you who knew her feel the same gratitude. Jackie helped us revive the scientific aspect of the Montessori pedagogy. We are not following a guru model! We are all scientists studying, applying, and adapting to the needs of the child.
I hope this helps. Please add your thoughts in the comments below. It takes a village!
References
Hoyer, J., Čolić, J., Pittig, A., Crawcour, S., Moeser, M., Ginzburg, D., ... & Stangier, U. (2017). Manualized cognitive therapy versus cognitive-behavioral treatment-as-usual for social anxiety disorder in routine practice: A cluster-randomized controlled trial. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 95, 87-98.
Johnsen, D. B., Arendt, K., & Thastum, M. (2019). The efficacy of manualized Cognitive Behavior Therapy conducted by student-therapists treating Danish youths with anxiety using a benchmark comparison. Scandinavian Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, 7(1), 68-80.
Lillard, A.S. (2012). Preschool children's development in classic Montessori, supplemented Montessori, and conventional programs. Journal of School Psychology, 50(3), 379-401.
Mann, R. E. (2009). Sex offender treatment: The case for manualization. Journal of Sexual Aggression, 15(2), 121-131.
Márquez-González, M., Romero-Moreno, R., Cabrera, I., Olmos, R., Pérez-Miguel, A., & Losada, A. (2020). Tailored versus manualized interventions for dementia caregivers: The functional analysis-guided modular intervention. Psychology and Aging, 35(1), 41.
Perepletchikova, F., & Kazdin, A. E. (2005). Treatment integrity and therapeutic change: Issues and research recommendations. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 12(4), 365.
Vinnars, B., Barber, J. P., Norén, K., Gallop, R., & Weinryb, R. M. (2005). Manualized supportive-expressive psychotherapy versus nonmanualized community-delivered psychodynamic therapy for patients with personality disorders: bridging efficacy and effectiveness. American Journal of Psychiatry, 162(10), 1933-1940.
]]>I was invited by the Childhood Potential Conference to offer a talk on the BEST topic: Practical Parenting to Support the Brain. The video below is a brief/short version of the longer version made for the conference.
Key highlights include:
If you're interested in Montessori parenting, you definitely want to check out the conference!
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Potty-training, also known as Toilet-Learning, is messy. There's no way around it. But, it doesn't have to be stressful on top of being messy! I've put together some basic information on how to accomplish this in a short YouTube Video. This video is a shorter version of my Practical Parenting to Support the Brain video created for the Childhood Potential Conference (an online Montessori parenting conference that you won't want to miss).
View the article to see the video and read details.
]]>Here's the big picture.
The Brain Part
Three key brain networks for potty-learning (and everything else) (Bressler & Menon, 2010)
We need to use all of these networks regularly to have a strong brain. Salience is the key network that allows us to toggle between being off-task (default mode) and on-task (central executive) activity. Salience is basically our "notice what our brain is doing" network. For example, our salience network is active when we realize that we are all caught up in thinking about how awesome someone else is or how awful we just messed up. It's also active when we realize we need to stop watching movies and start taking action to be well-prepared for an upcoming event. You can think of it as our metacognitive network (thinking about thinking).
At any rate, when we are learning to use the toilet instead of pooping in our diapers, we have to notice (1) the urge to move our bowels, (2) the experience of moving our bowels, and (3) the result. Get it?
This need to notice is the main argument against disposable diapers. Disposable diapers are too effective. Children don't even feel wet after they've released urine; there is no logical consequence to peeing in your pants! Without that, it takes longer to learn to use the toilet. See what I mean?
So, pointer number one is to use cloth diapers. In addition to giving the child sensory feedback to voiding and being way better for the environment, cloth diapers will also let the adult know when the child is ready to start toilet education. Why? Because somewhere around 18 to 24 months, children will start to hold their urine. They'll be dry for a couple of hours and then it will all come out at once. As soon as that happens, it's your signal that toilet education can begin!
Now, if you're a disposable diaper/pull-up fan, you don't have to go cold turkey! Just save the disposables for long car rides or bedtime and use cloth diapers or underpants most of the time. However, the more you use cloth, the faster toilet learning will go. It might be messier, but it will be messier for less time.
Even before they can hold it, you can prepare your child's toileting area. You'll need the following:
If you want, you can get a whole toilet learning kit from MontiKids (great company) so you don't have to find your own things.
The key is to have everything ready for the child to ease towards independence. Set things up so they can get the toilet paper, clean cloths, etc. without requiring help from you. They will, of course, need support while they're learning but once they get the hang of it, we want to be able to fade away and let them get down to business.
We start easing them in to toileting independence by doing the standing diaper change. So, yes, instead of laying the child down on a changing table, you stand the child up in front of you while you change them. You verbalize each step you are doing and invite them to participate in whatever parts they can (their capacity to be involved with this will grow over time). The key here is that the child is learning that toileting is something that they are actively engaged in. They are transitioning from passive to active.
Once they are ready to actually sit down on the potty, try to get into a regular routine of using it. Here are some key times to go to the potty, even if nothing comes out:
Always be sure to guide the child to wash their hands after toileting, even if nothing comes out. You're creating a lifelong habit here that dramatically influences human health. (Don't get me started on the history of keeping the toilet away from the kitchen in human history,... it took us forever to figure this one out.)
And when you first start, just clear your calendar for a couple of days. Don't even go to the grocery store. Your job is to support toileting. Period. So put on the cotton undies and get ready for a massive mess! You'll just be mopping all weekend with your child. No problem.
You'll know your child is ready to be introduced to the potty when they start to hold it. With my own daughter, she was around 18 months old when she would hold it for a couple of hours and then let it out in a huge gush that completely overwhelmed her cloth diaper. When that happens, it doesn't mean you need to switch to disposables! It means you need to help them learn how to let it go in the right place.
And yes, you read that right, my daughter was 18-months-old when she was ready to start using the potty. This is much younger than many of us in our culture expect (we must have been brainwashed by the diaper industry). This varies from child to child but most children are ready before they reach 24 months. If you get them started at the right moment, it will be much easier than if you wait.
No matter what comes up, try not to lose it! It is normal for children to have accidents or forget to use the potty, even after they've been reliable for a while. It's just part of typical development. When there is a mess, your job is to maintain calm and steady behavior and work together with the child to clean it up. The last thing you want to do is trigger an acute stress response. That is bad for the brain (watch the video below or read my blog post on Stress & Resilience for details).
I hope this helps! Please add your comments, tricks, and tips below. All of us working together can lighten the load for those who follow!
References
Bressler, S. L., & Menon, V. (2010). Large-scale brain networks in cognition: emerging methods and principles. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14(6), 277-290.
]]>I prepared this talk to help (hopefully) the Montessori teachers working in Ukraine or who have been displaced from their home by the war. I'll be meeting with them to discuss their questions and we're going to record that so stay tuned for more! In the meanwhile, you can learn more about the Ukrainian Montessori Community on their website: https://montessoriua.com/
This post and the video below quickly review some high level information about chronic stress and evidence-based strategies to promote resilience (our ability to handle and move past challenges). Click all the way through (click on the "View article" link below) to read more and see a PDF of the slides.
]]>I prepared this talk to help (hopefully) the Montessori teachers working in Ukraine or who have been displaced from their home by the war. I'll be meeting with them to discuss their questions and we're going to record that so stay tuned for more! In the meanwhile, you can learn more about the Ukrainian Montessori Community on their website: https://montessoriua.com/
This post and the video below quickly review some high level information about chronic stress and evidence-based strategies to promote resilience (our ability to handle and move past challenges).
Stress is real. It affects our brain's and our bodies. It can make it harder for us to keep track of things, control our reactions, think flexibly, and respond actively. While this is true, it doesn't mean that we're doomed!
Resilience is also real and has physical effects on us that can counter the effects of stress.
Most of us don't have the luxury of waiting until a stressful situation resolves before trying to move forward. For those of us working with children, this is especially true. In children and in adults, the brain is learning all the time; it just may be learning some unexpected, ineffective, or unskillful things. So, we have to do our best to guide it back towards the positive. And then we need a cruise-ship full of patience while we wait for the brain and body to heal.
So, when life is giving us difficult things to work with, we have to acknowledge reality: stress can affect our capacity. At the same time, we can also build in as many resiliency factors as possible to try and counteract the maladaptive effects of stress. Here are some key, evidence-based ways to buffer stress:
If the stress is too extreme for us to do this for ourselves (which it most certainly can be), we hopefully have a social network that can guide us towards a resiliency track. Curiously, that act of helping others is actually a resiliency factor. It gives us a purpose. In Montessori we call this meaningful work. Meaningful work is something all of us crave.
We've included a PDF of the slides below for your reference. I encourage you to read these and go deeper with the references. (FYI, you can find many scholarly articles on scholar.google.com).
Please comment below if you can add to this conversation. In times like these, we all need to work together to help each other manifest our full capacity. And, helping each other will help to buffer against stress! So, start typing :)
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Anna Volokhova, founder of the Ukrainian Montessori Community, organized a zoom conversation with me and parents living in Ukraine in the midst of war and those who were displaced due to the war. You can watch a recording of that call here but I've also written down some of the ordinary and extraordinary questions that came up.
I wasn't sure how to prepare for this gathering because I felt overwhelmed by what the families must be experiencing. But, in the end, I was amazed at their resilience and willingness to put their effort and energy into parenting in the midst of everything they are facing. I'll touch on some of the questions we discussed but I recommend you watch the entire recording to get all the details.
Harder to learn
A parent of children ages 9, 12, and 14 was concerned that (1) it seemed longer for her children to learn new things and (2) they seemed to be forgetting more. This can certainly happen when the brain is under a lot of stress. There are many reasons why but one is based on the sheer volume of things the brain needs to process during stressful times. Researchers call this cognitive load. Think about it this way, there is a limit to how much weight you can put on a scale. When you get past a certain point, the scale just gives you an error message. That's kind of what happens in an overloaded brain. The brain doesn't necessarily break or get damaged, it just can't process everything on its plate. So, there's kind of a competition for what actually gets processed. Your ability to pay attention, recognize things you already know, and remember new things is based on which of those networks "wins" the competition for brain real estate.
If you or your children are experiencing cognitive overload, the first thing to do is pause. Just pause and do nothing. Turn your attention to the air coming in and out of your nose. This is like giving a stadium some time to empty out after a big game. Just wait for it. Then, when you can feel some "space," look at your daily life and take anything off of your plate that you can, including downtime that is filled with media. Your brain needs less so it can keep up. Make time to take a walk and let your mind relax. If difficult thoughts are arising, turn your attention to the feel of your feet on the earth or the air as you breath. And prioritize sleep, that is where a lot of extra stuff is literally washed away.
Isolating as a coping mechanism
Another parent noticed that she and her children all wanted to retreat to their own space more than they used to. One child was on social media and another was reading books. They ate meals together, biked together, took turns cooking meals, and then they were off on their own. This actually looks a lot like many families in the US that I know! Especially since the pandemic, we all seem to be much more drawn to alone time.
If you see this happening in your life and want to change it, remember that the brain gets more efficient at anything it does repeatedly. So, if you or your family has developed a habit of isolating, it may take a little time to become more social. This is also related to cognitive load. Since we have so much to process, adding social relationships into the mix makes it that much harder for us to think with clarity. Interacting with others takes effort. But, having strong social relationships is also a key factor in being resilient/able to work with stress.
If you want to make a change, try to find ways to build relationship opportunities into your daily routines. Try cooking your meals together and cleaning up together instead of taking turns. Have a game night each week where you play a game you already know and enjoy (including sports games). Try biking slowly next to each other or taking a walk together so that talking about nothing can easily occur. Or, walking without speaking together might be the right thing, just silently noticing the trees or the buildings on your path. The power of letting your brain rest is truly restorative but it may take time before this becomes a new habit. So, make a plan and make yourself follow through until it becomes natural.
Learning new languages
Many of these families have had to leave Ukraine (leaving some in their family behind to fight the war). So, they and their children are now exposed to another language. But, even for the parents staying in Ukraine, there is a cultural drive to speak in Ukrainian even though many people grew up speaking Russian as their first language. Parents are concerned that this might be too much to ask of their children or that they might not be modeling the new language well. The short answer to this is, don't worry! Learning languages is great for the brain and the younger you are the less effort it will take to do so. But even when you're older, you can become completely fluent in other languages as long as you make an effort to do so.
My colleague at Harvard, Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa, has a special interest and expansive knowledge about this topic. So, I refer you to her. You can watch one of her many videos about multilingualism below. Or, read some of her books, especially the one called Raising Multilingual Children.
Helping children learn to read
Many Ukrainian children have had to start at different schools. One parent was very busy with work in their new situation. Previously, she felt she never had to do anything specifically academic at home because her son's Montessori school was amazing and took care of all of that for her. Now that he's in a conventional kindergarten, she's concerned about his learning to read. But, because she's busy, she can't be his tutor. She needs a "soft" way to support his literacy growth.
The best way to do so is to just enjoy language. Sing songs, recite rhymes and poems, read books aloud together, play word games (tongue twisters are one of my favorites), etc. And don't be afraid to use big words! You want to offer the child the absolute best your language has to offer.
If your child is young, a simple thing to do is starting singing your alphabet song but sing it with the sounds of the letters instead of their names. (You can hear an example of the alphabet song with sounds in English here.) You can also read many other articles on this blog about language development. In particular, look at:
I hope this helps. Please add your thoughts, comments, and questions below. It takes all of us working together to truly help remove some of the confusion in the world!
References
Franconeri, S. L., Alvarez, G. A., & Cavanagh, P. (2013). Flexible cognitive resources: competitive content maps for attention and memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17(3), 134-141.
Xie, L., Kang, H., Xu, Q., Chen, M. J., Liao, Y., Thiyagarajan, M., ... & Nedergaard, M. (2013). Sleep drives metabolite clearance from the adult brain. Science, 342(6156), 373-377.
]]>My heart is breaking that I am drawn to write about this topic. With so many shootings these days, I'm no longer shocked to hear about another act of insanity. That statement is in itself shocking.
...
When tragedy arrives, we need to tend to our own and the children's need to process and make sense of what happened. But isn't it when we do both of these things at the same time that we protect ourselves against depression and helplessness? Isn't it in the process of helping others that we ultimately help ourselves?
]]>My heart is breaking that I am drawn to write about this topic. With so many shootings these days, I'm no longer shocked to hear about another act of insanity. That statement is in itself shocking.
I was researching this topic to help support the Montessori Ukraine Community when I came across something simple and useful from Sesame Street.
The key takeaways for me from this video are:
I remember when 9/11 happened. I was in my classroom and my head of school came crying into my room (utterly out of character for her, a rock of a leader). We went into the hallway, she told me what happened, I called my sister (who lived near the Pentagon), and went back to my class. I was in shock. The children were being dismissed early and parents were about to arrive. The only thing I could think to do was give them a geography lesson with the United States puzzle map to show them how far New York and DC were from our school in Springfield, Massachusetts.
When the children were dismissed, I went to pick up my own 5-year-old daughter. At home, we turned on the news. We saw the twin towers fall. When I realized they were just repeating that video again and again and again, I turned off the news. I wish I had done that sooner. We cried, we talked, we called family, and, ultimately, we slept.
When we were back in school, I was surprised by how little the children spoke about it. It did come up sometimes but it was more matter of fact in the children. But the parents, we were devastated. That's all we could talk about.
9/11 affected the entire United States community (and more). But I wonder if how things unfolded then may give us ideas for how to respond in the future. First, we have to focus on our physical needs. Like when 9/11 happened, everyone went to get their children because no one knew what was coming next. We thought it might be just the beginning of the attacks.
If you and the children are in a physically safe space, I think the next logical thing to do is to exert ourselves to help. For 9/11, we made care packages and cards to send to NY. But our neighbor did more. He had heard on the news that they didn't have enough respirators for the rescue workers. He knew something about that and so, completely on his own, started calling companies who made respirators, got donations, rented a truck to go around and collect the donations, and then drove that truck to NYC. He just showed up in the middle of the chaos, found a hub of rescue workers, and opened up the truck. It took a minute for them to figure out what had just happened, that this gift of human generosity and care had fallen from the sky, and all they had to do was distribute it. Can you imagine being in their situation and witnessing how humans can self-organize to solve immense problems?
When tragedy arrives, we need to tend to our own and the children's need to process and make sense of what happened. But isn't it when we do that and work to improve the situation that we protect ourselves against depression and helplessness? Isn't it in the process of helping others that we ultimately help ourselves?
And isn't that really what we're doing in the scientific Montessori pedagogy? We're teaching children to think independently and take intelligent action. We're showing them how to engage with their surroundings, with their people, not only to help others but also to help themselves. Isn't that where we find the sweet spot, the balance that brings us peace? Because helping others is simultaneously helping ourselves, maybe selfless selfishness is our best hope in these troubled times.
]]>The podcast is introduced in French but this episode, after the introduction, is in English.
]]>The podcast is introduced in French but this episode, after the introduction, is in English.
Céline asked wonderful and insightful questions so we had a lot of fun for this episode. Some of our key topics were:
So, add this to your podcast list, relax, and enjoy. I hope its useful!
]]>Today we often hear that children have minds like a sponge, they just absorb everything. Dr. Montessori’s definition is similar to that, but more precise and, yes, it is supported by research. Here's a very quick, high-level outline of the four key aspects of Dr. Montessori's Absorbent Mind (the video has a bit more detail).
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Today people think of the Absorbent Mind as a quintessential Montessori term. But, it wasn’t until 1944, in the later years of her life, that Dr. Montessori coined the term the absorbent mind. This was after four decades of working with young children.
We often hear that children have minds like a sponge, they just absorb everything. Dr. Montessori’s definition is similar to that, but more precise and, yes, it is supported by research. Here's a very quick, high-level outline of the four key aspects of Dr. Montessori's Absorbent Mind (the video has a bit more detail).
There is a research article in the works that will provide a more detailed look and review of the research that supports (or refutes) Dr. Montessori's theory. We'll post more on that once it is available so stay tuned!
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