Reddit mentions of Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius

Hi fellow mama. I'm a Montessori primary (ages 2.5-6) teacher (sometimes we're also called "guides" depending on the school). My 19 month old is currently enrolled in a Montessori toddler program. I'm happy to answer any other specific questions you have, and I'll try to go through your post bit by bit to address the questions you list.


First, unfortunately the name "Montessori" isn't trademarked in any way, so any school or daycare can call itself a Montessori school without actually implementing Montessori theory or philosophy. Look for a school that is either accredited by (higher standard, more work for the school to do this) or affiliated with (still good, all teachers are Montessori trained, among other standards) the American Montessori Society (AMS) or the Association Montessori International (AMI). If you're interested, I can go more into the general difference between AMI and AMS schools, but just know that both are good and both are "true" Montessori schools.


Second, I saw that you mentioned mixed-age classrooms, which are indeed a big part of the Montessori philosophy. The exception to this is the toddler class, which is typically 18-36 months or thereabouts. Otherwise, the classrooms are set up in 3 year age groups (3-6, 6-9, 9-12, etc.). This is really not such a "minor" thing at all; this is a huge part of what makes the classrooms successful. Younger children benefit tremendously from watching their older classmates work with different materials and model appropriate behavior. Older children love being the "big kids" and helping their younger classmates. The younger ones often learn better from a peer than from adults, anyway. Furthermore, I think it's just good for helping the little ones learn how to be part of a community- other than school, when else are we expected to work with people exactly our same age and do the exact same thing at the same time as them? Rarely or never, in my experience. Another piece of the mixed-age classroom is that it allows each child to work at his or her own pace, not dictated by what the "average" 4 year old should be doing, or what the kindergarten pacing guide says to do for reading lessons for the second week of November, for example. (I used to teach in public school and this aspect of teaching drove me batty. On any given day, what I was supposed to teach was only appropriate for about 25% of the class, the rest either needed to move more slowly or more quickly.) I have a 3 year old in my classroom who is reading simple readers. I also have a 5 year old working on those same readers. Very different children in very different places, but they're able to make their way through the curriculum at their own pace. The mixed age classroom allows for this without any child being "ahead" or "behind" or being seen that way by their peers.


"Preschool" generally vs. Montessori: A true Montessori preschool is accredited by or affiliated with AMI or AMS, as I mentioned above. Also discussed above, a Montessori preschool experience should be a 3 year commitment- 3 year old year, 4 year old year and 5 year old year (kindergarten). After completing this 3 year cycle, your child should be ready for first grade. Other preschools are typically year by year and many preschools don't have kindergarten classes. There are other "specialty" types of preschools- Reggio Emilia and Waldorf come to mind. Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot of expertise in those areas to speak too much to them, but they're both more child-centered than a traditional preschool. (This next part is my opinion only- my experience with Waldorf is that it's a little kooky for my taste, but do your research and decide what best fits your family.) We also have an "outdoor" preschool in town that is almost exclusively outdoors all day or in a yurt in the case of really awful weather. Those are becoming increasingly popular, so you may have one in your area, especially if you live in a liberal area and/or a big city. Other than that, most other schools I'm aware of are more traditional preschools. In terms of an introduction to Montessori, the AMS webpage has a good intro and video here. There is evidence for the benefits of Montessori education. Angeline Lillard is one of the primary researchers in this area. Her book Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius goes into a lot of good detail. You can also find shorter papers of hers that give a more condensed version of the findings.


Re: when to enroll in preschool. This is really a personal question and I think it depends a lot on your child and your family and your childcare needs. The one hard and fast piece of advice I have is, if possible, enroll your child in pre-K before sending them to kindergarten (especially if it's a public school kindergarten...that transition from being home with a parent or nanny to public school is rough on everyone in my experience). My son is really independent and always has been, plus he loves other children and adults, so I felt he'd really thrive in a school environment vs. his in-home daycare he was in last year. I wasn't disappointed. This is just my personal opinion, but if your child is going to be in daycare or some kind of childcare anyway (vs. being home with a caregiver), I'd transition to a "school" rather than a daycare earlier rather than later, just because I see every day how amazing and capable young children are and how their minds are just like little sponges. So if my son is going to be taking everything in, I want it to be the most enriching environment possible for him. For him, it seemed he would be ready for a more "school-like" environment this year because of how independent he is and how much he enjoys new situations and new people. That's just me and my child, though. I think a child with a different temperament my well have benefited from the smaller more homey environment for another year, but my son is a little social butterfly (not sure where he gets it because my husband and I are both pretty introverted...).


I think that covered all of your questions, but if you have any more, please let me know and I'm happy to answer them or pull more resources. As a teacher, I love Montessori because it's everything I love about teaching and almost none of the toxic public school teaching experience. As a parent, my experience has been nothing but positive as well.