Yue miet not bee aible tue reed this but mie teecher can!

Meral And Myriem

El Dia De Montessori

Who was Maria Montessori?

What were her philosophical foundations?

Montessori and early years literacy

Who was Maria Montessori?

Born in 1870

Italy’s first woman to receive a medical degree

Worked with special needs children, spoke on their behalf

Worked with children from the slums of San Lorenzo in Italy – Founded the House of Children (Casa dei Bambini) where she observed children and developed her theories on child development

During World War II Maria Montessori was exiled to India because of her anti-fascist views and developed her work Education for Peace – She was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize

Philosophical Foundations

Whole child/whole language approach

“All children are endowed with the capacity to absorb culture.” –Maria Montessori

Education is not something that the teacher does, it is a natural process which develops spontaneously (“auto-education”)

Philosophical Foundations Cont.

Children learn best in an open, respectful, nurturing and communicative environment

The concept of normalization: to become a contributing member of society

The three step cycle

Educators must know themselves, educate themselves in their work and give appropriate help (The Absorbent Mind)

Classes of mixed ability and age with minimum adult intervention to reinforce natural equitable development

Montessori and early years literacy

Early years language development (language skills begin at conception, during infancy)

Effective communication relies on authentic exchanges between teachers and children

Encoding versus Decoding (writing come before reading)

Providing children with opportunities to see and use print, using both a phonetic and whole-word approach

Literacy Strategies

Self-correcting language materials developed by Maria Montessori

Classroom set up adapted to children’s size/ carefully selected high quality materials

Children should not be taught to read and write before age 6 or 7, but children often teach themselves using the material by age 3 or 4

There are four stages to language development: spoken, phonetic awareness, creating words, reading

The three period lesson and I Spy

Three Period Lesson

We can use the three period lesson to directly teach specific vocabulary for everything (real objects, photos, illustrations)

1. Touch object and clearly speak it’s name

2. Ask the child to identify objects we name

3. Point to each object and ask “What is this?”

I spy (letter sounds)

Montessori Materials

Metal inserts: children are gaining fine motor skills by tracing shapes to practice the strokes of letters

Sandpaper Letters: children are provided with multiple sensory experiences to learn letters by touching, listening and seeing

Movable alphabet: children can choose cut-out letters to compose words (also multi-sensory)

Metal Inserts

Sandpaper Letters

Movable Alphabet

Conclusion

Is the Montessori approach still relevant and applicable today?

Is it still good practice and do we want to incorporate it into our classrooms?

How does it apply to multiple intelligences and diverse populations?

Resources

http://montessori.org

http://briarwoodmontessori.net/docs/Literacy%20Handbook.pdf

http://montessori.edu

http://www.michaelolaf.net/maria.html