Top 10 Reasons for Parents to Learn the Montessori Method
1. Parents are their children's first and foremost teachers. By knowing how your child learns and develops, you can maximize his or her learning experience.
2. Maria Montessori taught us that children under the age of six are in the midst of important "sensitive periods" of development. By understanding these sensitive periods, parents can fulfill the child's innate need for specific knowledge at specific stages. This includes teaching your child to read and stimulating the young mathematical mind. Learn more about the sensitive periods.
3. Through a lifetime of study, Maria Montessori discovered that children under the age of six have absorbent, sponge-like minds. During this period, they soak up information easily and naturally. If this critical window of opportunity is missed, the same information is more difficult to learn later in life. Unfortunately, U.S. public schools begin just as this absorbent stage is ending.
4. Studies show that "well-designed preschool education programs produce long-term improvements in school success, including higher achievement test scores, lower rates of grade repetition and special education, and higher educational attainment. Some preschool programs are also associated with reduced delinquency and crime in childhood and adulthood. effects vary [...] by type of program.¹
The child is endowed with unknown powers, which can guide us to a radiant future. If what we really want is a new world, then education must take as its aim the development of these hidden possibilities.
~ Maria Montessori
5. Children develop a higher self-esteem when allowed to self correct rather than having their errors pointed out to them. Environments created using the Montessori principles allow for self-correction and personal growth.
6. Children that learn to be internally motivated are more likely to become successful, independent adults. The Montessori model is based on the knowledge that children will spontaneously seek information that is meaningful to them, and appropriate for their development level, when exposed to a correctly prepared environment.
7. Positive discipline leads to happier, more confident children. Montessori's respectful, positive discipline techniques can be applied in any home or school situation.
8.According to the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, the average cost of preschool or daycare in the U.S. is $6,582.00 per year, per child. Even at these prices, there is no guarantee of a quality education, or, for that matter, any education at all.
9. Also according to the NACCRRA, since the year 2000 the cost of childcare in this country has increased so exponentially that, in some areas, it has surpassed the cost of college tuition at a four year public college. For about the cost of a month's preschool tuition, you can learn the Montessori Method of teaching, and all in the comfort of your own home. For more information, click here.
10. According to the American Association of School Administrators' recent report, impending sequestration cuts will reduce funding to a broad range of educational and early childhood development programs such as Head Start by up to $4.8 billion.
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¹Barnett, W. S. (2008). Preschool education and its lasting effects: Research and policy
implications. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education
Policy Research Unit. Retrieved from http://epicpolicy.org/publication/preschooleducation
