Why Do Montessori Classes Group Different Age Levels Together?

Sometimes parents worry that by having younger children in the same class as older ones, one group or the other will be shortchanged. They fear that the younger children will absorb the teacher’s time and attention, or that the importance of covering the kindergarten curriculum for the five-year-olds will prevent them from giving the four year-olds the emotional support and stimulation that they need. Both concerns are misguided.

The primary value of mixed-age programs is the flexibility they provide to students whose growth is a series of sudden spurts rather than a smooth, linear progression. By serving a range of students with a two to three year chronological-age span, the norm becomes a wide range of abilities rather than the expectation that everyone is at the same level.

A student may be ahead of or behind his chronological peers, but the classroom has teachers and materials available that are appropriate to the needs of each student, regardless of where he or she falls on the spectrum of abilities. There is no skipping or failing of grades because a student remains with his chronological peers whatever his academic needs. Furthermore, it is not unusual that a student is working quickly through one curriculum but much more slowly through another; the academic work assigned to him or her will always be at the appropriate level. The availability of a wide range of curriculum materials and the variety of teachers’ expertise allows that student to always work at an appropriate level and not try and keep up with, or be bored with, the level of some nonexistent, “average” student.  At each level, Montessori programs are designed to address the developmental characteristics normal to children in that stage.

Montessori classes are organized to encompass a two or three-year age span, which allows younger students the stimulation of older children, who in turn benefit from serving as role models. Each child learns at her own pace and will be ready for any given lesson in her own time. In a mixed-age class, children can always find peers who are working at their current level.  Positive peer examples are a powerful influence on both the academic and social development of students.
Children normally stay in the same class for a couple of years. With two-thirds of the class normally returning each year, the classroom culture tends to remain quite stable.

Working in one class for two years allows students to develop a strong sense of community with their classmates and teachers. The age range also allows, especially accelerated children, the stimulation of intellectual peers, without requiring that they skip a grade or feel emotionally or socially out of place.

Why Do Most Montessori Schools Ask Young Children to Attend Five Days a Week? 

Two and three day programs are often attractive to parents who do not need full-time care; however, five-day programs create the consistency that is so important to young children and is essential in developing strong Montessori programs. Since the primary goal of Montessori involves creating a culture of consistency, order, and empowerment, most Montessori schools will ultimately expect children to attend five days a week, especially if the child experiences school anxieties.

How Can Montessori Teachers Meet The Needs Of So Many Different Children And What Kind Of Teachers Are They?

The answer is deceptively simple: we do not hire teachers who want to teach; rather, we hire teachers who want to help children learn.
The difference is critical: we want teachers who are committed to tapping into each child’s potential and how they respond, not just to a specific method, subject matter, or curriculum. The contrast between teaching and learning is what makes a Heritage teacher great.                 

Great teachers help learners get to the point where their minds and hearts are open, leaving them ready to learn. In effective schools, students are not so much motivated by getting good grades as they are by a basic love of learning. As parents know their own children’s learning styles and temperaments, teachers, too, develop this sense of each child’s uniqueness by observations, portfolio assessments, and spending time with the students and their parents.

Dr. Montessori believed that teachers should focus on the child as a person, not exclusively on the daily lesson plan. Montessori teachers lead children to ask questions, think for themselves, explore, investigate, and discover. Their ultimate objective is to help their students to learn independently and retain the curiosity, creativity, and intelligence with which they were born. Montessori teachers don't simply present lessons; they are facilitators, mentors, coaches, and guides.

Traditionally, teachers have told us that they "teach students the basic facts and skills that they will need to succeed in the world." Studies show that in many classrooms, a substantial portion of the day is spent on discipline and classroom management.

Normally, Montessori teachers will not spend much time teaching lessons to the whole class. Their primary role is to prepare and maintain the physical, intellectual, and social/emotional environment within which the children will work. A key aspect of this is the selection of intriguing and developmentally appropriate learning activities to meet the needs and interests of each child in the class.

Montessori teachers usually present lessons to small groups of children at one time and limit lessons to brief and very clear presentations. The goal is to give the children just enough to capture their attention and spark their interest, intriguing them enough that they will come back on their own to work with the learning materials. In the elementary level the child has the opportunity to spend as much time on a subject as he needs in order to reach abstraction.

Montessori teachers closely monitor their student’s progress. Because they normally work with each child for two or three years, they get to know their students strengths and weaknesses, interests, and personalities extremely well. Montessori teachers often use the children's interests to enrich the curriculum and provide alternate avenues for accomplishment and success.

Is Montessori For All Children?  

The Montessori system has been used successfully with children from all socio-economic levels, representing those in regular classes as well as gifted children.
There is no one school that is right for all children and their parents, and certainly there are children who may do better in a smaller classroom setting with a more teacher-directed program that offers fewer choices and more rote curriculum, coupled with a lot of external pressures.

Children who are easily over-stimulated, or those who tend to be overly aggressive, may be examples of children who might not adapt as easily to a Montessori program. Each situation is different, and it is best to work with the schools in your area to see if your child and a particular school would be a good match.

Is Montessori Unstructured?  

At first, Montessori may look unstructured to some people, but it is actually quite structured at every level. Just because the Montessori program is highly individualized does not mean that students can do whatever they want. Freedom of choice does not indicate a "free-for-all" style. Order is not synonymous with pressure. Discipline does not mean punishment. Like all children, Montessori students live within a cultural context that involves the mastery of skills and knowledge that are considered essential.

Montessori teaches all of the "basics," along with giving students the opportunity to investigate and learn subjects that are of particular interest. It also allows them the ability to set their own schedule to a large degree during class time while reaching age appropriate development within the curriculum.

At the early childhood level, external structure is limited to clear-cut ground rules and correct procedures that provide guidelines and structure for two- to four-year-olds. By age five, most schools introduce some sort of formal system to help students keep track of what they have accomplished and what they still need to complete in the way of check sheets or agenda books.

Elementary Montessori children normally work with a written study plan for the day or week. It lists the tasks that they need to complete, while allowing them to decide how long to spend on each and what order they would like to follow. Beyond these basic, individually tailored assignments, children explore topics that capture their interest and imagination and share them with their classmates.

Are There Any Tests In Montessori Programs? 

Montessori teachers carefully observe their students at work. They give their students informal, individual oral exams or have the children demonstrate what they have learned by either teaching a lesson to another child or by giving a formal presentation. The children also take and prepare their own written tests to administer to their friends. Montessori children usually don’t think of assessment techniques as tests so much as challenges. Students are normally working toward mastery rather than a standard letter grade scheme. However, a good Montessori school will provide grade equivalents in a progress report.

Standardized Tests: Very few Montessori schools test children under the age of five; however, most Montessori schools regularly give elementary students quizzes on the concepts and skills that they have been studying. Many schools have their older students take annual standardized tests.

While Montessori students tend to score very well, Montessori educators are deeply concerned that many standardized tests are inaccurate, misleading, and stressful for children. Good teachers, who work with the same children for three years, and carefully observe their work, know far more about their progress than any paper-and-pencil test can reveal. Remember, sometimes test taking simply reveals how well a child takes a test and does not indicate what kind of a student he is in a classroom setting.

The ultimate problem with standardized tests is that they have often been misunderstood, misinterpreted, and poorly used to pressure teachers and students to perform at higher standards. Although standardized tests may not offer a terribly accurate measure of a child's basic skills and knowledge, in most countries test-taking skills are just another Practical Life lesson that children need to master and a competent Montessori school will provide all types of activities to ensure the child's future successes.

How Do Montessori Schools Report Student Progress?

Because Montessori believes in individually paced academic progress, some schools do not assign letter grades or rank students within each class according to their achievement for children under six. Student progress can be measured in different ways, which may include:
Portfolios of Student Work: In many Montessori schools, two or three times a year, teachers go through the students completed work and make selections for their portfolios.

Student/Parent/Teacher Conferences: Once the student’s three-month self-evaluations are complete, parents, students, and teachers will hold a family conference two times a year to review their children's portfolios and self-evaluations and listen to the teacher's assessment of their children's progress.
Narrative Progress Reports: In many Montessori schools, once or twice a year, teachers prepare a written narrative report discussing each students work, social development, and mastery of fundamental skills.

Will My Child Be Able to Adjust To Traditional Public Or Private Schools After Montessori? 

By the end of age five, Montessori children are normally curious, self-confident learners who look forward to going to school. They are normally engaged, enthusiastic learners who honestly want to learn and who ask excellent questions.

Montessori children by age six have spent three or four years in a school where they were treated with honesty and respect. While there were clear expectations and ground rules, within that framework, their opinions and questions were taken quite seriously. Unfortunately, there are still some teachers and schools where children who ask questions are seen as challenging authority.

It is not hard to imagine an independent Montessori child asking his new teacher, "But why do I have to ask each time I need to use the bathroom?" or, "Why do I have to stop my work right now?" We also have to remember that children are different. One child may be very sensitive or have special needs that might not be met well in a teacher-centered traditional classroom. Other children can succeed in any type of school. Mostly, this question must be answered individually by each family and their child.

There is nothing inherent in Montessori that causes children to have a hard time if they are transferred to traditional schools. Some will be bored. Others may not understand why everyone in the class has to do the same thing at the same time. But most adapt to their new setting fairly quickly, making new friends, and succeeding within the definition of success understood in their new school.

There will naturally be trade-offs if a Montessori child transfers to a traditional school. The curriculum in Montessori schools is often more enriched than what’s taught in other schools in the United States. The values and attitudes of the children and teachers may also be quite different. Learning will often be focused more on adult-assigned tasks done more by rote than with enthusiasm and understanding.
Most parents don’t want to mess with success. This leads many families to continue their children in Montessori at least through the fifth grade. As more Montessori schools are opened in the United States and abroad, it is likely that this trend will continue.

Is It True That Montessori Children Never Play? 

All children play! They explore new things playfully. They watch something of interest with a fresh open mind. They enjoy the company of treasured adults and other children. They make up stories. They dream. They imagine. This impression stems from parents who don’t know what to make of the incredible concentration, order, and self-discipline that we commonly see among Montessori children and thus assign a negative to the situation.

Montessori students also tend to take the things they do in school quite seriously. It is common for them to respond, "This is my work," when adults ask what they are doing. They work hard and expect their parents to treat them and their work with respect. But it is joyful, playful, inspirational, and anything but drudgery.

Is Montessori Opposed To Fantasy And Creativity? 

It’s true; there is no “dress-up” center in a Montessori class. However, imagination and creativity are important aspects of a Montessori child's experience and differ from fantasy-based play. Montessori classrooms incorporate art, music, dance, and creative drama throughout the curriculum. Imagination plays a central role, as children explore how the natural world works, visualize other cultures and ancient civilizations, and search for creative solutions to real-life problems. In Montessori schools, the Arts are normally integrated into the rest of the curriculum where imagination and creativity is encouraged. Remember you are choosing Montessori and not a day care program. Do not look to see what day care features are missing in our Montessori classrooms because comparing both programs would be like comparing Asian food to Italian food. True, they both have noodle dishes but that’s where the similarity ends.

What’s The Big Deal About Freedom And Independence In Montessori? 

Children touch and manipulate everything in their environment. In a sense, the human mind is handmade, because through movement and touch, the child explores, manipulates, and builds a storehouse of impressions about the physical world around him. Children learn best by doing, and this requires movement and spontaneous investigation.

Montessori children are free to move about, working alone or with others at will. They may select any activity and work with it as long as they wish, so long as they do not disturb anyone or damage anything, and as long as they put it back where it belongs when they are finished.  This practice serves to maintain order for themselves and their classmates.

Many exercises, especially at the early childhood level, are designed to draw children's attention to the sensory properties of objects within their environment: size, shape, color, texture, weight, smell, sound, etc. Gradually, their attention span develops, seeing more clearly small details in the things around them. They have begun to observe and appreciate their environment. This is a key in helping children discover how to learn.

Freedom is a second critical issue as children begin to explore. Our goal is less to teach them facts and concepts, but rather to help them to fall in love with the process of focusing their complete attention on something and mastering its challenge with enthusiasm. Work assigned by adults rarely results in such enthusiasm and interest as does work that children freely choose for themselves.

The prepared environment of the Montessori class is a learning laboratory in which children are allowed to explore, discover, and select their own work. The independence that the children gain is not only empowering on a social and emotional basis, but it is also intrinsically involved with helping them become comfortable and confident in their ability to master the environment, ask questions, puzzle out the answer, and learn without needing to be "spoon-fed" by an adult. This level of self-discipline helps shape the adult the child is striving to become. This unique setting is what parents notice first when observing a Montessori classroom compared to a day care class. It is common to hear the remark "These kids are so good." This "good" behavior they see is the natural result of the children's needs being satisfied. There is a difference between children having fun and children acting chaotic and aggressive.

What If A Child Doesn’t Feel Like Working? 

While Montessori students are allowed considerable latitude to pursue topics that interest them, this freedom is not absolute. Within every society there are cultural norms; expectations for what a student should know and be able to do by a certain age.

Experienced Montessori teachers are conscious of these standards and provide as much structure and support as is necessary to ensure that students live up to them. If for some reason it appears that a child needs time and support until he or she is developmentally ready, Montessori teachers provide it non-judgmentally.

Does Montessori Teach Religion?

Except for those schools that are associated with a particular religious community, Montessori does not teach religion. Many Montessori schools celebrate holidays, such as Christmas, Hanukah, and Chinese New Year, which are religious in origin, but which can be experienced on a cultural level as special days of family feasting, merriment, and wonder. Most schools reflect the cultures of the community they serve.

The young child rarely catches more than a glimmer of the religious meaning behind the celebration. Our goal is to focus on how children would normally experience each festival within their culture: the special foods, songs, dances, games, stories, presents a potpourri of experiences aimed at all the senses of a young child.

On the other hand, one of our fundamental aims is the inspiration of the child's heart. While Montessori does not teach religion, we do present the great moral and spiritual themes, such as love, kindness, joy, and confidence in the fundamental goodness of life in simple ways that encourage the child to begin the journey toward being fully alive and fully human. Everything is intended to nurture within the child a sense of joy and appreciation of life and tolerance for his fellow man.

What Does an “Individualized Education” Mean For My Elementary Student? 

In a Heritage curriculum, “individualized” pertains to the skill subjects (such as reading, writing, math, grammar), not the content subjects (such as history and science). There is typically no reason to individualize the presentation of the U.S. westward migration or the movement of tectonic plates. However, to the extent that history or science requires the use of particular skills (e.g., writing a research report), it is possible that students will be given assignments in these subjects that differ individually by scope, length, or degree of difficulty to match their individual needs and abilities.

To implement an individualized work plan, teachers meet with students daily to discuss their progress. The number and difficulty of assignments will be determined by both student and teacher, and then recorded on an “assignment sheet” that is located in the students’ agenda. As the student completes the assignments, they are reviewed and “highlighted” by a teacher when complete. The individual student determines which assignments are done when and in what order, with the proviso that the agreed-upon work will be completed by the end of the week. At that point, the student’s progress is again reviewed and the process is repeated.

The program emphasizes a balance of broad-based skills (physical, social, emotional, intellectual, creative), while building excellent technical skills in the fundamental academic areas of reading, writing, speaking, and numerating (number literacy). They encourage the development of personal characteristics that facilitate learning: persistence, curiosity, independence, and creativity.