{"id":2230,"date":"2026-09-24T10:10:44","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T10:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/?post_type=curriculum&p=2230"},"modified":"2026-09-24T10:10:44","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T10:10:44","slug":"what-is-the-montessori-method","status":"publish","type":"curriculum","link":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/what-is-the-montessori-method\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is the Montessori Method"},"content":{"rendered":"

What Is the Montessori Method?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Montessori Method of education, developed by Dr. Maria Montessori, is a child-centred educational approach based on scientific observations of children from birth to adulthood. Dr. Montessori’s Method has been time-tested, with over 100 years of success in diverse cultures throughout the world. The Montessori approach is possibly best known today for the contribution it makes to our understanding of the importance of learning through the senses, and for the development of learning materials that are today referred to as educational toys.<\/p>\n

The Aims of Montessori Education<\/strong><\/h3>\n
    \n
  • Assist children in their mental and physical ability to work appropriately in the environment (normalization).<\/li>\n
  • Allow children to have freedom coupled with responsibility.<\/li>\n
  • Create in the child a sense of self-discipline, concentration, motivation, and sensitivity to things around him.<\/li>\n
  • Develop social skills and emotional growth, physical coordination, as well as cognitive preparation.<\/li>\n
  • Help children acquire a sense of common humanity that binds people of all races.<\/li>\n
  • Develop a positive attitude towards school and learning.<\/li>\n
  • Form extended habits of concentration, initiative, and persistence.<\/li>\n
  • Provide a carefully planned, stimulating environment where children are free to respond to their natural drive to work and learn.<\/li>\n
  • Awaken the child’s sense of imagination.<\/li>\n
  • Encourage the child’s inherent love of learning.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    A Fresh Outlook on Education<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    In the first half of the 20th century, Dr. Maria Montessori decided to address the problem of education with a fresh outlook. In effect, she redesigned education from the ground up. How Dr. Montessori went about developing this new system of education is a genuinely interesting story \u2014 one built entirely from careful, patient observation of real children, not from theory imposed in advance.<\/p>\n

    The First Casa dei Bambini<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    The institution aroused much discussion for its reversed roles of the adults (teachers) and the child: the centre of activity was learning by the child himself, who could choose and occupy the materials and direct his own movements. The first Casa dei Bambini (‘Children’s House’) was not a place arranged for a determined educational experiment or scientific research \u2014 it provided an example of initial discovery. The conception of a material environment in which everything should be in proportion to the size of a child was well received.<\/p>\n

    When the first school opened on 6 January 1907, for 50 small children of illiterate parents between the ages of 3 and 6, it was not based on any ‘Montessori Method’ \u2014 that method came into existence shortly after, born directly from what happened inside this first school.<\/p>\n

    Teaching Materials and the First Children’s Conditions<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    The objects presented to normal children did not have the same effect on children with intellectual disabilities. The apparatus was useful in securing the interest of these children to improve their mental health, and Dr. Montessori had to put in all her energy persuading them to work with the materials \u2014 but when a child became genuinely interested in an object, he fixed his attention on it and went on working, without rest, in a wonderful state of concentration.<\/p>\n

    The children at the first Casa dei Bambini were tearful, frightened, and shy. They were very poor and suffered from malnutrition, so the Casa dei Bambini wasn’t really a functioning school when Dr. Montessori was given charge of it. Special furniture and scientific apparatus were prepared, and she set out to observe the reactions of both the younger normal children and the older children with disabilities to the same apparatus.<\/p>\n

    Discovering the ‘Repetition of Exercises’<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    The first phenomenon that awoke Montessori’s attention was that of a little girl of three, working with cylinder blocks. Dr. Montessori was surprised to see the small child repeating the exercise with the keenest interest, showing no progress in skill or speed. The other teacher was told to make the other children sing and move about to distract her \u2014 but the girl repeated the exercise 42 times, then stopped and was very happy, deeply absorbed in her work throughout. Thus Montessori discovered a special characteristic of the child: the ‘repetition of exercise.’<\/p>\n

    Discovering the ‘Feeling for Order’<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Children’s feeling for order was found as the result of a very simple incident. The Mistress used to distribute materials and put them back in place after the children used them. But one day, while she was doing this, the children got up and stood around her \u2014 the teacher initially felt they were being disobedient. When Montessori watched this unfold, she understood that what the children actually wanted was to put the various objects back themselves. So she allowed them to do so, and thus began a new system in which the children themselves put things back and tidied up any disorder.<\/p>\n

    The Finding of ‘Free Choice’<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    One day the teacher forgot to lock the cupboard, and arrived a little late the next morning. She found that the students were taking things out and carrying them around. Dr. Montessori interpreted this as meaning the children now knew the objects well enough to choose them and work independently \u2014 and thus the freedom for choosing one’s own activity began. Montessori provided a low, attractive cupboard for the children, and the principle of free choice came into existence.<\/p>\n

    Children Like Activities, Not the Toys<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Though the school contained some genuinely wonderful toys, the children never chose them on their own. Dr. Montessori showed them how to use such toys, and the children showed interest for a time \u2014 but then moved away. Every passing minute was precious to them; they liked meaningful, challenging activities far more than they liked toys as such.<\/p>\n

    Spontaneous Discipline<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    In spite of all this freedom, the children as a whole gave the impression of extraordinary discipline. They took their own materials, kept the school tidy, and everything went well whether the teacher came late or left them alone entirely. This order and discipline was combined with genuine spontaneity, rather than imposed from outside.<\/p>\n

    The Explosion of Writing<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Once two or three illiterate mothers came to Dr. Montessori and asked her to teach their children how to read and write. So Dr. Montessori taught the children some letters of the alphabet, which the Mistress cut out of hardboard and sandpaper. Children could touch the letters with their fingertips and feel the shape while writing; she also arranged them on a board, grouping letters of similar shape so that the movements of little hands would stay uniform. One day, a child began to write and shouted aloud: ‘I have written!’<\/p>\n

    The other children rushed up and watched with interest the words their playmate had traced on the ground with a piece of chalk. Some crowded to write on the blackboard; some started writing on the floor. They began to write everywhere \u2014 the written language started as a genuine explosion, a completely unexpected event. But when books were given to the children afterward, they showed no interest \u2014 likely because they hadn’t yet been exposed to the experience of reading itself.<\/p>\n

    Reading Came Later<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    It was about six months later that the children began to truly understand what reading meant, associating it with writing, while Dr. Montessori was preparing material for teaching the printed alphabet for book-reading practice. The children began to read printed matter in the school, and at the same time, their parents told Dr. Montessori that the children now stopped in the streets to read signboards \u2014 making it nearly impossible to take them out for a simple walk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    What Is the Montessori Method? The Montessori Method of education, developed by Dr. Maria Montessori, is a child-centred educational approach based on scientific observations of children from birth to adulthood. Dr. Montessori’s Method has been time-tested, with over 100 years of success in diverse cultures throughout the world. The Montessori approach is possibly best known […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"curriculum-category":[113,114,146],"custom_linking_tags":[],"class_list":["post-2230","curriculum","type-curriculum","status-publish","hentry","curriculum-category-montessori","curriculum-category-montessori-tutorials","curriculum-category-basics-of-montessori-education"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Is the Montessori Method - Entri Free Materials<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/what-is-the-montessori-method\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Is the Montessori Method - Entri Free Materials\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What Is the Montessori Method? 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