Monday 30 May 2016

What Maria Montessori recommends for teaching writing skills…


“…Education is not something which the teacher does, but a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. It is not acquired by listening to words, but in the virtue of experience in which the child acts on his environment. The teacher’s task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child.”- Maria Montessori

Let us Correlate Maria Montessori’s philosophy to foster the writing skills in a child:
 The 3 parts of process of learning and the five steps to learning

According to Maria Montessori, the process of learning has three parts:
  1. the brain,
  2. the senses and
  3. the muscles
All the above three mentioned must cooperate for learning to take place. So teachers must let the children see-do and learn rather than explain and learn.

“ Immense strain that we impose upon the children when we set them to write directly  without a previous motor education of the hand.”- Maria Montessori
In the Montessori Method there are two exercises connected to writing- How to hold the implement and How to form the alphabet and many of the didactic equipment used in the Montessori system contribute to this motor development for instance, the rough and smooth cards- “when the hand learned to hold itself slightly suspended over a horizontal surface in order to touch rough and smooth.” Or while playing with the cylinder insets, “when the hand took the cylinder insets and placed them in their apertures.” (the same three fingers used in writing) and while playing with the geometrical inset trays, “when with two fingers it touched the outlines of the geometrical forms it was coordinating movements.”

According to Maria Montessori there are five steps to learning:
1. Observes demonstration:
In teaching anything to the child, always demonstrate it first, because children learn best through imitation. So, when a teacher is teaching a child to hold a crayon, scissor or how to write with a pencil, the first step of a teacher should be to demonstrate and show the correct way.
2. Participating stage:
Then is the participating stage where the child tries out what was demonstrated / taught. At this particular stage the child does not require your constant help but all that they ask for is your presence and guidance.
 3. Practice:
Now it’s time for practice and repetition. The more a teacher revisits the writing readiness activity / information the more it strengthens. Don’t confuse repetition with drill!
4. Eureka moment:
At this stage the teacher will experience the moment where the child has mastered what she has taught and is excited, enthusiastic about the writing readiness activities. Teacher should keep in mind that at this stage the child wants to do the activity again and again, try it in many different ways etc. Here teachers must not get irritated and ask them to change the activity. The same enthusiastic is required from the adult too.
5. Performance:
Now the children have mastered the writing readiness activities and will be able to do it well, whenever required.


Today as new educational philosophies and approaches emerge we tend to throw the old out of the window. Its time to start taking the best from all –old and new and create an early years pedagogy that is rooted in science, neuroscience, and child development. Children in the early years around the world develop similarly in the first 5 years so adapt global practices to your culture and let children have a stress free start to life and learning. 

17 comments:

Unknown said...

It is very interesting to know and understand the process of learnibg and also steps of learning according to Maria montessori.Adapting global practises with the culture will definately aid stress free learning.A wonderful article for teachers and mothers to help children enjoy writing.

Unknown said...

It is very interesting to know and understand the process of learnibg and also steps of learning according to Maria montessori.Adapting global practises with the culture will definately aid stress free learning.A wonderful article for teachers and mothers to help children enjoy writing.

Sunitha said...

Definitely that should be the essence of Education. Knowledge should not be forced rather learned from experience.As educators lets help children unfolding the environment around them instead of forcing them to do a task. This article will definitely help us to make writing more enjoyable than making a cumbersome process for kids.
Sunitha Jadhav
Pjk Nashik

Anonymous said...

Thank You Ma'am for sharing the wonderful message on various important steps of learning by Maria Montessori . It is very essential for all of us to understand the process of learning and what it involves so that learning happens stress free.

Jumbo Kids, Chakan said...

It is true that we need to adapt global practices to our culture and give our children stress free start to the life and learning. Very informative article shared for the teachers and parents. The five steps to learning according to Maria Montessori will be very helpful for teaching writing skills.

Unknown said...

"To write means more then putting pretty words on a page ,the art of writing is to share a part of your soul with the world"
The basic of writing should be stress free and through this article we had learned that as an educator we should inculcate 5 steps for effective writing skills development in the earlier years-"Writing a treasure for whole life."
Thank you so much Ma'am.

Unknown said...

Salute to all these philosophers who have made learning a fun without burdening little kids.I thank you ma'am for sharing this wonderful information.

Radha Susarla
P.J.K chinchwad

Unknown said...

Thank you Ma'am for sharing such an informative article,It will definitely help teachers and parents to teach writing skills and the 5 steps of Maria Montessori is very knowledgeable and helpful to make writing enjoyable.
shaheen Shaikh
PJK Nashik

Sofia Jones said...

Children are motivated to learn something new every day with the help of exploration and peer interactions. Montessori Material is basically the material which helps in making children learn the basics of the primary education. Montessori toys have become very popular in today’s time. Montessori material helps children to represent their creativity that develops mental, physical and cognitive skills in them.

Prutha Kamdar said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Prutha Kamdar said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Prutha Kamdar said...

Thank you ma'am for sharing this important thing. It would be very much helpful to bring the best out of our children.

Ms. Prutha Doshi
Pjk Rajkot

Prutha Kamdar said...

Thank you ma'am for sharing this important thing. It would be very much helpful to bring the best out of our children.

Ms. Prutha Doshi
Pjk Rajkot

Unknown said...

Nice..

Unknown said...

It does not seem unreasonable to suggest that the entire tactics are the key approaches in promoting as well as progressing the best output by attaching someone privileged along with prominent in each possible manner. in that case this is the ideal inspiration to all. We can get the best paper writing service essay online.

Unknown said...

Thank you H'ble ma'am for sharing this valuable information .

Romona Vimazel said...

You are doing a tremendous job. It is very enlightening and achieves what it desires. I will make sure that I read all of your blogs in future. Every information you said on concept of types of sentences is very useful . It will definitively enhance my knowledge.