Montessori Moms

Littlejen22

My DD is in a Montessori school that only goes to Kindergarten.  My only experiences with Montessori is this school which is fully accredited and people say is truly Montessori but really I have no idea.  So, how does/did your school handle getting kids to do skills that you sit down to learn such as practicing letters or addition/subtraction?  What if a child did not want to do it, were they expected/encouraged to do it anyway or truly allowed to do whatever they want in school?  I am asking because I got into an argument with an old friend today over Montessori but her only experience is with people she knows having sent their kids to different Montessori schools.  No matter what I say she is convinced that all kids (except mine apparently since she gave that disclaimer using different wording) are behind when they leave Montessori and the longer they are there the farther behind, and as far as I know she only knows preschoolers that have gone.  Seriously considered just hanging up on her but I told her to stop bashing something she does not have experience with, I in no way think all Montessori schools are great or even say that ours is but that she does not know what she is talking about.

Spin313

I think it depends on the child and the school. DS was in a language immersion Montessori for two years and thrived. But he loves learning and spent a lot of time working on writing and numbers. He was definitely at the top of the pack when he started kindy.

DD is most likely going to go to the same school in the fall, but she is a totally different kid. She's super imaginative and verbal, and I foresee her wanting to spend more time on play and crafts. We'll see...

neverblushed

I have some (admittedly limited) exposure to how kids handle the transition from Montessori to a traditional classroom in later years.  The school where I teach is a private K-12 school that is divided into a lower school (K-6) and an upper school (7-12).  I teach English in the upper school.

We have a fair number of kids who make a lateral entry into our school in grade 7.  Occasionally, we have 7th graders who transfer to our school who have attended Montessori schools in the past.  Generally speaking, if the student attended the same Montessori school all the way up from K to 6, he or she makes a pretty seamless transition into the 7th grade.  These kids face the same issues that any kid would who transfers from a small private school into a larger secondary school with 100 kids in a grade.  The issues are rarely academic.

Occasionally, we'll get a 7th grader who has done a partial Montessori program.  Or one whose parents have had the child in and out of a number of different schools over the years, one or more of which has been a Montessori school.  For instance, right now I'm teaching a kid who came to us in 7th grade who had previously been in a mish-mash of public, Montessori, home-schooled, a dramatic arts magnet, and an experimental "school without walls."  She's a hot mess, I can assure you.

So, my sense is that Montessori schools do a great job with whatever grades they cover, IF it's a legitimate Montessori program and IF you stick with it until their program ends.