Is Montessori Right for My Child?

When touring our independent learning school in La Jolla, moms ask, “Is Montessori right for my child? Of course it is, and here’s why: Montessori teaching begins by giving your child respect.  

When teachers offer this powerful emotional opportunity, children feel free and emboldened. They start exploring, expanding, expressing and shaping themselves and their individuality while building stable foundations to treat their peers and parents the same way.

Respect breeds self-respect—’allowing’ toddlers, primary and Kindergarteners the power to develop themselves. It’s a simple tool but one engineered for a lifetime of learning.

Montessori Teaches Concepts

The key component of Dr. Maria Montessori’s 120-year old educational philosophy is called the Montessori Method. Essentially, it’s a series of processes designed to build each child individually at their own speed and pace by focusing on conceptual understanding rather than fact-based learning.

Kids learn about ‘how’ things work—not by memorizing an answer that it just does. Children learn by doing and by doing so they learn more about ‘how’ things work, ‘why’ they work and ‘where’ they fit in the grand scheme of all these things in their world. This builds self-respect, self-motivation and a passion to know more. All of which makes Montessori right for your child.

Your child is all of 36 months old when he or she starts learning these most basic things—but in the most conceptual, analytical and interconnecting ways!

Learning Two Languages at Once Builds Brainpower

At La Jolla Montessori School, we immerse students in dual language learning. Throughout our  three year toddler, primary and Kindergarten programs, your child’s brain will shift into overdrive via learning Spanish and English together. 

Two teachers work separately but in tandem. On Monday, the first gives a lesson entirely in Spanish. The following day, the second teacher gives the same lesson entirely in English. Vocabulary words are learned in two different languages one at a time; over time, words become sentences. By Kindergarten graduation, your child should achieve verbal fluency. 

And yes, that’s right, they become fluent even prior to mastering writing!

Peer Age Learning

Here’s the third reason why Montessori is right for your child: peer age learning is encouraged.

We group older and younger students together to create a ‘rondo’ in how a child learns.

As a toddler, your child absorbs from the teacher; but, also from a third year student. To gain respect, the first year child will self-motivate to learn and apply what the older child knows. 

During this process, the older child will develop a leadership and mentoring role before graduating K and entering elementary school. Later, the younger child will ultimately fulfill that role by ascending from toddler to primary to K level learning.

Summary

These methods in ‘how to learn and how to think’ will hopefully answer the question, “Is Montessori right for my child?”

Respecting a child will create self-respect and develop empathy towards others

• Building brain pathways sparked by dual language immersion, and 
• Peer age interaction, learning, leading and mentoring.