What do children learn in Kindergarten in Montessori ?

[Sam75]

I want to know what children learn in the K year in Montessori. I'd like as many examples as you can give based on your own child's experience and if there are any teachers here, I'd really appreciate your input !! :-)

I know that its a very broad question and Montessori doesn't work like the public system with curriculum's etc. and it depends and moves with the child's development. BUT, I'd like to know the minimum a child would know by the end of the K year in say, mathematics and language/reading/writing etc. and also science. Or is that a question that you can only answer with "it depends on the child's development" ?

A little history about our child. Our DC is going into her 4th year in Montessori primary (which would be the K year-if we chose to send her to Montessori, and we're still deciding). So after K, she would be going into 1st grade at a really good public school. She's 5 + right now and will turn 6 after about a month into her K year.

K - Math - do you learn addition/subtraction/ only or do you also introduce multiplication/division or does the latter get introduced at lower elementary (6-9) only ? She's been doing the teen boards for the last few months, but not getting the concept of 12+1 = 13 etc. She can count off until about 100 and recognize the numbers. She keeps doing the teen boards, but in order to answer a question such as "What is 14 + 1" she keeps using her fingers and counting from 1, 2, all the way to 14 before adding the 1. She uses her fingers to do pretty much any simple addition. Not sure if its a good or bad thing.

Reading/Language: I've seen DC read the Bob books she has in her Mont. classroom (the beginner level with 3 -4 letter phonics words etc.) and some words she remembers over time (like "the", "a", etc.) She uses the movable alphabet in school and writes words and brings home booklets of words. But at what level do they start forming sentences and later paragraphs on their own and writing them down ?

Science - What/how often do the teachers do anything related to science in K ? I know over the last 3 years she's brought home parts of a flower, bird etc. and I've seen our school do different experiments which are fun for the kids but its done not so frequently (like once or twice a month in pre-school)

Our main concern is, when we toured the local public elementary school, in the K year (by January, so just 4 months into the school year) kids were writing sentences on their own, remembering way more sight words than my child does (like "who", "where", "girl" etc.) and doing addition etc. Maybe they weren't getting the basic concept of addition etc. as well as a Montessori child .. also, a lot of the words cannot be read using the phonics/sounds scheme as in Montessori in English, some words just need to be remembered. So when she finally enters grade 1, in public, whether she would know all of these "sight" words she is supposed to know, in first grade unless DH and I spend some time showing them to her ourselves ? Or would she be set back and confused in 1st grade ?


Thanks !

[MattBronsil]

You have some really good questions. I hope I can answer them well.

Originally Posted by Sam75

I know that its a very broad question and Montessori doesn't work like the public system with curriculum's etc. and it depends and moves with the child's development. BUT, I'd like to know the minimum a child would know by the end of the K year in say, mathematics and language/reading/writing etc. and also science. Or is that a question that you can only answer with "it depends on the child's development" ?

It depends on the child's development.

Phew...hope I answered that well. Well...I'm not satisfied with the answer, so I don't expect you to be. Let me try to be a little more specific.

A little history about our child. Our DC is going into her 4th year in Montessori primary (which would be the K year-if we chose to send her to Montessori, and we're still deciding). So after K, she would be going into 1st grade at a really good public school. She's 5 + right now and will turn 6 after about a month into her K year.

I first read this and thought, "she should be doing a little more," but then I realized here that your daughter isn't in her kindergarten year. So it sounds like she's right on track with where she would normally be at this time. I'll explain more with each section.

K - Math - do you learn addition/subtraction/ only or do you also introduce multiplication/division or does the latter get introduced at lower elementary (6-9) only ?

It should get introduced in 3-6. The math sequence generally follows this order:
--0-9 or 1-10 or 0-10 or...whichever work goes with that. This is understanding everything from 1:1 correspondence to recognizing the numerals to pairing up the correct amount with the numeral.

--Introduction to the decimal system. The child will work with numbers through 9,999 - making them with the materials as well as learning about the differences in place value of a number.

--Linear counting. It sounds like your daughter is doing many materials in this area, with the teen board and the counting to 100.

--Operations. This is addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division. We'll usually teach multiplication after addition because it's really the same process.

Now, there are times when the order is not always going to be that rigid. I've had students that will get into the linear counting materials and not fully understand the place value. Once they feel comfortable, they jump back and learn the place value, then re-practice the linear counting materials and it just makes that much more sense.

She's been doing the teen boards for the last few months, but not getting the concept of 12+1 = 13 etc. She can count off until about 100 and recognize the numbers. She keeps doing the teen boards, but in order to answer a question such as "What is 14 + 1" she keeps using her fingers and counting from 1, 2, all the way to 14 before adding the 1. She uses her fingers to do pretty much any simple addition. Not sure if its a good or bad thing.

Her using her fingers is a good thing. She's using tools she has available to figure out a problem.

Your addition question should be looked at it this way. What children do not necessarily understand about addition is that with addition, you're actually taking a number, adding something to it, and creating a whole new number. For example:
2+3 is no longer a set of 2 and a set of three. It is now a set of 5.
7+1 is no longer a set of 7 and 1. It is now 8.

Right now, what she is doing seems normal. She is still thinking of them as two separate numbers lumped together that just happen to be 15. She is also doing the teen boards to help with linear counting. To be able to start at 14 and linear count a certain number that you're adding on, you have to have fully mastered linear counting and understood that concept of adding two numbers equals a new number. That's 2 concepts not quite yet realized (give it time) that will come eventually.

There is a way to teach that technique, but it is much better to allow the child to discover this on his or her own. I aid in it a little bit. In the teen boards, after counting a few of the teen numbers, I usually point to the ten and say, "how much is this?" They say, "ten." I point to it again and say, "Ten....(point to the next one and hope they say 11." They usually get it from that if they're ready. If not, I just go back and have them count each one individually, but it does come.

Remember you're not looking for the right answer with math as much as you're looking for whether or not she fully understands the process. This is especially true the year before kindergarten when the focus is on understanding and there's little to no memorization of mathematical function facts.

As far as math goes, students will USUALLY leave knowing:
--simple 1 digit addition math facts. (memorized)
--know how to do 4 digit dynamic and static addition
--know how to do simple multiplication, subtraction, and division problems
--will have a good understanding of fractions
--will be able to count to 1000 (whether they care to or not is a different question)
--will identify 4 digit numbers easily

Reading/Language: I've seen DC read the Bob books she has in her Mont. classroom (the beginner level with 3 -4 letter phonics words etc.) and some words she remembers over time (like "the", "a", etc.) She uses the movable alphabet in school and writes words and brings home booklets of words. But at what level do they start forming sentences and later paragraphs on their own and writing them down ?

This usually happens in the Kindergarten year. The children just start to take an interest in developing their own books and stories rather than simply reading them.

Realize also the process is different for reading and writing. Somehow, we've grouped these two together in our minds, but they are very different processes. Once they come together in the kindergarten year, you'll see an explosion of writing stories.

Science - What/how often do the teachers do anything related to science in K ? I know over the last 3 years she's brought home parts of a flower, bird etc. and I've seen our school do different experiments which are fun for the kids but its done not so frequently (like once or twice a month in pre-school)

I'm going to copy and paste from my blog:
Children at this age are very detail oriented. They know what a bird is. Now they want to know the various body part of a bird. They want to know the life cycle of different animals. They begin to really look at the parts of a plant and wonder, "What are those long things coming out of the middle of a flower?" The science curriculum takes the opportunity for the child's natural questioning and draws a fascinating curriculum for the 3-6 age range. What I really enjoy about this area is this is where I learn the most. Children ask questions I cannot answer, so I have to find it out. Or we might be studying something I know nothing about, so I have to learn as well. When the teacher is learning, the children really see that and get excited about learning too.

OK. Done with the copy/paste. I'd also like to add that science is also connected into the cultural curriculum. They study geography and they might learn about different land and water forms and how they developed.

Our main concern is, when we toured the local public elementary school, in the K year (by January, so just 4 months into the school year) kids were writing sentences on their own, remembering way more sight words than my child does (like "who", "where", "girl" etc.) and doing addition etc. Maybe they weren't getting the basic concept of addition etc. as well as a Montessori child .. also, a lot of the words cannot be read using the phonics/sounds scheme as in Montessori in English, some words just need to be remembered. So when she finally enters grade 1, in public, whether she would know all of these "sight" words she is supposed to know, in first grade unless DH and I spend some time showing them to her ourselves ? Or would she be set back and confused in 1st grade ?


Thanks !

A few things.
1) Remember you saw a Kindergarten class and you're comparing it to your non-kindergarten child.

2) In the schools I worked, the students left reading at or above the 1st grade reading level. Most of them were above. The school can't take full credit for that. Other factors are involved as well. Just saying I've never had to worry about reading levels (except here in Taiwan, where I teach English as a second language, but that's a different story)

[southernmama]

My daughter is now attending a "good" private school after 3 years montessori, including kindergarten. She left kindy doing everything Matt said and is head and shoulders ahead of her classmates, especially in actually UNDERSTANDING the concepts.

Before kindergarten, she had little interest in hanging out in the math room, but left kindy doing multiplication (four digits) and reading well above a first grade level. I, too, was concerned, but my doubts were unfounded.

We are so disappointed in her traditional school, that we are pulling her and returning her to montessori. What the experience has taught me is that its not a race to learn something, but the understanding that comes with learning for oneself a concept or theory because you want to learn it.

Good luck!

[eepster]

This may seem like a tangent at first, but trust me it's relavent:

Originally Posted by Sam75

Our main concern is, when we toured the local public elementary school, in the K year (by January, so just 4 months into the school year) kids were writing sentences on their own, remembering way more sight words than my child does (like "who", "where", "girl" etc.) and doing addition etc. Maybe they weren't getting the basic concept of addition etc. as well as a Montessori child .. also, a lot of the words cannot be read using the phonics/sounds scheme as in Montessori in English, some words just need to be remembered. So when she finally enters grade 1, in public, whether she would know all of these "sight" words she is supposed to know, in first grade unless DH and I spend some time showing them to her ourselves ? Or would she be set back and confused in 1st grade ?

This reminds me of something I once read in a book about human brain evolution. The author was describing a seminar he attended, in Europe, about childhood cognitive development and Piaget's stages etc. An American asked about way to try to speed up the process of going through them. Well it seemed that this happened so often, that The Europeans called it "the American question."

The European psychologist all felt that deeper understanding in cognative development was much more important than speed. Which in turn reminded me of a commercial I saw years earlier. It had a bunch of school bus from different countries racing. It was about how American school children in the lower grades tended to be "ahead" of similarly aged children in other countries, but how in upper elementary grades started to fall behind. (I don't remeber what solution the commercial offered, but that's not my point anyway.)

Being able to add sooner, or read a few sight words, doesn't necessarily mean that a child has a good educational foundation that supports the deeper understanding of the concepts.

From what I've seen Montessori is set up to provide children a solid foundation that will support them in the future, when "math facts" have been long forgotten, and when one runs into words that are unlikely to have been memorized as sight words, such as "hibernation" or "indigenous."

According to the director at one of the M schools we visited, though students who went through K in Montessori may need to learn about how to write out the problems of work sheets, they rarely ran into anything that they hadn't already learned the basic principles of till 3rd grade in public school.

[Rose-Roget]

Originally Posted by Sam75

Reading/Language: I've seen DC read the Bob books she has in her Mont. classroom (the beginner level with 3 -4 letter phonics words etc.) and some words she remembers over time (like "the", "a", etc.) She uses the movable alphabet in school and writes words and brings home booklets of words. But at what level do they start forming sentences and later paragraphs on their own and writing them down ?

Science - What/how often do the teachers do anything related to science in K ? I know over the last 3 years she's brought home parts of a flower, bird etc. and I've seen our school do different experiments which are fun for the kids but its done not so frequently (like once or twice a month in pre-school)

Our main concern is, when we toured the local public elementary school, in the K year (by January, so just 4 months into the school year) kids were writing sentences on their own, remembering way more sight words than my child does (like "who", "where", "girl" etc.) and doing addition etc.

I can only speak from my limited experience. I liked Matt's reminder that you need to compare your preschooler to preschoolers, not to kindergarteners.

As far as sight words go, traditional schools may tend to "drill and practice" specific words more than Montessori does. But knowing what I know about reading development, it's through the process of reading that one truly acquires this knowledge. So, as your dd reads more and more and various types of materials, those "sight words" will naturally come to her (and I would guess that they would stick more because they'll be based on contextual context, as well). Again, this is more about the process than the skill.

Ds is probably the student who is most resistent to writing in the school, but I have every faith that he will emerge from kindergarten with a firm ability to construct sentences and write stories, based on what I've seen.

In my personal experience, I know that the kids in ds's school, particularly the kindergarteners, are writing all the time. For example, I observed one day that a student found a snail on the sidewalk on her way to school one day. The kids took turns observing the snail, drawing pictures of it, and writing their observations in sentences, if they could. This also draws on the science piece. Ds's school is also very science, especially the life-sciences, oriented. He's also done experiments of sink/float, measuring, and weighing that I know of, specifically. Rarely with any of these lessons or experiments, did he come home with materials, so try not to base it only on what you see coming home. I'm pretty sure that Montessori education teaches students about the world around them, while focussing on the writing, reading, and math skills at the same time.

I work at a traditional public school where we had a meeting last week about "writing across the curriculum," and it made me think that that is already embedded into Montessori education. Maybe one day, they will see the light, and all public schools will be Montessori.


I hope that I didn't lose topic too much - I feel a bit like I've completely rambled about nothing. Just offering my knowledge through limited experience. Good luck!

[MattBronsil]

Originally Posted by eepster

Which in turn reminded me of a commercial I saw years earlier. It had a bunch of school bus from different countries racing. It was about how American school children in the lower grades tended to be "ahead" of similarly aged children in other countries, but how in upper elementary grades started to fall behind. (I don't remeber what solution the commercial offered, but that's not my point anyway.)

Another analogy along those same lines. 2 buses are racing. One bus company is concerned with one thing - making sure they go as quickly as they can through the race and win. The other bus company is primarily concerned with something else - making sure the bus is ready for the race and is able to get through the race quickly.

Bus company #1 floors it the moment the green flag is waved.
Bus company #2 works at a pace the bus can handle.

A few miles up the road, the Bus #1 has a blown engine because there was no oil in it. To make matters worse, it not only has a bad engine, but has run out of gas. Since it went so fast, it's on target for where it's supposed to be at this point, but it sure is slowing down a lot. The way to get it moving is you see a whole group of adults outside pushing it towards the finish line, but it's not getting there on its own.

Bus #2 simply breezes right past Bus #1. In the early stages of the race, it had an oil change and a full tank of gas put into it. The driver knew to be careful and not push the bus too early.

When we focus on providing a foundation of what is needed, we go farther in the race and actually stop worrying about the race itself. I have complete and utter confidence that Bus #2 is more prepared to travel on the road of life, regardless of whether it wins the race or not.

Now, this is not to knock other forms of education. It is a shot against the current trend in education, though, which has more to do with political gain than it has with helping our children. I'm also making the point that a Montessori bus would prepare the bus for the road and let things run their course. A bus that doesn't lay a foundation will simply run out of gas and have to keep being pushed in order to get across the finish line (or the standardized bus test).

I am good at many things. I can build you a great web site. I can fix your car or your computer. I can discuss theological points in great detail. I am a ventriloquist and improv comedian. One thing I cannot do is the fiddle. Believe me...I tried.

I fell in love with the fiddle by hearing Jimmy Mattingly (fiddler for Garth Brooks), Charlie Daniels, Mark O'Connor, and Leahy. I so want to just pick it up and play like them. That's all I focused on while learning the fiddle. I focused on the end result. I finally gave it up. Focusing on a goal is good, but it has to be done in light of only one thing: Continually moving forward towards that goal at whatever your limited ability allows. If I let myself just be a beginner, who knows where I would be now that it's almost 10 years later? I'd probably be performing music on stage as well as comedy. I didn't do that and now I just frankly don't have time to do it.

[Sam75]

K year

First off, thanks to everyone who responded. That helps.

Originally Posted by MattBronsil

1) Remember you saw a Kindergarten class and you're comparing it to your non-kindergarten child.

My DC was born in California and we moved out of state just before she started Montessori. Since she came to a state with a different cutoff date she is obviously going to start kindergarten late. On the other hand, all her friends from CA (who were born even after her) are in public kindergarten already. Also, her friends who are only a month or two older to her here are already in public kindergarten.

Based on the above fact, and also that my DC would have gone through 3 years of Montessori primary by May, I believe I am justified in comparing her to her friends. From what we have read, 3rd year of primary is supposed to be the kindergarten year.

This is why we are so confused about the so called 3-year life cycle of Montessori. We have observed our DC since birth and our DC is definitely at least above average (as two scientists we can at least make some judgment call about this). Also, before starting Montessori, developmentally she was ahead of kids of her same age group. So I really don't understand why 3 years of Montessori puts her at pre-K level. Did Montessori slow her down? Does she need for some reason 4 years to catch up to her peers? There seems to be such a disconnect between what we read and what really happens.

Originally Posted by eepster

The European psychologist all felt that deeper understanding in cognative development was much more important than speed. Which in turn reminded me of a commercial I saw years earlier. It had a bunch of school bus from different countries racing. It was about how American school children in the lower grades tended to be "ahead" of similarly aged children in other countries, but how in upper elementary grades started to fall behind. (I don't remeber what solution the commercial offered, but that's not my point anyway.)

It was about how American school children in the lower grades tended to be "ahead" of similarly aged children in other countries, but how in upper elementary grades started to fall behind.

As a person who went through the European and US system, I believe that the reason kids in the US fall behind in later years of school is because: lack of parent interest and because education is not considered important by popular US culture. As an example, when Oprah had a show on how bad the US inner city schools were, she spent close to 80% of the show talking about the lack of athletic facilities and only barely mentioned the academics.
To her, the empty swimming pool, sub-standard gym, etc. were the most important items for a school.

If people compared US public schools from neighborhoods where parents actually cared about the education, to similar neighborhoods in Europe, I'm sure there wouldn't be much of a difference. Example, even though people claim that CA has the worst public school systems, I'm sure an average kid in Cupertino, Irvine or Poway school district will be as good as any European kid.

Originally Posted by eepster

Being able to add sooner, or read a few sight words, doesn't necessarily mean that a child has a good educational foundation that supports the deeper understanding of the concepts.

As a scientist, I definitely agree with you on this. Both myself and DH believe that the whole experience of learning is a marathon, not a 100-meter dash. :-)

[MattBronsil]

Originally Posted by Sam75

]

Based on the above fact, and also that my DC would have gone through 3 years of Montessori primary by May, I believe I am justified in comparing her to her friends. From what we have read, 3rd year of primary is supposed to be the kindergarten year.

You looked at children who were already 6 or very close to being 6. You didn't look at children who will be 6 in a half year. If you really want to draw a comparison, you should look at where the students were in the beginning of the school year since, from a developmental standpoint looking at only age, that's where your child would stand at this point compared to that other classroom.

This is why we are so confused about the so called 3-year life cycle of Montessori. We have observed our DC since birth and our DC is definitely at least above average (as two scientists we can at least make some judgment call about this). Also, before starting Montessori, developmentally she was ahead of kids of her same age group. So I really don't understand why 3 years of Montessori puts her at pre-K level. Did Montessori slow her down? Does she need for some reason 4 years to catch up to her peers? There seems to be such a disconnect between what we read and what really happens.

See above. Despite what California is doing, you didn't observe a California school. You didn't see children at the same age range of what you would in California, unless I misread your post and you did observe a California school.

As a person who went through the European and US system, I believe that the reason kids in the US fall behind in later years of school is because: lack of parent interest and because education is not considered important by popular US culture. As an example, when Oprah had a show on how bad the US inner city schools were, she spent close to 80% of the show talking about the lack of athletic facilities and only barely mentioned the academics.
To her, the empty swimming pool, sub-standard gym, etc. were the most important items for a school.

What's that have to do with not caring about education?
The real issue is not really the sub standard gym, I'll grant you that. But the obvious problem is a lack of movement in education. Some people think gyms, swimming pools, etc. are the only answers to this.

The trend right now has even gone farther. Not only do schools restrict movement in the classroom. Schools also are starting to take away recess time entirely and shorten lunch breaks.

If people compared US public schools from neighborhoods where parents actually cared about the education, to similar neighborhoods in Europe, I'm sure there wouldn't be much of a difference. Example, even though people claim that CA has the worst public school systems, I'm sure an average kid in Cupertino, Irvine or Poway school district will be as good as any European kid.

As good as....in terms of what exactly?

As a scientist, I definitely agree with you on this. Both myself and DH believe that the whole experience of learning is a marathon, not a 100-meter dash. :-)

I prefer to think of it as a preparation for enjoying life. I'd much rather enjoy a 100 meter dash than a marathon. The dash would leave my lazy butt winded. The marathon would leave a cramp.

A nice, long walk on a perfect day can last me the entire day. I can ultimately get farther and enjoy the scenery along the way.

[Sam75]

Originally Posted by MattBronsil

You looked at children who were already 6 or very close to being 6. You didn't look at children who will be 6 in a half year. If you really want to draw a comparison, you should look at where the students were in the beginning of the school year since, from a developmental standpoint looking at only age, that's where your child would stand at this point compared to that other classroom.



See above. Despite what California is doing, you didn't observe a California school. You didn't see children at the same age range of what you would in California, unless I misread your post and you did observe a California school.

I was comparing 5 year old's, since my DC is also 5. The kids were 5 or close to 5 and a half. These are kids who are couple months older to my DC. Public kindergarten in our state is 5 year old's. These were kids who are in my DC's age range. The school we toured is not in California.

[Sam75]

Originally Posted by MattBronsil

As good as....in terms of what exactly?.

This was in relation to an earlier post that said US kids fall behind compared to EU kids at higher grade levels.

Originally Posted by MattBronsil

I prefer to think of it as a preparation for enjoying life. I'd much rather enjoy a 100 meter dash than a marathon. The dash would leave my lazy butt winded. The marathon would leave a cramp.

A nice, long walk on a perfect day can last me the entire day. I can ultimately get farther and enjoy the scenery along the way.

:-)

[BCFD]

I found this and thought it might be of interest to you. It has great detail about their kindy and 1st grade curriculum:

http://www.rainbow-montessori.com/el...dergarten.html

http://www.rainbow-montessori.com/el...irstgrade.html

[BCFD]

Here is a different school with their kindy program:

http://www.amacademy.com/Kindergarten.aspx

[GuildJenn]

Is your concern mainly sight words and writing?

Sight words are just a matter of drill-and-kill. So if it is worrying you, just get some flashcards and drill her at home. Children have different capacities for sight words, especially at the start (visual memory capacity varies) so you should be able to get a feel for whether it's just that she needs more introduced or whether she's having an issue learning them for whatever reason.

I've found our Montessori teaches sight words, if necessary (lots of kids learn them just from being read to), late in the learning to read process which is a perfectly defensible way of teaching reading, it just might not line up to your local curriculum. (I would expect, in other words, that your daughter's understanding of phonics may be stronger, but that's harder to evaluate until it takes off.)

Writing is, in my limited experience, kind of the same thing. At Montessori it does seem to me to be slower in some ways: the grip is developed, then the mechanics of writing with the arm, then letters on the page, and word and sentence formation come later on in the process, whereas in a public school the kids are tossed pencils and started on printing (not writing) pretty quickly.

But then in public schools they kind of have to stop and go over penmanship and neatness and all those things later. Now they may not do that anymore so it doesn't matter that they don't have the muscles well developed (or some of the kids don't), or who ends up with a neat and serviceable script. I have a friend who actually failed exams because she couldn't write quickly enough in university, so I'm sensitive to these things.

Also, right now it seems like the public schools are very focused on reading and writing; not a bad thing, but in order to do geometry, for example, you have to have manipulated cubes and spheres and gotten an idea of volume and all that. I personally believe that in ten years the education story will be that the US is having trouble graduating kids in math and sciences - areas where kids need to have played in the sand a little more.

I guess what I'm saying is that in my limited observation, Montessori doesn't put a child "behind" so much as emphasizes slightly different things. As far as whether Montessori "works" or not: I think it's possible there are Montessori schools that don't do as good of a job engaging a child's capacities than others do. But it doesn't sound like that's the worry here.

What you do sound worried about is that your daughter has lost ground because of the choice to go with Montessori overall. For the being advanced at 2.5, I wouldn't worry too much about that. Kids develop at different rates and I doubt that her time in Montessori has wasted her potential. Either she just levelled out, or she's absorbed a lot of things that aren't as easy to measure as sight words.

I'm willing to bet she has a solid foundation for learning and once she adapts to the grade one environment she'll probably do fine. She'll be ahead in some areas and not as familiar with others.

Learning is not really about always being bang on a particular curriculum, but having developed the attention, approach, and confidence to problem solve and to, well, learn. I hate to not give Montessori all the credit but I think most kids who have been an interesting environment with caring adults develop this capacity.

I'd probably do the sight words at home to ensure she doesn't get her confidence shot down, but I might wait for the summer anyway to see where she gets before then.

[Lillianna]

Well....it depends on the child, the Directress' training and the school "culture".
For example, my training (AMI) includes lessons for sight words, but we call them "puzzle words" because, like a puzzle, you can't tell what it is from just the pieces, you have to see it all together and just memorize it. The child learns these during the later half of the 2nd year and through the 3rd year (on average, some do it earlier). We do this by giving 3 period lessons and playing spelling games. The children also learn many from each other. There are many puzzle words in the phonogram lessons, function of word and sentence analysis which make up lessons for ages 5 and up and comprise work done in the 3rd year. If a child is in for 4 years, the lessons increase in challenge.
In math, we present teens and tens around 4 1/2. Then progress to bead chains and Gold Beads as soon as the child is ready. The child does not need to be able to "test well" with the teen boards to move on along the sequence. The subsequent lessons will continue to reinforce the concepts of teens and tens.
The Science curriculum is comprehensive and interwoven among the practical life, sensorial, language and art areas.
Keep in mind that Montessori (though she did not use these words) emphasized the "whole child", so learning outcomes include moral, social and emotional development as well as academic.
If a child enters at 2.5 and spends 4 years in Children's House, the 4th year may be more like the K year because of the sequence of materials. A half of a year makes a big difference sometimes.

[snowmom5]

Just throwing in my two cents on reading, phonics vs. sight words in K and our experience. I know not all Montessori teachers/schools are the same, so keep that in mind. I don't necessarily think that the montessori method focuses on one learning to read method over another - it should depend on the child. One of my kids is very much a visual-spatial, right-brained learner with a speech delay but nonetheless bright. He is currently in K, 5 y.o. turning 6 this month. His teacher long ago recognized the difficulty he has with learning to read phonetically, which is typical of kids in his situation. While she continues to work on the phonics angle, she has also spent considerable time with him focusing on sight words, which has been a strength for him. She believes that's how he'll ultimately learn to read. Now, he is "reading" but it depends on what you mean by that. He can sound out small words (can read the book Go Dog Go, for example) and can sight read rather large ones well.

Ironically, at our IEP meeting last year, it was the non-montessori, traditional public school folks on the early childhood special ed team who evaluated ds who were freaking out about his being able to learn phonics (it was imperative to them), and meanwhile the montessori teacher, the montessori school's special ed learning specialist and the speech therapist all agreed that occasionally some kids end up learning better through a sight word approach. Neither approach stands alone. (guess I should add, our montessori school is a public charter, thus the school district folks' involvement)

There are various games that can be played with sight words on cards that are a lot more fun than a flash-card approach. Visual-spatial learners like my ds don't tend to do well with a flash card approach anyway. His teacher has mentioned some but I can't think of how they work right now. For ds, he prefers to learn sight words as he comes across them in books, which takes a lot of reading together. In particular, he loves a non-fiction grown-up book called The Piano Book, which is all about how a piano works and how to buy a piano. He has learned to sight-read things like "As shown in the exploded and cross-sectional views opposite." Reading the same words over and over and over again is what does it - he sees the word, asks me what is, and then repeats it. So it helps when the book will have the same word with significant frequency. In ds's case, the important thing is that the book holds his interest (don't ask me why he likes that book - I just go with it and it has been working).

As far as the OP goes, in our school, being a public charter, there is a minimum standard for what it takes to pass K, and it's the same as for the other traditional elementary schools in the district. My dd went to the traditional school down the street for K (now she is in second grade at the montessori). My twin boys are in K at the montessori school and already know far more than she did when she finished K at the regular school. To be fair, she had some undiagnosed learning issues in K that have since been fixed, but her K teacher had no clue about her, really. I'm amazed that my boys' teachers know them so well, academically speaking. At least one of the boys had already passed the minimum K requirements at the beginning of the school year (the other one may have also; he's getting close on the bare minimum for reading) and there's a lot of school year left for them to keep on learning. And that's what I love about montessori most - they can keep moving forward!

[eepster]

Originally Posted by Lillianna

For example, my training (AMI) includes lessons for sight words, but we call them "puzzle words" because, like a puzzle, you can't tell what it is from just the pieces, you have to see it all together and just memorize it.

Is this something unique to english as primary language Montessori. I've often wondered if the very strong preference for teaching phonetic reading in Montessori had to do with Dr Montessori being Italian and the original childrens house being in Rome. Italian can be read completely phonetically with out problematic words.

Of course english has all kinds of unphonetic or oddly phonetic words. When DS decided to stop relying on sight words and try out phonetics the first word he tried to sound out was "gym." It came out as "Guh-Yu-MM" instead of "J-I-M." It was a really long time before he was willing to try reading again.

[Lillianna]

Originally Posted by eepster

Is this something unique to english as primary language Montessori?

Of course if the language is completely phonetic, you don't need puzzle words. The AMI language progression also includes a wide variety of materials and lessons with phonograms, which, along with the phonics and puzzle words, give the child all the tools he needs to eventually decipher the written language of English. The reading classification, function of word and sentence analysis reading lessons give the child practice reading in small stages and are a necessary part of a successful Montessori reading program.

[Flor]

My ds has two cousins who are in public K and he is in 3rd year Montessori. They are just learning to count to 20. They are just learning subtraction and addition while he has been doing these things since he was 3 or 4. I think he has a much deeper understanding of the concepts, while they are memorizing facts. He has the concepts of division and multiplication. They are learning sight words. He is writing paragraphs. He really doesn't know many sight words, thats true, but his understanding of phonics is deep! He is always asking me questions about vowel combinations, short and long vowel sounds, syllables, etc. I'm not sure what the standards are for your state, but children aren't really expected to read much until 1st grade here. Writing is perhaps a sentence by the end of kindgarten. I used to teach first grade and he is quite ahead of most of those children.

[Flor]

Just wanted to add that I would also look at what the children in p school are doing with their day. For example, here the M. school's test scores are a bit a head of the p. school. Someone made the comment, to me, Why pay hundreds of dollars a month for just a couple points advantage on the test scores? The funny thing is that ds's school spends NO time preparing for the test. They of course do reading and math but they also build pyramids, garden, make bird houses, put on plays, run a snack shop, knit, etc. and still manage to get out ahead. When I taught public 1st grade, we spent hours a day on reading, hours on math, and 1 hour a week on science, one hour a week on social studies, practically no art or music. So, perhaps the children in the public schools are slightly ahead (again, I'd want to know what the standards are for the end of kindergarten-- here they are not expected to be writing paragraphs), but what else do they get to do but reading and math?

[spottiew]

well we just went to kindy mtg (even tho next year will be year 3 of 4, we went just to learn early what it's like)... we learned about the golden beads, and then how they move up into learning to do with out and go into... stamps? well they called them that, but they looked like game tiles to me, how to do equations- add, subtract, multiply, and divide on little grids after learning to count into your hand. language, they had sight word cards, sentence part activities, opposite matching, homonyms... the kindy kids also led their own gatherings lasting 20-some minutes with stores, songs, and activities, plus every one of them does a 'research project'- they either write or dictate/illustrate/craft something that they chose to learn about... animals, life goals, cooking, travel, babies... and give an oral presentation at graduation. the grads are very cool 6yo (not that i know any other 6yo)