Yue miet not bee aible tue reed this but mie teecher can!

1. Yuemiet not bee aibletue reed this but mieteecher can! Meral And Myriem

2. El Dia De Montessori • Who was Maria Montessori? • What were her philosophical foundations? • Montessori and early years literacy

3. Who was Maria Montessori? • Born in 1870 • Italy’s first woman to receive a medical degree • Worked with special needs children, spoke on their behalf • Worked with children from the slums of San Lorenzo in Italy – Founded the House of Children (Casa dei Bambini) where she observed children and developed her theories on child development • During World War II Maria Montessori was exiled to India because of her anti-fascist views and developed her work Education for Peace – She was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize

5. Philosophical Foundations • Whole child/whole language approach • “All children are endowed with the capacity to absorb culture.” –Maria Montessori • Education is not something that the teacher does, it is a natural process which develops spontaneously (“auto-education”)

6. Philosophical Foundations Cont. • Children learn best in an open, respectful, nurturing and communicative environment • The concept of normalization: to become a contributing member of society • The three step cycle • Educators must know themselves, educate themselves in their work and give appropriate help (The Absorbent Mind) • Classes of mixed ability and age with minimum adult intervention to reinforce natural equitable development

7. Montessori and early years literacy • Early years language development (language skills begin at conception, during infancy) • Effective communication relies on authentic exchanges between teachers and children • Encoding versus Decoding (writing come before reading) • Providing children with opportunities to see and use print, using both a phonetic and whole-word approach

8. Literacy Strategies • Self-correcting language materials developed by Maria Montessori • Classroom set up adapted to children’s size/ carefully selected high quality materials • Children should not be taught to read and write before age 6 or 7, but children often teach themselves using the material by age 3 or 4 • There are four stages to language development: spoken, phonetic awareness, creating words, reading • The three period lesson and I Spy

9. Three Period Lesson • We can use the three period lesson to directly teach specific vocabulary for everything (real objects, photos, illustrations) • Touch object and clearly speak it’s name • Ask the child to identify objects we name • Point to each object and ask “What is this?” • I spy (letter sounds)

10. Montessori Materials • Metal inserts: children are gaining fine motor skills by tracing shapes to practice the strokes of letters • Sandpaper Letters: children are provided with multiple sensory experiences to learn letters by touching, listening and seeing • Movable alphabet: children can choose cut-out letters to compose words (also multi-sensory)

11. Metal Inserts

12. Sandpaper Letters

13. Movable Alphabet

14. Conclusion • Is the Montessori approach still relevant and applicable today? • Is it still good practice and do we want to incorporate it into our classrooms? • How does it apply to multiple intelligences and diverse populations?

15. Resources • http://montessori.org • http://briarwoodmontessori.net/docs/Literacy%20Handbook.pdf • http://montessori.edu • http://www.michaelolaf.net/maria.html