The montessori preschool: Preparation for writing and reading

Dr. Maria Montessori was a perceptive observer of the learning processes of children, and nowhere is this revealed more clearly than in her approach to language. She viewed reading as the ultimate abstraction of language rather than a specific skill to be taught. Decoding is the skill to be taught. The concept of indirect and direct preparation for learning is of major importance in the rich heritage she gave us. She saw the existence of an epigenesis of intellectual functioning, which implies that the experiential roots of a given schema, or learned behavior, will lie in antecedent activities that may be quite different in structure from the schema to be learned. She used this principle effectively. This article discusses how Montessori’s method and materials address the indirect and direct preparation for learning written language.