There is a great deal of research on child development today that fully supports Dr. Montessori's focus on sensitive periods for a child's development of certain skills, on cognitive-motor connections and on meta-learning skills such as creative problem-solving. From time to time we will provide reasonably current pieces here that focus on those points, whether or not the research explicitly acknowledges or studies the Montessori method.
The Early Years: Evaluating Montessori Education
(Link above takes you to AMS Research page, select Lillard article, connect to Science magazine and then select full text)
Author: Lillard, A. and Else-Quest, N.
Source: Science, Vol. 313, No. 5795, pp. 1893 - 1894 (2006).
Synopsis/Excerpt: Five year olds taught in a Montessori environment performed better in the school readiness areas of word attack, applied problems and letter-word identification and executive functioning. Montessori children were significantly more likely to use a higher level of reasoning by referring to justice or fairness in a test of social and behavioral measures. Montessori educated children were significantly more likely to pass the "false belief test," a commonly used measure to examine childrens' understanding of the mind.
The Characteristics of Problem Solving Transfer in a Montessori Classroom
Author: Janet Hall Bagby
Source: PhD. Dissertation, 2002
Synopsis/Excerpt: "The Montessori model of education is a philosophy of child development and a methodology for facilitating learning. . .Dr. Montessori's writings provide the most comprehensive description of an educational model ever produced by one individual. . .'Although Montessori is well known as a teacher, she is underestimated as an innovative theoretician. She anticipated much that is current in developmental thinking.'. . .Only within the last twenty-five years have educators begun to make the connections between the Montessori approach and what research says about the optimal ways children learn."
The Timing and Quality of Early Experiences Combine to Shape Brain Architecture
Source: National Scientific Council on the Developing Child (2007). The Timing and Quality of Early Experiences Combine to Shape Brain Architecture: Working Paper No. 5. Retrieved from www.developingchild.harvard.edu
Synopsis/Excerpt: "Because specific experiences affect specific brain circuits during specific developmental stages - referred to as sensitive periods - it is vitally important to take advantage of these early opportunities in the developmental building process. That is to say, the quality of a child's early environment and the availability of the appropriate experiences at the right stages of development are crucial in determining the strength or weakness of the brain's architecture, which, in turn, determines how well he or she will be able to think and to regulate emotions. . .Critical aspects of brain architecture begin to be shaped by experience before and soon after birth, and many fundamental aspects of that architecture are established well before a child enters [K - 12] school."
Holistic Peace Education
Author: Sonny McFarland
Source: American Montessori Society Peace Committee
Synopsis/Excerpt: Holistic Peace Education provides opportunities for the children to access the peace within themselves. It further provides opportunities and experiences for them to relate harmoniously to other people, cultures and the environment.
From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development
Author: Jack Shonkoff & Deborah Phillips, Eds.
Source: National Academy Press, Washington D.C.
Synopsis/Excerpt: Children are literally born ready to learn. Research describes the time period from birth to age five as one of "intense intellectual engagement, when children are making sense of the world through complex human reasoning." It is during this time that a child's brain is rapidly developing, creating the foundation and blueprint for future learning. This does not mean young children need high tech toys or explicit early instruction. In fact, they need nurturing interactions with caring adults in a stimulating environment that supports their natural inclination to learn. Such an environment fosters curiosity: it is filled with opportunity to experiment with cause and effect, emotional fluency, and expression. It is complete with teachers who offer non-intrusive encouragement for the mastery of tasks; sorting, organizing, building, manipulating. Such an environment lays the foundation for joyful associations with learning that positively influences cognitive development.
