Montessori - What Are the Six Sensitive Periods?

MONTESSORI’S research shows that children learn through movement and should have environments that are specifically tailored to meet their needs. Montessori schools provide a foundation for learning that is centred on care for the environment, care for the self as individual and

During the ages of two to seven, the child would be in the preoperational stage. This involves the child having an egocentric

In today’s society many people recognize that our current educational system is antiquated and heavily flawed. Many do not believe the education our children routinely receive adequately prepares them to be successful in their adult lives and because of this parents are very concerned. This dissatisfaction has led to the implementation of numerous alternatives to the traditional educational system to which we have become accustomed. Each of these alternatives has their own collection of philosophies and methodologies, proponents and opponents, advantages and disadvantages, but the common thread is that they each aim to provide our children with a better, more effective education suited for today’s world. Montessori education is one of these alternative learning options that been around for many years and has been steadily gaining popularity.

Students spend most of their time working on the floor where they have their own individual carpets. They put them down to outline their personal workspace. Instead of there being various toys and games spread through out the classroom, there are specific sensory materials and manipulatives that are self correcting and purposeful to student’s learning. On the walls students’ work fill spaces throughout the classroom, similar to the walls of a Head Start classroom. Montessori classrooms are made up of mixed grades and ages, something that is not typical of traditional classrooms.

At eight to twelve months, infants can now focus on a goal-oriented task; such as, locating a hidden object after watching someone place it under a blanket. During this stage, infants are using things they have witnessed and past experiences to complete a task. Using goal-centered techniques at this age ensures the development of processing information throughout the stages to come. Tertiary circular reactions stage is number four in Piaget’s sensorimotor stages and includes infants from twelve to eighteen months. On the verge of walking, infants move around and explore how objects work in their environment. Also, they are beginning to develop independence and individual characteristics. Just like in the previous stage, babies enjoy taking objects apart. However, in the tertiary circular reactions stage infants now enjoy using trial-and-error to piece them back together. Trial-and-error techniques and other processes help infants transition into their final stage, mental representation. Eighteen months to two years make up mental representation. For the duration of this stage infants are able to provide immediate answers to problems, participate in make-believe play, and find hidden objects out of their sight. Having a larger grasp on the world, infants are now able to view items that are not there. For example, a mother asks her child would they like ice

Piaget’s three major stages of sensorimotor intelligence include the primary circular reactions, the secondary circular reactions, and the tertiary circular reactions. The primary circular reactions distinguish substage 2 of Piaget’s sensory motor stages. Which is Piaget’s way to define a baby’s simple actions that are repetitive, such as repeating to suck his thumb after figuring out that it’s pleasurable, this usually occurs between 1 to 4 months old. The secondary circular reactions refer to substage 3, which is when a baby repeats an action that triggers a reaction outside his or her own body. This is when a baby becomes aware of the objects around them, which they apply a trial and error learning, in order to see the response between a stimuli. The tertiary circular reactions occur in substage 5. The baby does not necessarily repeat the action but rather tries out variations. This happens between 12 to 18 months old. They’ll try a variety of actions to trigger an expression from the people around

Maria Montessori founded an education system which is called Montessori and still bares her name, her system is based on belief in the child’s creative potential, (Douglas, n.d.). Her first Casa Dei Bambini (Children’s house), where Maria was using her approach of teaching was opened in 1907 in Rome. She was great educator who believed that children are learning through their personal experience at their right time and their own pace. (Ridgway, 2007). Children rather than learning largely from what the teachers and the textbooks say, learn from “doing”,(Douglas, n.d.). To provide for children an effective, independent learning process, and that they become a competent and confident learner, Teacher had to provide for children a healthy, clean, well-prepared and well organised environment in which children could develop. Maria Montessori came up with idea that if children have to work and play independently, they have to be comfortable and need appropriately sized tools and items that fit their small hands (Mooney, 2000). Montessori believed that children learn through sensory experiences. Teacher has a responsibility to provide wonderful sights, textures, sounds, and smells for children. Sensory

Lastly, the principle and philosophy of Maria Montessori in early childhood education is absorbent mind. From the age 0-6 years old is what Montessori called the all-around formative period of the absorbent mind. At 0-3 years old, children are unconsciously absorbing what is around him and is more reactive than purposeful in his actions. Meanwhile at 3-6 years old, children begin to explore the outer environment through more purposeful movement and exercise.

According to Montessori, it is vitally important to support and facilitate these periods during the child's first stage of development. If the child is prevented from following the innate desire of any given sensitive period, a disturbing effect could result on both psychic development and maturity. The child must be assisted through the sensitive periods. The adult must assist the child by providing a suitable environment.

There are four different stages in Piaget’s Stages of Development. The first stage of Piaget is oftenly within the age range of zero to two years and it is called the Sensorimotor Stage. This stage is the stage where children are learning more about what is around them and they learn about touches, tastes, smells, sounds, and what they see. They are also always moving and interested in everything around them. In this first stage babies also don’t know the permanence of objects and think that if they can’t see something or that it went missing that it disappeared. An example of this stage is: a baby is crawling and touching everything it sees and tries to put it in its mouth.

Piaget established that thought is developed through six sub stages, the sensorimotor stage. I will be discussing stage three and four, which are known as secondary circular reactions. In this stage, infants initiate motor activities to fulfill their own needs. Sub stage three is typically when babies reach four months and can continue up to eight months. Infants become much more responsive to people and objects in environment. They learn to repeat specific actions that have caused them pleasure. For example, a baby clapping her hands when a toy appears from behind a blanket while playing a hide and seek game. Another example is when a baby is sucking his thumb just by reflex, but then discovers it is pleasing so he will suck it habitually. In this sub stage, Infants begin to use their logic.

In reality, the children move about the classroom independently, choosing the order of their learning activities. There may be 15 or more activities, or ?jobs? as they are called in some Montessori classrooms, occurring at the same time with small groups or individual work, yet the classroom remains quiet, yet busy and productive, sometimes with the soft hush of classical music playing in the background. Many Montessori school classrooms place a card around the child?s neck with the day?s objectives written in the form of a checklist for the students to monitor themselves. This checklist encourages the students to take responsibility for their own learning, as well as discourages prompt-dependence, since the student need not wait for instruction. Some of the activities in a Montessori classroom include reading, pre-reading using phonics, math, discovery science and writing. Children learn skills in a way that he or she is not aware that learning is taking place. For example, a child playing in the sand box with a small rake is not aware that he or she is learning fine motor skills and how to hold and control a pencil. Another observation in a Montessori classroom is that most classrooms tend to span three grade levels. This practice allows to children to become mentors to younger students. Also, the large gap in developmental levels allows children to ?learn at their own pace? (Keller, 2001), which is another important Montessori

I observed and analyzed the design and delivery of an instructional unit in a Montessori school setting. I observed a classroom of grades 1-3 two times from 9 a.m. – 11 a.m. at the Kennebec Montessori school. I was asked to sit quietly and to not interact with the children so I could get a realistic view of the class day and the children would pursue their chosen work.

In the sensorimotor stage the child discovers the environment through physical actions such as sucking, grabbing, shaking and pushing. During these first two years of life children realize objects still exist, even if it is out of view. This concept is known as object permanence. Children in the preoperational stage develop language skills, but may only grasp an idea with repeated exposure. As Piaget describes in the next stage, children draw on knowledge that is based on real life situations to provide more logical explanations and predictions. Lastly, in the formal operational stage children use higher levels of thinking and present abstract ideas.

Dr. Maria Montessori was a keen observer of children. She used her observational and experimental proclivities from her medical background to develop, what we might today call, a Constructivist understanding of the process of learning. She studied them scientifically. If she saw some unusual behavior in a child, she would say,”I won’t believe it now, I shall if it happens again”. She studied the conditions in which the children would perform those actions.