Montessori Sensorial Essay Example

effective learning procedure for the child.

Allow the child to use the material for several times before introducing the vocabulary. “Dr. Maria Montessori emphasizes that there is a period which comes before the three periods of Seguin. This is the period when the child works alone with the sensorial apparatus, and experiences the differential sensory stimuli without verbal interruption. This period of acquisition of sensory impression should precede the three period of Seguin. ” 3 “Teachers do of course evaluate the children in Montessori; it is simply not obvious to the children that they are being evaluated.

One way in which Montessori teachers evaluate children is by the manner in which they give lessons. Following Seguin, Dr. Montessori advised that lessons involving nomenclature be given in three stages, or periods. The three periods might be thought of as association, recognition, and recall. These nomenclature lessons figure prominently in Primary, because Dr. Montessori believed children should have precise terminology for describing the world. She believed that the first five years are a sensitive period for acquiring vocabulary(Montessori, 1967).

Children in Montessori learn sophisticated terminology that many a educated adult does not know, but that children appear to learn easily. The format of three period lesson is as follows. The teacher first shows the child the materials to be named- for example the rough and smooth boards, wooden tablets covered with different grades of rough and smooth sandpapers. As she or he runs fingers over each, the teacher gives the child the referring vocabulary, “rough” and “smooth”.

For the second period the teacher tests the recognition:”Give me the rough one,” “Give me the

smooth one. If the child is unable to pick the right one at this second stage, the teacher does not correct the child but assumes that the child did not get the concept to begin with. The teacher would then repeat the presentation another day. If the child did correctly choose the rough one, the teacher would go on to the third period, holding up one of the sandpaper tablets and asking the child,”What is this? ”A great deal of vocabulary is taught in the primary classrooms through such lessons, and they give the teacher the opportunity to evaluate whether a child has mastered the key concepts. ”

1. The First Period: Naming “This is” “Since the lesson in terminology should consist in establishing an association between a name and its object or with the abstract concept of the name itself, both object and name should strike the child's understanding at the same time, but only the name itself, and not some other word, should be pronounced.” - Maria Montessori 5

The association of the sensory perception with the name. The child is presented with three colors. Presenting the first- “ This is red”-then another- “This is yellow”-then the last- “ This is blue”. This could also be called the period of “introduction”.

Seguin suggests we leave the object under the child's observation for a few seconds in order of the child to absorb the impression accurately.” 6 When proceeding to the next period, always begin with the object you did last in the preceding period. This helps maintain a certain continuity.

2. The Second Period: Recognition “Show me” The Second

period begins a few moments later and is there to ascertain whether the child had managed to make the correct associations. The teacher asks the child questions very slowly and distinctly, using only the noun or adjective that has been taught e.g. "Which one is blue? Which one is yellow?" or “Show me blue.”The child will be asked to point his finger at the relevant object and the teacher knows whether or not he has understood. This stage is the most important one of the three and comprises the real lesson and assistance to the associative memory. This could also be called the period for Practice.

The teacher can vary the order that the objects are presented in . This helps to differentiate between when the child has just memorized the order, and when the child has actually memorized the names. Be sure to spend a lot of time in the second period. 7

When the teacher sees that the child understands she can repeat the question a number of times to confirm the relationship and fix it in his mind. If, however, she sees that he has been unable to do so she does not correct him, but suspends the exercise without letting the child feel in any way uncomfortable, and delays it until another day.

3. The Third Period: Recall “What is” The third period is a rapid verification of the first one. It consists of the teacher asking the child "What color is this?" and the child replying appropriately "It is blue" etc. Again this stage can be repeated a few times to aid the association. Montessori saw that

this technique could be introduced to all areas of the curriculum where a child needed to make a particular association. What was important was that the teacher was sensitive to the developmental levels of the child. Should she discover that he was not ready to make the appropriate mental step, she should not in any way coerce or correct him, but should be content to wait for another opportunity.

"The senses, being explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge. Our apparatus for educating the senses offers the child a key to guide his explorations of the world, they cast a light upon it which makes visible to him more things in greater detail than he could see in the dark, or uneducated state." 8

Montessori was very influenced by the work of Edouard Seguin. He specialized in working with mentally deficient children and had developed a series of exercises that helped to train their senses and to teach them the skills of everyday life.

He also felt that the education systems of that time denied children the possibility to develop their individual potentials. "Respect for individuality", he wrote, "is the first test of a teacher" and he contrasted it with "the violent sameness of most of education."

9. Montessori would also have been familiar with the work of Rousseau and Pestalozzi, both of whom emphasized the importance of the training of the senses. She started her career working with special needs children and had seen how effective the results of specific sense exercises were. She began to be curious about how working with such materials would effect normal children.