Dr Montessori's Own Handbook: Maria Montessori's Original Guide on the Learning Environment and Development of Children

By Maria Montessori

Dr. Maria Montessori’s remarkable guide to early childhood development and education explains the philosophy of her method and features illustrated examples of her renowned techniques and exercises.

First published in 1914, Dr. Montessori’s Own Handbook is an illustrated guide to Maria Montessori’s alternative approach to education. The Italian physician’s method abandons traditional elements of classroom-based learning, such as tests, and focuses on encouraging the individual child’s natural interests and abilities. Following countless requests from teachers and parents alike, Montessori created this volume featuring a wealth of information on teaching and nurturing children as they develop. With a focus on children between the ages of three and six, this volume includes various activities, exercises, and ideas for classroom materials that can easily be obtained at home.

This volume’s contents features:

- The Method

- Motor Education

- Sensory Education

- Language and Knowledge of the World

- Freedom

- Writing

- The Reading of Music

- Arithmetic

- Moral Factors

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read & Co. Books
• Release date: Feb 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9781528798525

Maria Montessori

Italian doctor and educator MARIA MONTESSORI (1870-1952) was the first woman to graduate from the University of Rome Medical School. She traveled extensively in Europe, America, and the Near East, studying early education and testing her educational methods.

Book preview

1.png

DR MONTESSORI’S

OWN HANDBOOK

Maria Montessori's Original

Guide on the Learning Environment and Development of Children

By

MARIA MONTESSORI

First published in 1914

Copyright © 2022 Read & Co. Books

This edition is published by Read & Co. Books,

an imprint of Read & Co.

This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any

way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library.

Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd.

For more information visit

www.readandcobooks.co.uk

To my

Dear Friend

Donna Maria Maraini

Marchioness Guerrieri-Gonzaga

Who Devotedly and with Sacrifice

has Generously Upheld this Work of Education

Brought to Birth in Our Beloved Country but Offered to the Children of Humanity

Contents

Maria Montessori

Montessori System

NOTE BY THE AUTHOR

PREFACE

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

A CHILDREN’S HOUSE

THE METHOD

MOTOR EDUCATION

SENSORY EDUCATION

LANGUAGE AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD

FREEDOM

WRITING

THE READING OF MUSIC

ARITHMETIC

MORAL FACTORS

Illustrations

Maria Montessori

FIG. 1.—Cupboard with Apparatus

FIG 2.—The Montessori Paedometer

FIG. 3.—Frames for Lacing and Buttoning

FIG. 4.—Child Buttoning on Frame

FIG. 5.—Cylinders Decreasing in Diameter only

FIG. 6.—Cylinders Decreasing in Diameter and Height

FIG. 7.—Cylinders Decreasing in Height only

FIG. 8.—Child using Case of Cylinders

FIG. 9.—The Tower

FIG. 10.—Child Playing with Tower

FIG. 11.—The Broad Stair FIG. 12.—The Long Stair

FIG. 13.—Board with Rough and Smooth Surfaces

FIG. 14.—Board with Gummed Strips of Paper

FIG. 15.—Wood Tablets Differing in Weight

Color Spools

FIG. 16.—Cabinet with Drawers to hold Geometrical Insets

FIG. 17.—Set of Six Circles

FIG. 18.—Set of Six RectanglesFIG. 19.—Set of Six Triangles

FIG. 20.—Set of Six Polygons

FIG. 21.—Set of Six Irregular Figures

FIG. 22.—Set of Four Blanks and Two Irregular Figures

FIG. 23.—Frame to hold Geometrical Insets

FIG. 24.—Child Touching the Insets

FIG. 25.—Series of Cards with Geometrical Forms

FIG. 26.—Sound Boxes

FIG. 27.—Musical Bells

FIG. 28.—Sloping Boards to Display Set of Metal Insets

FIG. 29.—Single Sandpaper Letter

FIG. 30.—Groups of Sandpaper Letters

FIG. 31.—Box of Movable Letters

FIG. 32.—The Musical Staff

FIG. 33.

FIG. 34.

FIG. 35.

FIG. 36.

FIG. 37.

FIG. 38.

FIG 39.—Dumb Keyboard

FIG. 40.—Diagram Illustrating Use of Numerical Rods

FIG. 41.—Counting Boxes

FIG. 42.—Arithmetic Frame

Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori

An Italian educator, born in Rome, about 1872. She was educated to be a physician, and while studying applied herself especially to the investigation of nervous diseases in children, and to the problem of evolving a form of training that would draw out the capabilities of those of diseased and abnormal temperaments.

She was the first woman to be graduated in medicine at the University of Rome (1894), and for some time she acted as an assistant in the Psychiatric Clinic and later as a lecturer on anthropology in that institution. Then for six years she was in charge of one of the hospitals for defective children in Rome. Having acquired a familiarity with the systems of Pestalozzi, Fröbel, Seguin, Itard and other early masters, she now developed therefrom a method of educating feeble-minded children under more modern conditions.

In 1898-1900 she was directress of the Scuola Ortofrencia, or mind-strengthening school, where she met with marked success in applying the methods, particularly, of Seguin and Ilard to the education of defectives. She then devoted herself to the study of experimental psychology, pedagogic anthropology and the methods of modern education.

An occasion offered in 1907 for putting her theories to practical test, when a school was established in connection with the tenants erected by the Roman Association for Good Building. The first house (Cora dei Bambini) was opened in January 1907, and was soon followed by three others. Dr. Montessori maintained her connection with these schools until 1911 when she devoted her time to the extension of her methods to older children.

Both professional educators and laymen have taken a deep interest in her work, the principles of which she has set down in Antropologia pedagogica (English translation by F. T. Cooper, Pedagogic Anthropology, New York 1913) and Il metodo della pedagogia scientifica applicato all'educazione infantile nelle case dei Bambini (English translation by A. E. George, The Montessori Method, New York 1912).

A biography from

The Encyclopedia Americana, 1920

Montessori System

A system of education originated by Dr. Maria Montessori, of Rome; the only example, says Professor Holmes, of Harvard, of an educational system worked out and inaugurated by the feminine mind.

Within five years after a few Montessori schools were established in Rome—under quite unfavorable conditions—they were being talked about in every school system on the globe, and Dr. Montessori took rank with Froebel as the author of a profound and practical contribution to the greatest of the sciences.

By use of this system feeble minded children passed the public school examinations in Rome with higher credits than normal children outside the Montessori schools. Under the Montessori system normal children learn to read and write—for example—in six weeks, and—a matter of far wider importance—this progress is accompanied by the rapid yet wholesome development of the faculties and of the powers of resource, initiative, self control and concentration.

Who is Dr. Montessori? To what extent is her system adapted or adaptable to the needs and conditions of English speaking countries?

This article is intended to answer these questions, and to give details with regard to the Montessori apparatus that will enable mothers and teachers to employ the system to the best advantage.

WHAT EDUCATORS

SAY ABOUT THE METHOD

In an extremely valuable analysis of the Montessori method, in his introduction to Dr. Montessori's work The Montessori Method (listed below in the bibliography of the subject), Professor Henry W. Holmes of Harvard says of the method, that it leads to rapid, easy and substantial mastery of the elements of reading, writing and arithmetic. He thinks it highly probable, however, that the system ultimately adopted in the American schools will combine elements of the Montessori and Kindergarten methods, and advises that several combinations be tried out. He points out that while the Kindergarten does not teach children to read and write, it does teach them to deal with number, and thinks it may be fairly questioned whether it does not do more fundamental work in this field than the Montessori system.

On the subject of teaching writing he says:

There has been a fairly general conviction that writing is not especially important before the age of 8 or 9. In view of Dr. Montessori's teaching children of 4 or 5 to write with ease and skill, must we not revise our estimate of the value of writing and our procedure in teaching it?

But, in his opinion, writing and reading for young children should not be unduly emphasized. He says:

Let us remember, as Dr. Montessori does, that reading and writing should form but a subordinate part of the experience of the child, and should minister in general to his other needs. With the best of methods, the value of reading and writing before six, is questionable.

Of the technical advantages of the Montessori scheme for writing, there can be little doubt. . . . . The exercises have the very important characteristic of involving a thorough sensory analysis of the material to be mastered. Mauman has taught us the great value in all memory work, of complete impression through prolonged and intensive analytical study.

But we must not expect as rapid advancement in writing and reading English as Dr. Montessori has achieved in teaching Italian:

"In Italian, the letters once learned, it is a simple matter to combine them into words, Italian spelling is so phonetic, but it is the unphonetic character of