There are times the answers don't pop into her head and she has to use basic tools to figure it out. That is an issue for DD. So I don't mind her going through the steps. She doesn't like it, but I don't like doing sit ups either.
Well, but that's not what I'm talking about. The school was requiring my then-4yo, who could read books alone, to go BACK to pre-reading exercises that he had mastered YEARS before.
They did not do any pre-testing to see where he was or what he could do. They just assumed that all kids were not yet able to read and that all kids would jump through their hoops until they got to something that was hard for them. Those assumptions were both dead wrong about our DS. If it's too easy, it bores him or is insulting to him or something. Whatever it is, he won't do it. He did geometry and maps and science instead, but he spent NO time in the LA area of the school.
So even though I told the school before we registered him that DS was reading books and had been for the better part of a year, they ignored me and kept assigning him those blasted "sound boxes"--a phonics builder exercise. That phonics was something he had mastered over half his life earlier--literally!--didn't matter to the school. And since the kids have free choice about what to do when, he just never made it over to the sound blocks.
Now, I'm not talking about allowing kids to be lazy and not do things that require work. I'm talking about making a child effectively repeat a grade (or more) even before there are grades to repeat! If the school doesn't see where a child is and move the child through the program, then all the Japanese poetry and 1000s beads in the world don't matter because the child will never get to use them, even though he's ready for them!
Perhaps if we had arrived at the Montessori program before DS could read, it would have been a better fit. And at least they did finally listen, after my DH insisted that they skip the sound boxes during the parent-teacher meeting. (Sexism didn't win them any points in my book either, though!) Once they skipped the sound boxes with DS, they *finally* saw how far ahead he was and moved him through the program appropriately.
I just didn't think it should have taken them half the year to see it!
I mean, geez! Hand the kid a book! If he can read it, he knows his letters! It's not hard!
It sounds like you're not having the same problem we had, and that's great! But I always have to throw my cautionary tale out there because so many here have had the same sort of problem we had.
Much more depends upon the individual school and teachers than it does on the teaching method, I think. Montessori can be fantastic, but only if the teachers understand that they're dealing with a child who won't follow the normal path and they are able to adapt to meet the child where s/he is.
It sounds like your DD's school is doing that, and I'm glad.
