Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school New & Montessori Preschool? Grade skipping early?

I've just joined. 3yo DD continues to be advanced (empath, highly verbal, reasoning) but lately I've noticed she's been putting her efforts into physical skills (she was slow to start with gross motor)

Anyway, I've enrolled her in a Montessori/traditional mix school for 1.5 days this fall. I really thing the multi-age classroom will be good for her as she seems to connect better with older kids.

Anyone else in Montessori type preschols?

I'm also really toying with getting her assessed and not sure how to go about it.

My main concern for her is that she is highly socially adaptable and I'm seeing that she's playing down to some of the kids she sees a lot and I just want her to have fun but also be challenged.

She is a super silly, funny, intelligent problem solver with an impeccable memory.

Thanks!

ps - We're in MA if anyone is local to us!

We looked at Montessori for my DS3 this year. The program was not a good fit for him (e.g. letters would not be allowed called by their names instead to be referred to by sound regardless of the fact that he is already reading and appreciates phonics, stations would be completed in succession, there were no shoes allowed - only slippers in school, DS3 was not encouraged to tour the school because being part of choosing a school is not a child's decision to make..). To say the least I was concerned that the environment would not tolerate exploration and creative interpretation, and would not tolerate the intensity and enthusiasm he demonstrates. The program we chose to stay with has offered pull out to pre k groups for the academics, and socialization with older kids is facilitated through mixed age playground time daily and inclusion in summer program activities. It is overall a better fit - though the Montessori had some really cool science, gadget, and geography materials I thought he would love. I realize that every child's needs are different. Montessori may be a great choice depending on what you and DD are looking to get out of preschool, and the particular program's teachers and programming.
There is a good list of providers (consultation and planning, testing..) located on the Sage School's (Foxboro) webpage. Aimee Yermish is a good resource. She's in Stow.

My kids are in Montessori- DS4 in preschool and DS8 in elementary. Our school's director also runs a Montessori training facility for teachers and she stresses to everyone that Montessori isn't McDonald's- it's not the same everywhere you go.

The Montessori Jenna observed sounds like a pretty rigid interpretation of Montessori. I've seen those and I've seen some where all Montessori means is that they call the activities "works." Beyond that there is nothing Montessori about them. The name means, unfortunately, little. What you really need to do is to determine WHY the school calls itself a Montessori and what that means to them.

Here is what we liked about our school and why we are there- and what we would look for if we ever were to need to look.

True Montessori should believe in following the child. While a rigid Montessori will insist on completing works in order (they believe the following comes in when each child masters at his/her speed and progresses at his/her speed), our school is pretty good about noticing when a kid is capable of skipping past a work or doing some compacting. Not perfect- but pretty good.

Montessori strives for a peaceful non-competitive environment. For our sensitive kids, this has been good. They are also big on problem solving and natural consequences versus punishment. That makes more sense to my kids.

Montessori stresses mastery instead of grades. Since I have one who could probably earn As without even looking at the paper, it's nice that he hasn't ever had that external reward for his work. He masters something- he moves on. There is no "yay- you got an A!" that I got as a child and that I fully credit for part of my "I'm a fake" neurosis in college.

The three year classroom can be wonderful as well. When DS8 was 3 he spent much of his time observing Kindergarten lessons. Of course, as you reach the top of the 3 years, that's harder. But our school is pretty good about providing opportunities for those who need them to observe and participate in more challenging work.

Montessori considers the whole child. In our school that means that healthy eating is encouraged (and strictly adhered to within the confines of the school- nobody's packing junk in his lunchbox). It also means a strong focus on the arts including piano lessons as part of the curriculum and visual arts activities. And it means that the school understands the child's need to move.

Our school is extremely small. In the whole elementary there are probably less than 20 kids. The pre-k is larger at about 24 for three levels. We have a disproportionate number of gifted kids. So it's not the norm. But it is an example of how a Montessori *can* work and why it *can* be an ideal solution for gifted kids. It hasn't been perfect- but it's been pretty darn good for us over the years.

We did this with my DD. We put her in a Montessori preschool and Kindergarten at 3 years old. The first day when I picked her up, I found out that they had moved her to an intermediate class with 4 and 5 year olds that would be entering K the following year. Since Montessori works at the child's pace and is mostly individual tasks, being with an older group did not phase my DD. She enjoyed being with older kids. My DD learned to read at 3 years old in the Montessori preschool setting. The bigger issue is schooling later down the line in elementary and beyond and whether or not they will continue to accelerate your child.

It has been an interesting journey. Good luck!

Amy,
I wholeheartedly second what GinaW said. She has laid out the strengths--when it works well, Montessori is wonderful in "following the child." Also, incidentally, when well executed, Montessori does not follow the child into "I don't feel like learning to read/write/whatever." But the system is creative about finding ways to interest kids in the less appealing activities. Also, I think the children get a lot out of learning to be responsible for their own learning (I am talking about older ages now, though it starts in preschool). My DS8 makes his own daily schedule and outlines his own goals--all under the guidance of his teachers. This is actually one of his main challenges (as opposed to the academics per se) and I am really glad he is learning how to do it in lower elementary school rather than waiting until college and finding out that he has no idea how to organize his time, set and reach a goal, etc. My niece floated through high school and then didn't do so well in college because "the chemistry professor was boring." I suspect Montessori-educated kids would be better able to find something interesting in a boring class if they had decided that chemistry was something they were interested in.

About execution though--my son was in a Montessori preschool that we really loved for a while. But when he was about to hit kindergarten, we realized that they had no plan for his reluctance to do pencil-related tasks. "He is not yet ready" was the phrase (and it is indeed often a justifiable one in the Montessori system)--but this was not acceptable to us. Here we had this incredibly bright kid who didn't want to write. We thought he might wait forever until he was "ready!"

So we switched him to another (much bigger, much older, much more experienced) Montessori school and within two weeks, he told us that he LOVED cursive. He actually still has difficulties with writing, but the school has continued to be creative about how to help with his issues.

I love that Montessori really does walk the walk of respecting and honoring individual strengths while strengthening weaknesses in a non-punitive way. Also, as Gina says, no one makes a fuss about the off-the-charts strengths. My son just finished 2nd grade and the school had no trouble teaching him 5th/6th grade math in the classroom. Other kids know he is super good at math, but they also know that another kid is an amazing singer, a third kid got her poems published in a national magazine, etc. This was important for us because we didn't want him to get even more kudos about his general intelligence (and math strengths in particular) because we suspect that exactly that kind of feedback from the world makes it harder for him to attack the things that are difficult for him (like writing and organizing himself).

Anyway, that is maybe more about my DS than you wanted to know and I'm not sure how much of it is relevant to your situation--but take it as a Montessori case-study snippet.

My DD 2.8 is in a montessori preschool. The school goes from 18 months through kindergarten. When we started it was just a few months old and they were not at capacity and did not have the kindergarten room open at first. When we started, DD 2.8 was 17 months and DD6 was 4.8. We came from a very good developmentally based preschool/daycare to this one after we moved and just had the girls do 2 days a week. It was very different. I do like the school though I was disappointed they couldn't do more for DD6 who was a bit bored. The academics weren't challenging enough and they did not have alot of art and dress up stuff like her old school to keep her happy. We moved to regular kinder last august and she was bored there too and the academics were lower than her preschool in retrospect. Socially though it was better to move her to the public school I think for kindergarten.

DD 2.8 will be moving up to the 4 year old class in a couple week. There was not as much blending of ages as I expected with montessori but they are planning to change that a little. I think their goal is to have a couple 3-4 year old classes. As a smaller school the kids are often brought together in mornings and later afternoons but their "montessori work" time was separate. My DD has stayed in the younger room partly because her teachers loved her so much that they just brought harder things for her to do to keep her there longer. It is a quiet, peaceful environment. DD likes to play (work) quietly on their activities which seem largely fine motor activities to me. It is hard for me to tell exactly what she learns there but I don't feel she is unhappy yet. She is already starting to read but she knew the alphabet and the sounds before she started there and I don't think they have been working on it with her specifically.

I think the most important thing to know about Montessori is that they are all VERY different.

Not sure the utility of testing at this age but others could speak to that better than I could. We have not done testing. I would like to in my DD6 but I don't know that it will open any doors for us.

Mana - my DD is currently at a Monti preschool which runs purely as preschool. And while I believe it's the best option we have for her right now, I do think it's going to make the "What the heck do we do about first years of school?" question even harder. She's got 18 months before she's due to start school and while I think she'll have a lovely time at Monti right up to the end (I know other children more gifted than her that they have catered to brilliantly), I am equally sure that she will be so, SO over ready for school by then... Least worst for right now and cross the next bridge when we come to it...

My own dd made a great transition from Montessori to public in 5th grade. I know plenty of other gifted kids (at least from her school, and probably not PG kids) that did as well at various points in elementary.

From my perspective I think transitioning at gr2 or later into public primary, when most kids are reading, have figured out school, etc, would be easier for my DD than going from our Monti preschool into K. Particularly if an acceleration is involved. I think taking a not quite 5yr old from a preschool that lets her stretch her wings to a K classroom dominated by kids radically behind her skills (both skills about being in a classroom and academic skills) is going to be really stressful for her. For that reason we may end up sending her to the nearest Monti school for a couple of years to get through the early primary years and doing some compaction along the way. But I was not as keen on that Monti preschool/school as the preschool only Monti that we chose (for their flexibility and openness to gifted). Our local public does a lot of composite classes. If they are running a K/1 class in her first year of school and agree to put her straight into yr1 in a K/1 (where they are still teaching the "being at this school" stuff), then we may go straight to public primary. But we won't know that until a couple of months before she's due to start.... On the upside the school have skipped my middle child once and are open to the idea she'll need another, so it's not a complete pipe dream to think they might let #3 go straight into first (though I doubt they would do it without a composite class to ease the skip).

Hi - haven't been on this site in ages, but DD just finished her first year of Children's House (Monti preschool). We chose this school because at 2 she was outpacing her peers and the structure (and age cutoff for K in MA) wasn't going to be kind to us. So, we thought the mixed age environment would be more beneficial to her. She is actually in a Montessori just across the state line in NH, so we will have an interesting situation when we decide whether to keep her there, enroll in K, or enroll in 1st when she finishes the 3 years. The Montessori goes to grade 9 so she could continue there if thriving.

The school is an AMI style, new Montessori and at first she did not like that she was constrained in her choices of works - but this eased as the year went on and she got many new activities to choose from. A lot of what she resisted at first was that she was nudged to be well rounded and not only do things she preferred.

As far as skills, she has been practicing cursive letters for some time, prints multiple words easily (all of her own interest) and frankly, is what I'd call an emergent reader (just a few days ago she told us something was about Santa which it was, and there was NO picture or holiday imagery to suggest this, just the word Santa). I could digress about other things she is doing, but the point here is this school is working out really well for her and she loved the age range this year. She would have enjoyed some of the regular preschools I toured, but would have been very bored at others... and none of them were bad - just different approaches.

It will be interesting to see how it goes as she moves up to have further responsibility.

I was not raised with Montessori, and when I toured the school I was pretty much blown away with how child directed it was in fact (both CH and lower EL classes). I have learned a lot more this year as an M-parent but I am hardly a super Montessori person (wI freely admit to a fair amount of character TV and iPad'ing, which is not really in line with Montessori living).

I knew she would thrive after she got the "system" rules. That said, it's easy to be at the beginning and only time will tell how it all plays out as she advances.

As others have said, mileage varies greatly by M-school. Find a great one where they really ARE letting the kids move at their own pace once the basics are there.

Over the summer, she is doing a broad set of activities and hopefully the transition back to school in the fall won't be too rough.

I have had countless people from strangers to her teachers mention a specific talent that she has, and it's left me wondering how to nurture that down the road too, but there's a lot of time to figure that out yet...