From the Sensorial to the Intellectual
The importance of choosing the right reading program for elementary students
Early Childhood (Birth-6 years old) and Biological Independence I’ll never forget a moment observing in Ms. Gupta’s primary class. I had been working at Richmond Montessori School for a couple of years at that point, but I was relegated to the building “up the hill.” North Campus was what we called it, and at the time it was only the thirteen or so middle school students, my teaching partner Katie, and me in the basement of a recently procured old synagogue on North Parham Road. And so, even though I was working at a Montessori school, I did not frequently see the younger classrooms in action.
On this particular morning, I was fulfilling one of my training requirements: observe a classroom at each level. Montessori classrooms are always multi-age, and include primary (3-6 year olds), lower elementary (6-9 year olds), and upper elementary (9-12 year olds). I was doing my primary classroom observation. At this point in my personal and professional life, I had very little experience with children this age. Ms. Mita gave me a tiny chair to sit on. There is no adult sized furniture in one of these classrooms. I sat down with notepad and pen in hand, ready to take it all in.
What caught my eye immediately was one little girl with thick glasses and curly hair pulled into a loose pony tail. Her outfit look more like she was heading to a religious service than to school (something I later learned is not uncommon amongst four year olds who dress themselves). She was sitting alone at a table big enough for two little bodies. She was polishing an intricately ornate, tiny silver dish with a Q-tip.
Montessorians will know, though I did not at the time, that polishing silver is common work in a primary classroom. We call it practical life: activities which help the very young child learn how to take care of themselves (washing hands, dressing, etc.), and how to take care of the environment (washing dishes, sweeping, and even polishing silver).
What captured my attention was not just seeing a very young child tackle such a grown up and antiquated task, although that was certainly fascinating. What really caught my eye was her deep concentration. She was so involved in her work that she never noticed me watching her. She was in the flow. That kind of intense concentration comes when children are deeply immersed in activities that align with their specific developmental needs.
In early childhood, concentration takes place with sensorial activities. Developmentally, the young child uses her body and her physical environment to navigate and learn about the world around her. Everything revolves around what the child takes in with her senses, and how she can impact the world around her with her hands. She is a “sensorial explorer.”
Watching the young girl polish her silver was the first of many times I would be privy to this kind of magical moment in a primary class. I began to formulate my own understanding of what Maria Montessori saw as the distinct developmental stages in the life of a child.
Elementary (6-12 years old) and Intellectual Independence
The entire Montessori elementary curriculum is framed by the idea that there is a story that begins
with the beginning of time. It is the story of everything that ever has been, and we stand at the edge of it’s unfolding. All of science, history, geography, math, and literature are contextualized within the story of the unfolding universe.
It’s perfect that this is the age when children are learning to read. Through reading, the great world of story telling opens itself to the child. Story telling is how they come to understand all the academic subjects and their interrelatedness — from history and geography, to botany and astronomy. And so, it is critically important that a reading program in an elementary classroom honors this big picture approach to learning.
The Waseca reading program takes kids through a sequential and structured presentation of the various phonetic elements of the English language. There are multiple activities that can be done, from making words with the moveable alphabet to matching the words with picture cards to writing the words in print or cursive.
As children develop their reading skills, they supplement their learning with the biome and continent readers. These booklets tell a particular story having to do with the physical or cultural geography of a continent or the science of a biome. The readers correspond to the same sequence of phonics as the reading program, but expand upon it by developing reading comprehension. All the while, children are learning about the history of the earth and various ecosystems.
Waseca has created a reading program that gives children a sense that reading is not a means to its own end. Reading is something we learn because it opens up the whole world to us.
I recently came upon a chart of Montessori’s stages of development. Birth through six years old, what Montessori called “infancy,” is a time in which children gain physical and biological independence. This is why everything done in a Montessori early childhood classroom is rooted in movement and what children perceive with their senses. In the stage termed “childhood,” from six to twelve years old, the child seeks mental or intellectual independence. It’s no coincidence that this is also a time for the child to gain mastery of reading.
We are so grateful to the creators of the Waseca reading program, especially for how brilliantly it gives meaningful context to young readers.
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