What Montessori says about Reading
For our first book passage discussion for this year, we are reading from Maria Montessori The Advanced Montessori Method Volume 2 (Formerly titled The Montessori Elementary Material) Passage: Part 2 Reading, which are pages: 171-202. Here are my thoughts on the book! I can’t wait to hear your thoughts! (If you missed this discussion live on January 27 sign up for next month here!)
Watch in video form at the bottom of this blog post!
Reading as a Dramatic Art
When I read this book years ago during my AMS training, I didn’t grasp as much as I do now, with years of teaching experience. What shocked me the most is that Montessori really dived into how reading is a dramatic art. This is mostly for reading out loud, but she really has a strong feel about reading out loud and how it is connected to learning how to read.
Reading Aloud
Montessori clearly stated that having a teacher read aloud is a strong way for students to pick up on how to read. The child should then be able to tell us what we just read to them. In that observation, we should be able to gather information about their reading comprehension.
“That is, the children, in order to prove to us that they have understood something read aloud, should be able to repeat in narrative form what they have read aloud.”
With reading aloud, Montessori mentions that it should be done during art time. She says, “We have found the drawing hour best adapted for this work. It was our experience that it is easier to gain a hearing when the children are busy with something which does not require great concentration and which is not sustained by any particular inspiration.”
I had reread this a year or two ago because students were not focusing when I was reading aloud. It actually worked. At first I was nervous to have them do something besides stare at me while reading, because what if someone walked by and saw that the students were “not listening” when they “should” be looking at the teacher. What I found is that not only did the kids draw quietly and listen during the reading, but some even drew things ABOUT the reading. That is also a great tell of what the students comprehends or not.
Montessori also says that students should be able to interrupt you while reading.
“While the child is telling his story, there is a constant suppression of interruptions: ‘Hush, I did not call on you,’ ‘Wait till you are called on,’ ‘It is not polite to interrupt someone who is talking,’ etc. It is clear that the teacher will never learn anything about her pupils in this way.
This explains why, from the psychological point of view, our present-day schools have not been able to contribute anything new to a reformed scientific pedagogy of reading.”
So, it states that students should be able to call out while someone else is reading, which helps the teacher observe what the child knows or not.
This is almost a double-edged sword. We WANT students to be polite and raise their hand, but at the same time, it is really hard to be able to stop that from happening. It ends of making teachers feel like they have no control, but really that is what Montessori wants- a place where students can be able to share their opinions. In my classroom, I do both, when necessary, but the longer I teach, the longer I see that it is ok that students share their opinion without being called on. If it is excessive and has nothing to do with the reading, that is when it can be stopped.
We also have to remember that Montessori wrote this many years ago, but when she talked about “present-day schools” not much has changed. The “traditional” schooling was invented to have students sit in desks and complete tasks so that one day they could work in a factory. That is still happening today in many "traditional" school settings. This blog isn’t about that right now though, so I will not say anything more about it, but it is important to keep in mind anything about teaching.
The Three R’s
Montessori wrote, “As the ancients said: ‘Necessary education is the three ‘r’s’: reading, writing, and arithmetic,’ for these are the things which the child cannot discover by himself.”
I mean, those are the three things that most schools focus on the most. According to the “ancients” it has been this way for a long time. Just an interesting thought. I guess children can’t discover the 3 r’s by themselves? But I do believe that anyone could expose them to it and then they could teach themselves. She goes on to say that as well: Give the children the tools, and “he will be able to uncover many of life’s secrets by himself”.
Reading to Teach the Cultural Subjects
I always tell the parents of my students that the cultural subjects and work is more reading and writing practice. Montessori says this, too: “We succeeded in teaching history and even pedagogy by means of ‘reading.’ And, in truth, does not reading embrace everything? Travel stories teach geography; insect stories lead the child into natural science; and so on.”
Most of the time in cultural subjects, we ask ourselves, do our 3-12 year old children need to learn this already? I think the answer is yes, because it exposes them to so much more of the world and helps them further their love of learning.