The Montessori Method Author:Maria Montessori Suddenly this classic in education of children takes on urgent relevance for parents, teachers, and administrators in all parts of our society. The suburban mother seeking an environment of "structured freedom" for an imaginative, quick-learning preschooler; the educator jolted into awareness that slum children are irreparably handicapped by cul... more »tural impoverishment before the age of six; explorers of "new" techniques of teaching reading, programmed instruction and learning by conditioning and reinforcement-by-approval--all these will be instructed by Maria Montessori's theory and the reports of her work in the Casa dei Bambini in the slum quarter of Rome.
Maria Montessori (1870-1952), the first Italian woman M.D., was one of the great germinal pioneers in studying the intellectual development of the young child. Only through movement and manipulation, through thinking with the senses, does the child proceed to later "abstract thinking." Dr. Montessori carried her insight, that children learned through all their senses, to its logical conclusion. On their way to "cleanliness, order, poise, and conversation," children use the Montessori materials--inherently logical and aesthetically pleasing--to develop a sense for order and logical thought, and a firm foundation for success in the three R's.« less