MONTESSORI PRIMARY

Some differences between Montesssori and traditional schools for preschool and kindergarten:

The goal of both Montessori and traditional preschools is the same, to provide learning experiences for the child. The biggest differences lie in the kind of learning experiences each school provides, and the methods they use to accomplish this goal. Montessori educators believe these are important differences. These school experiences help shape how a child learns, their work habits and their future attitudes toward themselves and the world around them. The differences are largely a matter of emphasis.

Montessori	Traditional
cognitive and social	social development
teacher has unobtrusive role in classroom	teacher is center of classroom
mainly individual instruction	group and individual instruction
grouping encourages children to teach and help each other	most teaching done by teacher
child chooses own work	curriculum structured for child
child discovers concepts from self-teaching	child is guided to concepts by teacher
child sets own learning pace	instruction pace usually set by group norm
child spots own errors from feedback material	errors usually pointed out by teacher
child reinforces own learning by repetition of work and internal feelings of success	learning is reinforced by external repetition and rewards