Consider These 25 Reasons To Keep Your Child in Montessori Through the Kindergarten Year

1. Some students, even social ones, find transitions daunting. Keeping them within a smaller circle of peers at least until first grade could better prepare them for interacting with other children.

2. Public kindergarten might prove boring for students who have experienced a more liberal, less structured Montessori education at this point in their academic journey.

3. Students who transfer from Montessori to a kindergarten need time to adjust to a new group of peers, new teachers, and a totally different method of schooling.

4. Many kindergarten programs require less of kindergarteners. So students in transition find themselves repeating and relearning concepts and skills they have already mastered. This situation can lead to boredom and dampened enthusiasm for school itself.

5. Montessori students have practiced self-directed learning and are adept at knowing how to learn. The shift in delivery and assessment methods can delay progress that would have been made, if they had remained in the more familiar learning environment.

6. Montessori manipulatives have encouraged children to explore their world, develop concrete sensorial impressions of abstract concepts, and build upon skills that help them understand their world. Why discard this formulative foundation and replace it with something different, thus missing out on what could have been?

7. Five-year-olds in Montessori are able to teach lessons to younger students. Such responsibility enables them to better articulate the knowledge itself, in addition to developing leadership and autonomy in the learning process.

8. Montessori emphasizes an enjoyment of learning and considers education methods successful when students feel good about themselves and their learning. This is opposed to merely meeting predetermined milestones at a specific chronological point. This attitude helps turn them into lifetime learners. Kindergarten is a fragile time in a child’s life. Enjoyment of school leads to all types of academic success in future years.

9. Teachers have gotten to know a student’s learning styles, areas of interest, and strengths. A new teacher would have to start at ground zero, with a larger number of students.

10. The student is accustomed to a safe, nurturing classroom setting where she knows most of the people around her.

11. Mathematics, especially, is more advanced than in early grades of other schools, following the European tradition of unified mathematics and including geometry.

12. Montessori students have been encouraged to take ownership of their learning and the community of learners around them.

13. Students who remain in Montessori can continue to grow at their own pace and not have to wait, while other children play catch-up.

14. Rather than learning basic colors and focusing on coloring worksheets, students are introduced to masters such as Picasso and other great painters.

15. Kindergartners are often already reading the Junior Great Books (not just working with letter and number recognition).

16. Rather than focusing on rote memorization and repetitive drills, learning methods are geared toward true understanding of abstract concepts and ideas.

17. Montessori schools foster active learning that enables students to become more engaged in educational projects and activities.

18. Students have greater opportunity for hands-on experimentation, investigation, and research in small groups than they would in a more traditional setting.

19. Teachers can allow students to explore material via their individual learning styles.

20. Students become more self-reliant and responsible for their own learning, developing self-discipline and improved motivation for further study.

21. Confidence in their own learning abilities builds self-esteem in Montessori students.

22. Many forms of aggressive behaviors that lead to bullying can be addressed and headed off before they even develop.

23. Students who attend Montessori school during the early years often have trouble doing what the other students are doing, preferring to set their own pace.

24. Montessori students are able to make continued advances through their own choices of daily activities, including:social interactions, problem solving, and language development.

25. By now parents within the Montessori school have developed relationships and support communities that if continued, will benefit all stakeholders in the learning process.