Sensitive Period for Writing/Reading in Action

Collin's drawings have lately become very detailed

The term "sensitive period" was coined by Montessori to refer to those special times of intense focus and concentration that happen usually between the ages of 0-6, when teaching a concept/idea is absorbed by the child in huge proportions. To explain further, read this excerpt that I found from the Montessori Children's House of the West Coast:

Sensitive Periods are transitory periods in the child’s early life during which the child’s brain and the senses are prompted to focus attention on certain aspects of the environment sometimes to the exclusion of all other things. Learning during a Sensitive Period is effortless, but these periods are also transitory and irretrievable. Once they are past they never return. This doesn’t mean that a child will never learn that skill, but learning after the Sensitive Period has past will always be less easy. This is why learning a new language is most easy for a child before the age of six.

The intense and prolonged activity prompted by the Sensitive Periods does not fatigue the child rather; they give the child renewed energy. They give him direction and when properly fulfilled increase independence and cognition. By means of this work the child’s brain is creating its cognitive road map, the neural pathways for understanding and processing information.

>>> I am making a comment about this here: this is why in our classroom, the work process from start to finish is important - from the time they don that apron to when they roll it up and place it back on the shelf.

This process also leads to more abstract thinking based on information taken in through the Absorbent Mind and the Sensitive Periods. Later in the child’s development (around 7 years of age), the brain will begin to organize this information and prune away neural pathways that are not important to the child’s adaptation and assimilation to his time, place and group.

Montessori teachers are trained to observe and watch for Sensitive Periods in the development of the child. The Montessori classroom is specifically designed to enrich these periods with developmentally appropriate activities that feed into those special times of intense focus and concentration.

In our classroom this last week, I observed such a concept. Our seniors, Collin and Jace impressed me this week with their interest in writing! It is so amazing to watch them suddenly become sponges in the writing department - a perfect example of the "sensitive period" for writing coming at this age. They LOVE to write numbers! On their own accord, they decided they wanted the challenge to write numbers up to 100 for this last month of school. That beats all Saxon Math 1 lessons.

Here is Collin's completed work for numbers 1-10

Jace's 1-10 work

Another department those two have really made progress in is reading - both are now reading at Blue Level with an increasing number of sight words and longer sentences. Both have a goal of completing all levels by the end of the summer. I didn't come up with that either. I love it when the kids come up with stuff to do! and all I have to do is foster that love of learning and follow them as they go through the learning process. This is why I LOVE MONTESSORI!

Kade, who will be 4 in the summer, is also showing intense concentration in the language area. This work takes unrolling the alphabet rug, picking thru all 26 letters and matching them to the letters on the rug, and then rolling the rug back up to finish the work.