2 h 49 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if teaching begins not with giving instructions, but with watching a child at work?
In Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook, Maria Montessori takes you inside an approach built around children's own efforts. Drawing on her work at the Children's House in Rome, she describes how children aged about three to six learn to dress themselves, train their senses, write, read and count.
The room matters as much as the lesson. Montessori explains the furniture, learning materials and daily exercises that let children act for themselves. Her central claim gives these practical details their purpose: when the setting is right, a child teaches himself. Freedom, in her account, can become the ground of discipline.
What you’ll discover
- Begin with the child See why Montessori starts with close observation rather than a theory imposed on the classroom.
- A room within reach Explore how furniture and materials sized for children help them do things for themselves.
- Freedom with a purpose Consider Montessori's surprising claim that real discipline grows from freedom rather than commands.
- Learning through the senses Discover graded materials designed to train the senses as children learn about their world.
- Writing before reading Follow an approach that puts writing first and gives careful attention to counting.
Who will love it
For parents, teachers and students of education who love practical guidance in the founder's own plain words, and for anyone curious about how children learn through their own activity.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Begin by watching the child at work
- Prepare an environment made for children
- Real discipline grows out of freedom
- Train the senses with graded materials
- Writing comes before reading, and numbers are felt
- How the method spread and has been challenged
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- Large print hardcover
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Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook
by Maria Montessori · 1914
In a room made for children, Montessori shows how freedom and carefully chosen materials nurture learning.
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In short
Maria Montessori was an Italian doctor who became one of the best-known names in the history of schooling. In 1907 she opened a school for young children in a poor district of Rome, called the Children's House.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Begin by watching the child at work
Montessori starts from observation, not theory. She was trained as a physician, and she treated the classroom like a place where a scientist studies living things. In the Children's House, she watched what the little ones chose to do when adults stopped directing them. Her handbook claims that what she saw was often a surprise, even to herself.
She noticed that young children could concentrate for long periods on a simple task. A child might repeat the same exercise again and again, taking pleasure in mastering it. She believed it came from an inner need to build skill and understanding, and that the work itself satisfied it.
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What is Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook about?
It is Maria Montessori's short guide to her teaching method for young children. It describes the classroom, the practical exercises, the sensory materials and the way writing, reading and numbers are taught, along with the thinking behind them.
When was Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook written?
It was published in English in 1914, soon after her earlier book, The Montessori Method, appeared in 1912. It offers teachers and parents an account of her approach and its practical exercises.
What is the Montessori method in simple terms?
It is an approach where children choose their own work from carefully prepared materials in a child-sized room. The teacher observes and guides instead of lecturing, and children learn by handling objects and repeating tasks.
The author
Maria Montessori
1870–1952 · Italian physician and educator
Maria Montessori was an Italian physician and educator, born in Chiaravalle, Italy, in 1870. She developed an educational method and opened a school in Rome in 1907. The Montessori Method appeared in English in 1912, and Dr. Montessori’s Own Handbook in 1914. She died in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, in 1952.
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