Observing children in Montessori pedagogy is key to be able to understand where the child is in her development and it is also an important tool to help the child to go forward. This post was written by Tidimalo Mokaila, one of the newly qualified Montessori teachers at Rebaone/Lomanyane Early Learning Centre. She observed a girl who is in our preschool since she was two years. Towards the end of the year she will turn five and move on to Grade R next year. During the last months she has made huge steps in her development.
Tidimalo writes:
Thato is eager to learn and passionate in what she does. She seems to be enjoying Language and Mathematics. She likes working with the Movable Alphabet Box ( this is the key material used to teach writing to the children. It contains all letters of the alphabet, the vowels are in blue the consonants are in red) Thato likes to write and re- write words which are supplied. eg.ntlo which means house in Tswana. She takes out the letters and lays down the word, then writes it on paper. She knows half of the alphabet and is able to write her name without copying from a paper. In Mathematics she knows the number up to thirteen . She counts and also writes the numbers. When she is working ,she is totally absorbed in her work, nobody can disturb her. Whenever I ask her if she wants to explore new material, she is eager to see the presentations. Thato is a good example for the Montessori method because over the last three years we could see how she grew into an independent child and how she explored the Montessori material to get where she is now.
Tidimalo Mokaila