The Montessori Method

Introduction

Montessori wrote the book in 1909 for her first training course, held at Villa Montesca near Città di Castello at the invitation of Leopoldo Franchetti and Alice Hallgarten, and published it there the same year; the English translation of 1912, “The Montessori Method”, sold widely in the United States. It reports on the first Case dei Bambini, opened in a Roman housing estate from 1907, and on the transfer of methods that had been developed for children with disabilities, following Itard and Séguin, to young children in general. Montessori describes rooms furnished to the child’s scale, graded sensory materials, exercises of practical life, the learning of writing before reading, and a teacher who observes rather than lectures. Revised editions followed; the last, of 1950, bears the title “The Discovery of the Child”.

Connections

Taken up in

• The Absorbent Mind1949 · Maria Montessori

More works by Maria Montessori

• 1949The Absorbent Mind