toddler academics

My toddler's (3yo's) teacher at her montessori told me not to teach her

toypup...

It could also be the other way around. The parent is presenting "work" in
such a way that it can burn out a preschooler such that when she is asked to
work at her own pace at school (isn't that Montessori style?), she doesn't
want to. Not that OP is doing that, but it can happen.

anything academic at home meaning alpabets (even the phonetics) and
numbers. She said kids that do academics at home come to school and
want to play all day. They don't want to do academic work at school in
addition to at home.

Cathy Weeks...

Well, I do "academic" stuff with my 4.5-year-old daughter, but to her,
it's fun. I doubt she'll be burnt-out for pre-school.

We've started doing "books". We just finished our "A Book". I opened
a MS Word document and typed in a capital and lower-case A in a 200
point font, and then we made lists of words that had A's in them (not
just the inital letter). I highlighted the As and turned them red. She
LOVED suggesting words, and seeing me type them in. Then I opened the
dictinary, and wrote down all the animals that started with A, and
wrote a story that used LOTS of A-words, then used the search and
replace feature to replace all the A's with red A's. I also did
searches for the animals in question, and found pictures of each of the
A animals (Aardvark, Anteater, Antelope, Aligator etc) and placed them
throughout the story. It was about 5 pages long, and I printed it, and
stapled it together to make a "book." My daughter LOVED. We've been
brainstorming B words since them, and her favorite is "Big Bubble".

It's been a lot of fun, and it will only reinforce her pre-school
learnings.

I think the main thing is to remember that if you do "academics" at
home, that it should be fun.

Also, I disagree with the teacher for a different reason - kids are in
preschool to gain social development, in other words, to "play", and in
my opinion, that's just as important as learning to read.

My stepson went to 2 different Montessories, and one was perfect - run
by laidback earth mother types, that provided an enriched learning
environment. The second one was much more of a kindegarten prepschool,
whose purpose seemed to be training kids to get into Yale. It was not
a good place, and he was much happier at a public school.

Cathy Weeks

How do you feel about this comment?

Welches...

Well #1 learnt her alphabet at 2 years, by typing on the keyboard. When she
went to pre-school (age nearly 3) her main complaint was that they wouldn't
let her do the more academic stuff.
Now she's at school (5yo) if you ask her what she wants to do at home she'll
ask to do long addition, a spelling test, write a story or (her latest) the
times tables. She's still keen on doing the work at school-in fact the
reports I've had have said that she's much keener than the average.

I'd say that it depends on the child. I've never made her sit down and do
these things, so she does genuinely like to do it.

If your teacher said that individually to you then I'd wonder whether she's
finding a problem there. I'd go back and ask if she had found your child
resistant to academic stuff.
If she said it to you as a group/says it to everyone then I'd go by what
your child wants to do.

What I do with #2 (2yrs 9 months) is very much let her lead. I discovered
about 6 months ago that she loves matching things on paper. So you have a
list of words down one side of the paper and the matching pictures that she
has to join with a line. I sit next to her while she's doing it and read or
similar. then she can ask questions, get me to admire, but not feel under
any pressure to do it. It works better than me giving her full attention. If
she's doing flashcards then I do it when she gets them out and put them away
when she's had enough. She's now knows about 30 words so I've divided them
up which helps with not getting bored.

Dave {Reply Address In.sig}...

It depends entirely on the child and the circumstances. Kit knew the
numbers 1-9 (maybe even to 12) before he could talk, in that we could
ask him to point out specific numbers and he would. But he was always
really interested in numbers, even at the swimming pool he'd make for
the depth markers. Under those circumstances it's better to answer the
questions because it's child-led learning and they want to know.

Kit (who is five next week) already knows the square root of nine
because he was playing with a calculator and wanted to know what the
symbol meant, so he got an explanation. He's probably forgotten *why*,
but he remembers the example.

Penny Gaines...

I think there is some truth in it: my now-10yo loved doing the
maths workbooks for toddlers until she started school, and would do
them without any pressure from me. When she started school - and
started having to do them at school - she rarely picked them
up at home. (It does go in phases: these days she is doing that sort
of thing again.)

So for her, there was a natural limit to the amount of time she
wanted to spend on doing things like that. OTOH, if your dd is asking
to do academic stuff at home, then there is no problem with letting
her do more.

Regardless, you can still do some pre-reading work at home, such as
putting out the letter at the start of her name, or counting stairs
etc.

JennP...

I didn't do any academic teaching to my son who just entered Kindergarten.
He wasn't interested and I didn't push it. He just started K last week and
knows all his letters, most sounds, had about 10 sight words and is starting
to read. All on his own. At most, I would point things out as we read, do
activities, etc but I never did any formal teaching and probably won't with
dd either.

What type of "academics" is your dd's teacher doing at age three?

hschinske...

I don't think a three-year-old should have ANY CONCEPT WHATSOEVER that
there are "academic" and "non-academic" activities, and I would resist
mightily any teacher who said there were for this age. There would be
bells going off in my head that this teacher didn't believe in holistic
learning.

Three-year-olds SHOULD be going to school and "play all day." Sure,
that "play" should involve activities that end up teaching them a lot,
because three-year-olds want to learn the basics of what *we* call
"academic" stuff, every bit as much as one-year-olds want to walk.
Exactly *what* they need to learn will vary, of course, with the
child's individual development. But the idea that I shouldn't teach a
child something s/he wants to learn is rubbish. It would be like not
talking to my children at home because the teachers can talk to them
"better".

I think it must be, as others said, because of people who are doing
hothousing with their kids and burning them out on drill. But why can't
the teacher make that distinction? You would think Montessori teachers
of *all* people would know the difference.

Ericka Kammerer...

It's the beginning of the school year. Probably a
preemptive strike mentioned to all parents.

Best wishes,
Ericka

StephanieTheGoofy...

1. The way to do "acedemics" with three year olds is as it occurs and what
is fun. So how you can OD on that I cannot imagine.
2. If I tried to stop my dd from doing things like counting her toys
(incorrectly in her case) or singing the ABC song, I'd be in big trouble.

Your teacher is either presenting acedemics incorrectly to 3yos or needs to
chill out.

Ericka Kammerer...

Or, more likely, she's had years of parents sitting
their preschoolers down to do workbooks every day and spending
"quality time" with them rehearsing their letters and numbers
and shapes and colors and Fibonnacci numbers and US presidents
and so on and so forth and is rather tired of dealing with kids
who are burned out before kindergarten. It certainly happens,
and it wouldn't surprise me a bit to find that there's a segment
of those who choose Montessori preschools who are more likely
to be in that category. (Note: I'm not saying that Montessori
encourages that or that all Montessori parents are like that.
I'm just saying that my experience is that a number of these
over-the-top parents seem to be drawn to Montessori preschools
for some reason or another, and thus this teacher may have
similar experiences coloring her advice.)
I don't see any evidence that the teacher is necessarily
doing anything wrong in the classroom. Kids who get preached
to too much *are* quite likely to rebel against it. And, keep
in mind that this is *Montessori*. They have ideas about
how children should be taught and what is appropriate work
for children that may be different from your ideas about
how preschoolers should be taught.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Irene...

Well, I tend not to do any direct teaching at home unless it is
something that dc brings up. Home is for open-ended play as much as
possible. Otoh, we'll do things like count stuff or talk about the
letters in their name, or read books that concentrate on letters or
counting or colors or whatever. I certainly don't say, "Oh, lets learn
the alphabet now!" or anything like that. I think that would be
somewhat stifling, and I can see where if that's what a parent was
doing, it would be a turn-off. But I can't imagine that if a kid is
fascinated by counting and wanted to do it at home, that he/she would
then not want to count at school. (2 yo dd will look out the car
window and count the trees...)

toypup...

Maybe she means not to sit there and drill her. Some parents are just too
intense. If you do it because she's asking you, then I can't see the
problem.

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Sincerely, Scott

Chookie...

I feel that the fact that she calls a place for 3yos "school" says it all.

To be fair, I would be asking her a bit more about WHY she feels that way, and
why "play" is bad -- don't children learn through play?

toto...

I think at 3 years old, kids should be playing in preschool. They
will learn academics through play anyway. If a child *wants* to
learn, then you should go with it. I would not suggest flashcards and
pushing academics at home with a 3 year old though, nor would I
suggest usings preschool workbooks or things of that nature.

toto...

As for teaching the alphabet and phonetics, it's almost unavoidable
unless your child never watches tv or videos. My dgd learned all the
sounds of the letters from the leap frog videos with no formal
teaching. She knew them all at 2 and recognized the letters as
written even then from seeing them at the park on some of the play
toys.

enigma...

is this a real Montessori school or a preschool that uses
some Montessori methods? it certainly doesn't sound anything
like something a Montessori trained teacher would say.
my son started Montessori at age 3 & was encouraged always to
choose his own 'work', be that playing with the Blocks & Bears
or doing stuff in Everyday Living, puzzles or sandpaper
letters/numbers or workbooks. he was ecouraged to learn
academics at home also, if he wished to.
kids like to learn & play *is* learning.
lee