Wandering Is Actually Part Of Learning

Have you taken time out of your day to observe in your child’s classroom, or have you observed in a Montessori classroom when deciding on a school?  During these observations you will see a number of things: children working independently, children helping each other, children socializing, and children getting one on one lessons from teachers.  These all sound wonderful, but you may see something else that, without experience in the classroom, you might observe as troubling or confusing.  You might see children wandering.  You might sense a period of disturbance, where the children seem distracted and overly-active.  You might conclude that this is a different kind of day, or you may wonder why the teacher does not involve herself more.  What you are observing is a very normal and very functional part of the Montessori classroom.  It is a phenomenon called “false fatigue.”

You will most likely observe this phenomenon when the children have been working for about an hour or hour and a half.  Children spend their first hour of the work cycle getting themselves in deep concentration.  After a period of time, developmentally their brains signal a period of unrest, needing a break from complete concentration and focus.  This period can last anywhere from five to twenty minutes, where the children become active, more social, and may seem distracted.  But, left to their own devices, they suddenly begin to settle again, and another period of deep concentration begins.  Dr. Montessori noticed this phenomenon when she first began working with children, and it persists today.  It is part of the process when children utilize their own desires and will power to learn.  Only when adults interject their will or try to control the period of disturbance do the children then have difficulty getting back to work.  By stepping back and allowing the process to happen naturally, the children always move through this period and move onto another period of concentration.  It is this reason that a Montessori classroom must have a three hour work cycle, protected from interruptions (such as “extracurricular classes”): it allows the children to develop a deeper sense of concentration rooted in their own internal drive.

You may even notice this phenomenon at home.  Does your child occupy himself deeply with an activity only to follow that activity with a period of feeling or seeming unsettled?  This is the same phenomenon, and it’s a result of the brain’s need to rest and process after periods of concentration.  Your child may ask for a snack or state that he or she is “bored.”  Try stepping back and let your child experience this.  The less adults intervene and lend their “will” to the child’s activity, the more likely the child will engage again.  These periods of rest are not only natural, but essential to the child’s developing mind.  Children do not always need to be occupied, and benefit from the moments in between, despite appearing or even feeling unsettled.

The Impact of Movement On Your Child's Learning

"Movement, or physical activity, is thus an essential factor in intellectual growth, which depends upon the impressions received from outside.  Through movement we come in contact with external reality, and it is through these contacts that we eventually acquire even abstract ideas." – Dr. Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood

If you walk into traditional-style classrooms, you will find rows of desks at which students sit and are presented with information.  In a kindergarten program, you might see children all sitting down together, also being presented with information or working on the same project.  When you walk into a Montessori classroom, you will see nothing of the sort.  You might see children moving about the room, some sitting at a table, others standing at tables.  And you might ask yourself why there is such a difference between this environment and the other?  The answer is simple.  Movement is essential to a child’s ability to learn and so it is both facilitated and encouraged in the Montessori environment.

Over a hundred years ago, Dr. Montessori documented this phenomenon, as she observed that movement was an essential part of a child’s intellectual growth.  She found that children learn best by “doing.”  And so, doing, is an integral component to all Montessori activities.  The physical participation of the child in an activity is what informs the child.  Today, research continually finds support for Dr. Montessori’s findings.  This scientific research affirms that walking, moving, stretching, and other activities actually enhance the learning process.  Sedentary learning creates boredom and disinterest because it fails to stimulate.

Your child’s movement affects his/her body in the following ways:

Relaxation.  Simple stretching can increase the flow of cerebral spinal fluid, thus getting more oxygen to the brain.  The result?  More relaxed eyes prevent eye strain, the body becomes relaxed, and the brain becomes more able to narrow it’s focus to targeted tasks.

Enhanced Spatial Learning.  A new position in the room creates a new perspective and the brain begins to create a more detailed map.  This can refresh the mind as well as enhance a child’s spatial learning, which is essential to mathematical learning, for example.

A Break from Learning.  While it seems counterintuitive, a brain in movement acquires information, but a brain at rest absorbs information.  Periods of rest are essential for the brain to process the information it has taken in.  So, if a child sits with an activity he has taken of the shelf and uses his hands, eyes, ears, and sense of touch to manipulate and acquire information from an activity, he may follow that with a wander around the room.  That wandering is just as important as the involved activity because it gives his brain a rest allowing him to process what he is learned before he moves to a new activity and acquires new information.  For this reason, recess is more than just play; it is an essential part of the learning process as well.

Motivation.  Certain chemicals stimulated by the body’s movement are actually natural motivators.  Noradrenaline and dopamine increase energy levels, enhance information storage and retrieval abilities, and make people feel good.  Children in motion want to do more and are better able to tap into their inner learning drive.

Increase in Self-Discipline.  The original purpose of chairs and desks were to help children in a disciplinary manner: keep them in one place and in better control of themselves.  Dr. Montessori found this to be the very opposite of what happened.  Sedentary learning creates boredom and children become unable to control their bodies.  Movement encourages pursuit of interest and helps the child learn to modify and control their actions.

The Environment Responds and Children Learn Better From These Responses.  Implicit learning is based on the brain’s ability to organize responses to and from the environment.  Utilizing emotions, the brain reacts to stimuli responses from the body’s actions in the environment.  Emotions like surprise, joy, sadness, and fear, all contribute to the categorizing of information being taken in from the responses.  The importance of this is that implicit learning is better remembered and more efficient.

Proprioceptive Awareness (awareness of the body in space).  Awareness of one's body in space, proprioception, is essential to abstract academic learning, like reading, writing and mathematics.  The proprioceptive system is strengthened by physical movements.  Activities of practical life or outdoor play, like sweeping with a broom, pushing a wheelbarrow, carrying a bucket, carrying groceries, pouring, using tongs, emptying the trash, pulling weeds or digging, or hanging from monkey bars all contribute to strengthening this system.  These types of activities stimulate pressure receptors within their muscles, tendons, and joints, and allow children's minds to map of the locations of these receptors within the body.  The result is a connection made between the child's mind and body parts.   Children thus develop a sense of where their body is in space, and even if their eyes are closed, the children will now be able to feel or sense the location of their body parts, as well as the spaces around them.  Now, when these children look at the shapes of letters and numbers, their eyes can follow and track the lines and curves.  The memory of these movements imprints upon their mind.

Once we look at how the brain is affected by movement, it is easy to see how important it is for the learning process and why freedom of movement is an important part of the Montessori program.  It is also an important part of children’s daily lives and something to remember when they are home or out and about.

Movement helps the brain acquire and process information and maintain energy.  So, when your child is restless or cannot sit still, or perhaps wishes to explore, remember that this is all a part of the child’s innate to learn.  These movements are wired in them in order to promote that natural, instinctive learning process.  Encourage and support this movement by finding safe and acceptable ways for your child to move in whatever environment he or she enters.  Be sensitive to this movement and consider it a learning need rather than a behavioral problem.  If your child is acting out, look for ways to encourage movement in order to create a sense of relaxation the will lead to self-discipline.

“Since it is through movement that the will realizes itself, we should assist a child in his attempts to put his will into act.”  -- Dr. Maria Montessori

The Windows Of Opportunity For Learning

The relationship between a child and learning has a very specific foundation and trigger: interest.  In helping guide a child to learning, Dr. Montessori found that if we capitalized on interest, we would know what the child is ready to learn and what their mind is driven towards.  She defined this drive, or almost compulsion, as a sensitive period.  By observing what sensitive period the child is in, we can gain insight into what they are ready to learn and what we should present.  It can also give insight into a child’s behaviors.  Sensitive periods, some short-lived and some lasting for a longer length of time, are windows of opportunity for learning.

Each Sensitive Period described below is described with an age range.  These are guidelines for when they might appear and disappear in a child.  A sensitive period may appear before or after the age range depending on the child; when a child reaches a sensitive period is not a sign of advancement or delay, it only signifies a child’s current learning interests.  The age that will indicate whether a child has entered a sensitive period, but certain behaviors we observe the child exhibiting, such as where his attention goes and what upsets him.

Order:  Appearing from age two to four.  This sensitive period has the purpose of helping children classify the world in order to understand it.  Children develop a fondness for routines, repetition, and consistency.  The often become disturbed by disorder or changes in the environment or the rules.  Children in this sensitive period have difficulty when variability as they are just developing to categorize the things they see in the world.  They need the environment and rules to be consistent while they develop these categories and file things accordingly.  For this reason, the primary Montessori classroom remains in perfect order and children always know where to find things.

Language:  Appearing from birth to age six.  Children are hardwired to absorb language.  From birth they listen to sounds and look at mouths to see how those sounds are made.  They begin to make sounds and repeat them, eventually forming them into words.  During this window of sensitivity, children are able to learn multiple languages as they have a special ability to hear and understand the sounds unique to a language.  At the age of six, this ability begins to drop off in many children as they brain begins to focus on only their primary language.  In the Montessori classroom, we support language by exposing children to vocabulary through song, storybooks, and conversation.

Small Objects:  Appearing from age one to four.  Children at this age are fixated on small objects and drawn to small details.  It is the brain’s way of understanding and observing the little things that make up the world; things that adults often overlook because their brains are focused on the big picture.  Children at this age need time and patience from adults to encourage them to explore these little things…and it’s a great way for adults to take time to remember to appreciate all those little things.  You will notice that many things in the Montessori classroom are comprised of small objects.  This is in order to captivate and draw in the child at this age.

Grace and Courtesy:  Appears from ages two to six.  Children at this age will imitate polite and considerate behavior.  This is the time to expose them to the polite nuances of social behavior.  What they absorb about social behavior rules during this period will become an inherent part of their personality.  In the Montessori classroom, we begin lessons of grace and courtesy about the rules of the classroom and social behavior from the first day of school.

Refinement of the Senses:  Appears from ages two to six.  Children during this period will be drawn to sensorial experiences of taste, smell, sound, sight, and weight/touch.  During this time, children learn to use their senses to understand differentiation in the world.  They learn to understand variation in size, shape, weight, taste, sound, etc.  Given exposure to activities that challenge their senses helps them learn to understand physical variation in the world.  When a child exhibits signs of interest in sensory exploration, a Montessori teacher will direct the child to activities in the Sensorial area of the classroom so he may focus the refinement of his senses.

Music:  Appears from birth.  Children are drawn to pitch, rhythm, and melody.  Exposure to music and rhythm is essential at all ages and help the brain process in ways that positively affect later academic learning.  In the Montessori classroom, we provide children with access to instruments, lessons about musicians and music, as well as songs sung in a group.

Reading:  Appears from ages three to six.  Children reaching this sensitive period become fascinated with letter shapes and formation of words.  They show interest in written words.  When a child exhibits sensitivity and interest in letters, in the classroom, we begin to help them make the phonetic letter-sound relationship through the Sandpaper Letters and begin his journey towards reading.

Writing Fascination:  Appears around ages three to four.  Children spontaneously attempt to recreate written letter symbols.  A child showing interest in making letter shapes in the classroom would be directed to handwriting activities, beginning with making the letter shapes in sand or on a chalkboard.

Spatial Relationships:  Appears from ages four to six.  Children begin to notice and make conclusions about relations in the space around them.  They may begin navigating their neighborhoods more adeptly, focusing on puzzles, or notice differences between sizes, shapes, and measurements.  A child showing interest in spatial relationships, in the classroom, would be directed towards Sensorial activities (particularly visual) in the classroom.

Mathematics Formation:  Appears from ages four to six.  Children become fascinated with quantity and numerical expressions.  Children showing interest in mathematics are first directed towards quantity activities and sandpaper numbers for numerical recognition.  Children at this age want to count everything!

These sensitive periods are only those found in the primary ages, there continue to be more sensitive periods as a child grows older.  These sensitive periods are the primary learning foundations.  A child’s brain begins with the foundation for later development by showing interest in the fundamentals of the world around him.

The most important aspect of sensitive periods is that they are heightened periods of learning.  If a child learns something while their brains are attuned, they learn it more efficiently, deeply, and easily.  On the other hand, if you try to teach a child something while their mind is not attuned (similarly to not being interested), the child is less likely to process the information as adeptly, if at all.  For this reason, in the learning and education process, it is important to observe what the child’s sensitive period is at the moment and focus learning on those aspects.  In Montessori, we consider a sensitive period a window of opportunity; a window that can close.  We want to focus our efforts on guiding those skills the child is trying to achieve while the window is open, i.e. what the child clearly show interest in.  Once it closes or shifts to another period, we lose our opportunity to help the child hone those skills.  By shifting with the child's interests, we can make sure that we are harnessing the learning sensitivity of the child during the sensitive period.

The Importance of Repetition

It happens so many times, your child comes home at the end of the day and reports what he has been working on…and it’s the same thing every day.  Often times this can make a parent nervous, especially if the child is older.  Why is my child doing the same thing every day?

Occasionally repetition can signal that a child is stuck, but only if they appear to be doing the same thing each day without interest or attention.  While a teacher looks for signs that a child needs assistance moving on, she is unlikely to be concerned about a child who repeats an activity with a sense of enthusiasm and exploration.  In fact, it’s what a Montessorian delights in seeing.

Repetition is how we learn.  The phrase practice makes perfect says it all.  The way that learning works is that through repetitive exploration we are able to look at a material from different angles and explore it, letting it become part of our understanding of the world.  At the same time, it allows us to self-critique: we look at how we are doing something and make slight changes in order to perfect the action, making it more efficient.  The Montessori environment is designed to support exactly this kind of learning.  Children choose their own lessons, allowing their interest to guide them to a choice.  They are drawn by desire and that interest allows them to return to an activity with frequency, working with it until they have perfected it.  It is, in fact, a developmental need.  Dr. Montessori wrote “when a child has attained this stage, of repeating an exercise, he is on the way to self-development, and the external sign of this condition is his self-discipline.”

The repetition of practical life activities are essential to the entire learning process.  In order for children to learn academics like reading, writing, and arithmetic, certain neurological pathways of the mind need to be formed.  In order for children to sit still and attend to complicated abstract concepts for long periods of time, they need to have better developed proprioceptive awareness, which is awareness of their bodies in space.  At birth and until they develop proprioceptive awareness, children do not know where there bodies begin and end in space; they do not understand where they are.  For example, if the lights go out, they feel that the whole world, including themselves, disappears.  As we develop proprioceptive awareness, we begin to feel our bodies in space and we become aware of our bodies.  As this awareness develops, so does our ability to retain a visual memory of abstract concepts.  The activities that help children develop proprioceptive awareness are those activities that we see in practical life and in the home: sweeping with a broom, pushing a wheelbarrow, carrying groceries, emptying the trash, or pulling weeds.  The repetition of these activities helps prepare the brain to be able to concentrate on and process more abstract academic work.   Younger children are especially drawn to these activities as their bodies are driven to develop this awareness.

Older children may return to a complicated work repeatedly, but they may also return to a work they have already perfected.  Occasionally, children like to work with something they have already mastered, but look at it from a different perspective and skill level.  Sometimes just remembering how well they can master something gives children the confidence to move forward with more challenging activities.  With complicated work, the repetition is a necessity for the child to learn the information so completely that he may quickly recall it.  This means repetition utilizing all of the senses.  For this reason, children learn math facts in the classroom through hands-on activities.  Four different activities may touch upon the same math facts with the intention of the child exploring these concepts repetitively.  Through self-driven repetition, the child internalizes rather than memorizes.  The same applies to learning the phonetic relationship between a letter sound and symbol in the alphabet.  Children will work with the moveable alphabet for a long time repeating the activity until they internalize the relationship.  Once internalized, they can spontaneously burst into reading naturally (and often to the surprise of everyone!)

 You can support your child at home by encouraging (but not forcing) them to repeat activities at school or home, especially those daily living activities.  If your child is willing (and not all may be so don’t worry) to talk about things they enjoyed working on during the day, you can remind him/her how much he/she enjoyed the activity before the start of school the next day, rather than perhaps trying to engage them in something new that you might like them to learn.  “Hey remember how much you liked doing ____” can encourage as much learning, if not more, than “ask your teacher for a new lesson.”  Children not only learn self-discipline and self-reflection through choosing their own work and repeating it, they also learn things more completely and quickly.  It is their interest and internal drive that will help them accomplish things successfully and our trust in children’s internal developmental drive is what encourages them to excel.

Supporting How Children Learn: Introduction, Recognition and Recall

Dr. Montessori identified and outlined three stages through which children learn, which she referred to as periods.  She found that they absorbed all information (particularly language and math) through this manner and therefore, designed all activities for the child around this concept.  By understanding this process and the stage your child is in, both teachers and parents can help children through the stages of learning and set them up for success.

Introduction: The First Period

The very first experience a child has with a material, or anything for that matter, is considered the introduction.  It is when we tell the child what something is.  This could be a word, a sound, a number, a color, etc.  It is the moment a child first hears something identified.  We label a child as in the “1st Period,” if they are first hearing what something is.  It may even be the second or third (or even tenth) time they have heard something, but if it still seems new to the child, he/she is in the first period.

Recognition:  The Second Period

Once a child begins to process what has been labeled, it enters into his memory through recognition.  This means that a child may not be able to remember what the name of something is when you ask him, but when it is named for him, he can point to it or find it.  Children rarely skip this step, particularly at age three, and can often remain in a period of recognition for a long time.  This may mean that when you ask “what color is this?” they are unable to tell you even though you have introduced it to them many times.  However, when you ask “which one is blue?” they can easily identify the blue object.  When a child is able to do this, the are in the second period, the stage of recognition.

Recall:  The Third Period

When a child can identify something by name, he has reached the third and final stage of the learning process: recall.  The child is asked what something is and can simply recall the answer.  At this point, we know that the child has the information.  This does not mean that a child cannot occasionally forget and slip back into recognition.  If this happens, a few more introductions usually helps the child return to a stage of recall.  The most important transition in this process is the transition from recognition to recall, and this transition can take a long time.  Particularly with reading, a child may recognize sounds long before he can produce them himself.  In fact, the recognition process is facilitated by word-building while reading requires the skill of recall.  Supporting the process of recognition is the best way that parents and teachers can help a child develop the ability to recall the information they have been introduced to.

Using the three periods to help a child be successful:

At home, parents can use this information whenever their child is learning something.  Understanding which period your child in can help you to know what to do next and not be discouraged if he is not answering correctly.  Always remember to introduce and introduce again.  If your child cannot answer, see if they can recognize the object when you provide the word.  Repetition is how children learn, so give them time.

Introduce concepts without correction.  In the Montessori classroom, understanding these three periods allows us to give a lesson and make sure that the child is successful at all times during the lesson.  It is important for a child to feel successful in order to ignite and maintain a love of learning.  We first introduce a concept (eg. “this is blue”).  Then we test to see if the child has reached a period of recognition (eg. “which one is blue?).  If the child incorrectly identifies blue, we reintroduce rather than tell them they are wrong (“ok, put it back down.  This is blue.”).  Children do not need to be pointed out they are incorrect, only continually introduced to the concept again until they have it.  Telling them they are wrong is discouraging, reintroducing is teaching.

Give your child time with new information.  Children need time to process information, so don’t worry if, for a long time, they recognize something but cannot recall it yet.  Give them time to learn things they have been introduced at school without rushing them to learn new things.  Stick with the things the teacher has introduced.  However, always feel free to introduce something if your child asks you what it is…interest is the key to learning (with regard to letters, always use sounds not letter names to support what your child is learning in the classroom).

Repeat yourself.  While repetition can be frustrating, it is a necessary part of the learning process.  The more a child hears something, it helps him transition through the three periods of learning.  If is interest is sparked, use the opportunity to give new language over and over again (colors, letter sounds, number names, new vocabulary, etc.).

Make it fun.  Creating new ways for children to recognize information lets them repeat learning until they internalize the information.  If the child is successful at identifying blue, we come up with different ways for continuing to do this (“can you hide the blue one?” “can you find all the blue things in the room?”).  Occasionally in this process we will ask “what color is this?”  If the child answers correctly, we know they have reached a period of recall and we can move on to teaching the child something else.  If the child cannot answer or answers in correctly, we simply go back to the recognition questions and games.  If you are exploring something new with your child and looking for ways to repeat yourself, make a game out of it.  Find all the things that are blue in the house.  Count 5 of everything you can find.  If your child is working on a sound at school, look for that sound on road signs or in newspapers.

Learning approaches outside the home should be the same as in school.  If your child is bringing something home they have learned at school or is showing interest in learning something, make sure to do things similarly to the way they are learning in school.  Use letter sounds when your child points out a letter, not letter names.  Write letters in cursive and lowercase, not uppercase.  Use real objects that make the idea tangible (eg. count actual objects rather than teach your child rote counting which has little meaning to him).  By being consistent with the way things are done at school, your child will find it easier to learn something.

Don't schedule or push learning, give the brain a chance to rest.  While it is a great joy to help a child learn when they show interest, it can be detrimental to your child to force learning on him when he is not engaged or when he is tired.  Learning outside of school should be spontaneous; supported but not required.  If learning is pushed too much outside of the school environment, your child will not focus on it during school; children need down time.  Rather than schedule learning times at home if you want to encourage your child’s learning, trust the process and let the brain rest.  Information absorbed is processed during rest periods.  The brain needs rest to learn.

Trust the process.   At school, your child’s teacher will be doing all of these things to help your child transition from recognition of something to recalling it.  With letters, your child may do a lot of Moveable Alphabet work (in which they use letters to build words).  This is the best way to strengthen the child’s recognition skills and move them to recall.  Children will work with objects they can manipulate in order to count and really understand what numbers mean.  These processes will take time, but they work.  Encourage children to continue along their current path rather than redirect them to avenues of learning they may not be interested in.