Montessori Elementary Material

So far as Dr. Montessori’s experiments contain the affirmation of a new doctrine and the illustration of a new method in regard to the teaching of Grammar, Reading and Metrics, the following pages are, we hope, a faithful rendition of her work. But it is only in these respects that the chapters devoted to these subjects are to be considered a translation. It will be observed that Dr. Montessori’s text is not only a theoretical treatise but also an actual text-book for the teaching of Italian grammar, Italian reading and Italian metrics to young pupils. Her exercises constitute a rigidly “tested” material: her Italian word lists are lists which, in actual practice, have accomplished their purpose; her grammatical categories with their relative illustration are those actually mastered by her Italian students; her reading selection and her metrical analyses are those which, from an offering doubtless far more extensive, actually survived the experiment of use in class.

The immediate result is that the Montessori material offers much that is inapplicable and fails to touch on much that is essential to the teaching of English grammar.