Every year, parents of four-almost-five-year-olds try to decide whether or not they should keep their sons and daughters in our Montessori kindergarten or send them off to the local schools. The advantages of using the local schools often seem obvious, while those of staying in Montessori are often not at all clear. When you can use the local schools for free, why would anyone want to invest thousands of dollars in another year's tuition?

It's a fair question and it deserves a careful answer. Obviously there is no one right answer for every child. Often the decision depends on where each family places its priorities and how strongly parents sense that one school or another more closely fits in with their hopes and dreams for their children.

Montessori is an approach to working with children that is carefully based on what we've learned about children's cognitive, neurological and emotional development from several decades of research. Although sometimes misunderstood, the Montessori approach has been acclaimed as the most developmentally appropriate model currently available by some of America's top experts on early childhood and elementary education. Montessori is focused on teaching for understanding. In a primary classroom, three and four-year-olds receive the benefit of two years of endless opportunities to develop their senses and motor skills with the aide of self-corrective materials. During the third Kindergarten years, a child will not only work with these materials in more depth, thus gaining more insights from them, but using this base, can move into other academic areas.

Also, having learned from older children, shared with peers and helped younger children, the student in the Kindergarten year had the opportunity to assume leadership within the classroom-which is an essential tool for success in real life!