Read a summary of “The Early Years: Evaluating Montessori Education,” available from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Students who attend Montessori schools may see improved academic and social skills over students who attend other types of schools, a study concludes.
The study—published in the September issue of the journal Science—compared two groups of 5- and 12-year-old students in Milwaukee. The results indicated that by the end of kindergarten, the Montessori children performed better on reading and math tests and engaged in more positive interaction on the playground than pupils in other types of schools. In addition, the Montessori 12-year-olds wrote more-sophisticated narratives and performed better on a social-skills test than the students in other types of schools. The study was conducted by Angeline Lillard, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, and Nicole Else-Quest, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
