The place of language (or French) in the Montessori program

Part 1: Handwriting: efficiency or art?

©️Ludmila Katz

We often hear and believe the myth that “neat handwriting in first grade means that the child is a good student.” " Reality tells us, thanks to neuropsychology, that when a child is forced to focus on the visual aspect of the page, they lose up to 90% of their ability to process the meaning of words.

Our Montessori approach is to develop automatism. We prepare the hand as a tool so that when your child writes, they focus on their ideas and not on the ink. The neatest notebook in first grade could actually be a warning sign for your child's future. It is important to differentiate between calligraphic imitation and neural automatism. Through the Montessori method, we develop the child's hand as a weapon of expression so that by the time they reach middle school, they can think and write simultaneously.

Not only do we remove the anxiety associated with learning language as we knew it (who among us does not still have cold sweats and scars left by endless hours of forced and repetitive French exercises at school)?

We guide children, with fluidity and joy, through a journey that is ultimately much more rigorous, towards true mastery of a language, which leaves no scars but frees your child's mind—and body.

In the traditional French system, education is often viewed through the prism of “emptiness,” a very intense cycle of dictations, conjugations, and repetitive exercises. For many of us, this has left “linguistic scars.” We offer a different path: Montessori elementary school is not an escape from these standards, but a much more rigorous path to mastering them.

Do you remember what a schedule from first to ninth grade looks like? French and math in the morning, every morning, and a few other subjects here and there in the afternoon, with a little more French thrown in for good measure. A long break in the middle, for what purpose? This break will surely be the subject of another article, but we digress...

Let's get back to French. It's not just math that is the bane of former students of our beloved French system. Of course, we were either good students or bad students, or somewhere in between, depending on our level of interest, but let's not lie to ourselves, which of us really enjoyed writing lines of words, endlessly repeating our imposed word lists, and conjugating or rather chanting verbs in all their possible and imaginable conjugations, without ever being able to make the connection between these tasks and our interests or our lives.

We are going to paint a very different picture of what your children experience on a daily basis here at Montessori Hossegor. And we hope that by the end of this article, you will want to use Hermione Granger's famous time turner to come back and relive your elementary school years with us!

As parents, you often worry that without forced repetitive exercises, your child's handwriting will suffer. So let's take a closer look at the neurological endurance required by the French system. The effect of neatness is achieved, sometimes as early as kindergarten, at the cost of stress that often leads to a “crash” in middle school, when the child is no longer able to think and write simultaneously. In Montessori, we focus on automatism. On the one hand, we refine fine motor control using a wide range of Montessori teaching materials, such as metal inserts, from the age of 3½ or 4, and rough letters. In this way, we develop the muscle memory of the hand before the child is required to write long texts. These “drawings” enable older students to write fluently, like adults, allowing their brains to focus on the content of their ideas rather than on the difficulty of using a pencil or pen.

The result? Beyond the immediate neatness acquired at the age of 5-6, your child will be ready to tackle any system by the age of 12.

For example, in conventional French schools, the emphasis is on the Seyes grid and the visual “perfection” of the letter.

But studies in neuropsychology show that when a child is forced to focus 90% of their brainpower on the mechanics of the letter (staying within the lines), they have 0% left for syntax and meaning. This is why many French students “fail” in middle school. They can write beautifully, but they cannot think and write at the same time. Their writing is a “performative mask” that hides a lack of deep linguistic processing.

Visit any French graphotherapist and ask them who their clients are. The vast majority are children from traditional schools who have developed writer's cramp or dysgraphia because they were forced to write too much, too early, with poor pen grip. Forced repetition leads to “hypertonicity”: the child holds the pen like a weapon. At Montessori, we use metal inserts and sandpaper letters to develop “muscle memory” and “pressure control” before the pen even touches the paper. Admittedly, Montessori children's writing may seem “looser” at first, less organized, but it is durable. By the age of 9, they have the ‘stamina’ to write a 5-page report without pain, while conventionally schooled children are often “exhausted” by the act of writing by the age of 10.

Do you think computers will replace handwriting? Science says that if you replace the pen with a keyboard, you will damage the reading circuit. Indeed, research by Karin James (Indiana University) shows that when children write by hand, they activate a “reading circuit” in the brain that is completely inactive when they type on a keyboard. In Montessori, we therefore have an advantage: we don't just “write” by hand, we use cursive writing. Neuroscience (e.g., Frontiers in Psychology, 2020) confirms that cursive writing synchronizes brain waves in the theta range, which is the optimal state for memory and encoding new information. A child who types everything on a keyboard has a “more superficial” encoding. The brain of a Montessori child is literally more ‘adult’ in its processing of letters because it has physically constructed them. Since Montessori considers writing to be an extension of thought (the “explosion in writing”), the neural connections are deeper. Research shows that children who learn to write through sensory and self-directed methods retain better spelling memory than those who have learned by rote, even when they eventually switch to typing.

Let's return to the famous phrase—or criticism: “But children in public schools—or conventional private schools—have neater notebooks!”

Well, yes. Public school children practice calligraphy (drawing). Our students practice coding (thinking). Neatness in a 7-year-old is often a sign of “cognitive inhibition”: they are so afraid of the red pen that they have stopped thinking about words.

We develop their “neurological endurance,” which will allow them to write with elegance and depth throughout their lives, and not just to get a gold star on Friday.

If you want proof of this, keep the little notes and scraps of paper your child writes and observe the progress and difference in just the first three years of your child's elementary school.

At MH, we do not fear the “void” of the French system. We prepare our students to become its leaders. By replacing the anxiety associated with rote learning with sensory mastery and cognitive science, we ensure that when your child makes the transition to another system, they will not merely survive, but thrive.

By the end of this series of articles on language, you will understand how your child is not just learning French. They are mastering the art of being French in a globalized world.