Is It Worth Attending a Montessori Preschool? What Research Shows

1. For the impacts on children's developmental outcomes at the end of the school year: “Children in high fidelity classic Montessori programs, as compared with children in lower fidelity supplemented Montessori and conventional programs, showed significantly greater school-year gains on outcome measures of executive function, reading, math, vocabulary, and social problem-solving, suggesting that high fidelity Montessori implementation is associated with better outcomes than lower fidelity Montessori programs or conventional programs.”

Based on 1 reviewed studies, 1 supports this 0 against this 0 inconclusive

2. For the impacts on children's long-term developmental outcomes, male students who attended Montessori early childhood programs outperformed other students who attended other types of early childhood programs in reading and math scores during middle school.

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3. However, Montessori programs do not especially benefit children’s development of creativity. The study findings showed that Montessori children performed less well than children who attended Steiner preschool (which focuses on creative play) on a creativity test. In addition, Montessori children also performed less well than children who attended Waldorf preschools on pretend action tasks.

Based on 1 reviewed studies, 1 supports this 0 against this 0 inconclusive