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A classroom of 35 3-to-6 year olds might sound chaotic to some parents and teachers. But at Shaw Montessori in Phoenix, and the nearly 600 public schools that follow the educational model developed over a century ago, large class sizes are ideal.

“The bigger, the better, because the children depend on one another,” said Principal Susan Engdall. In a Montessori classroom, “the teacher is sparse, so children have got to be creative and figure things out.”

It’s a philosophy that not only teaches kids to solve problems, but fosters stronger reading and memory skills by the end of kindergarten than other models of early education, according to recent research from the University of Virginia and the American Institutes for Research. The first nationwide study of public Montessori programs shows that they also achieve positive outcomes at a lower price tag, mostly due to those larger class sizes. Over the three-year span, public Montessori programs cost $13,127 less than traditional preschool and kindergarten programs, the study found.

Angeline Lillard, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia and lead author of the report, attributed the findings to Dr. Maria Montessori’s theory on how children naturally learn through imitation, choice and the use of specific materials that teach practical skills and academic concepts.

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“This is a method that a really brilliant Italian physician made up by watching children,” she said. “She studied them in free environments and said, ‘What are they like and how can we help them?’ ”

The findings add complexity to a long-running debate over whether the benefits of early childhood education fade out over time. Some studies show that children who don’t attend preschool often catch up to those who did, leading policymakers to question whether such programs are wise public investments. A 2022 study found that students who attended Tennessee’s pre-K even had lower test scores in elementary school than those who didn’t participate.

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In the new study, the results were particularly strong among children from lower-income families, but Lillard stressed that only programs that stay true to Montessori principles are likely to see such positive results.

“I see all these schools that claim to have Montessori when what they offer is just a shadow of it or ‘Montessori toys’ sold on the web,” she said. “I expect most of the folks implementing ‘Montessomething’ are also trying to help children, but without (taking) time to understand the model.”

‘For all children’

Publicly funded programs make Montessori education, long preferred by wealthy families who can afford high-priced private preschools accessible to low-income and working class parents. They include charter schools in a network of Montessori microschools called Wildflower, and district programs like Milwaukee’s seven Montessori schools. The district was among the first, over 50 years ago, to offer Montessori in the public sector.

One of the district’s “passion points” is ensuring that Montessori is not “only for certain kinds of people, but for all children,” said Abigail Rausch, the district’s Montessori coordinator.

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Rae Johnson, whose son is now 16, said she could never have afforded a private program in Milwaukee as a single parent working at Starbucks and picking up freelance writing assignments. But Montessori seemed like a good fit for Elijah.

“He always marched to his own beat,” she said. “I knew that traditional school just was not going to work for how he operated.”

At first, Johnson didn’t understand Montessori’s emphasis on “practical life” skills, like pouring water without spilling or cutting with a knife. At 5, he would come home with a loaf of bread he baked at school.

“I’m like ‘This is what you did all day?’ But then he would be like ‘Oh mom, can we bake?’”she said. “That turned into a math lesson, like ‘OK, if you want to make a cake, let’s do some fractions.’ ”

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The Montessori model is among the curricula used in 11 state-funded pre-K programs, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research. Students traditionally enter Montessori at age 3, but most state-funded pre-K programs begin at age 4. That means districts often face the challenge of paying for the extra year.

The Phoenix Elementary district, which recently closed two schools because of declining enrollmentbegan charging $500 per month this year for 3-year-olds entering Shaw Montessori because funds supporting the program were “needed elsewhere,” said Engdall, the principal. The waitlist to get in dropped to zero, but at town hall meetings, she heard requests from parents for things like field trips and hands-on learning that “already encompass” what Montessori offers, she said. She expects demand to bounce back.

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In addition to allowing children freedom in the classroom, the Montessori method is in sync with the science of readingLillard said. Classrooms emphasize phonics, and their materials, like letters with a sandpaper texturemake learning letter sounds and sight words a concrete activity. In the study, students who won a spot in a public Montessori program through a lottery had “significantly higher scores” on a standardized reading test than those who didn’t get in.

Montessori students also performed better on an executive function test that asked them to do the opposite of what the researcher said. If the adult told them to touch their head, they were supposed to touch their toes.

Lillard speculated that the results for Montessori students might have been even stronger if the researchers hadn’t started the study the year after the pandemic, an unprecedented disruption that led to delays in children’s development. Because students were at home in 2020, they didn’t have an opportunity to interact in person and learn from older peers.

“COVID impacted all classrooms, but it might have had especially strong impacts for multi-aged, peer-learning models,” she said.

Classrooms don’t have duplicate copies of the same materials, so children, Rausch said, have to practice patience and negotiation if another child is already busy with something they want to use. “How do you plan your day? How do you communicate with someone else?

You don’t just grab it out of their hand,” she said. “We’re teaching these really complex skills to 3-year-olds.”

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In the study, Montessori students scored higher on a test of understanding other children’s perspectives than those who didn’t attend. But kids who went to traditional preschools, or stayed home, were a little better at getting classmates to share.

The fact that social-emotional learning programs are common in public schools, and likely teach topics like sharing, could account for the slight difference between the two groups, Lillard said.

On another test, non-Montessori kids were likely to keep working on a difficult puzzle when Montessori children gave up — a finding that surprised the researchers. Montessori teachers encourage students to stick with a challenging task until they master it.

‘A high payoff’

Overall, the results back up earlier research on public Montessori, like a 2023 study in South Carolina that found higher growth in math and reading among Montessori students than among those in traditional schools.

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But like all studies, this one has limitations. Comparing kids who did and did not win a seat through a lottery isn’t the strongest research design. Families who apply don’t necessarily represent all families; tend to be white and financially better off.

“It may be that there were other features of the schools that parents found desirable,” said Steve Barnett, senior co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research. He also questioned whether high absenteeism following the pandemic could have affected the results for either Montessori students or kids in the control group.

He still thinks the results are promising, and said even non-Montessori programs could adopt multi-age classrooms that include 5-year-olds. But what the field needs is evidence that the benefits last beyond kindergarten, he said.

“None of this is to suggest we should ignore or discount the results, only to be cautious,”​​ he said. “Certainly, Montessori deserves attention. There would be a high payoff to additional rigorous research.”

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