Top Books on Montessori Education and Parenting

How To Raise An Amazing Child the Montessori Way

• Author: Tim Seldin, President of The Montessori Foundation

The author compiled this book as of his personal experience as a young child, as a father, as a Montessori guide, and as something of a coach to many families who have sought a better way to raise their children in a spirit of kindness, partnership, and respect.

If you have a young child and are eager for a fresh perspective and some practical suggestions, then this book is for you. It is filled not only with ideas for activities to do together, but with a message that life can be celebrated. The small everyday things that we can do to mark special occasions and to reaffirm our love for one another can make all the difference in the world, both for your child and for your own life as a mom or dad.

The Montessori Toddler: A Parent’s Guide to Raising a Curious and Responsible Human Being

• Author: Simone Davies

You can read this book from cover to cover. Or just open it at a page that interests you and find something practical that you can use today.

Sometimes figuring out where to start can be overwhelming. To help make it more manageable, the author has included key questions at the end of each chapter to help you begin to incorporate Montessori into your home and daily life. There are boxes and lists throughout the book for easy reference. You will also find a useful chart in the appendix titled “Instead of This, Say That.” You may wish to copy it and hang it somewhere as a reminder.

Use this book as inspiration. In the end, the goal is not to do every single activity, or have a completely clutter-free space, or be a perfect parent; it is learning how to see and support our toddlers. To have fun being with them. To help them when they are having a hard time. And to remember to smile when we start taking it all too seriously. It’s a journey, not a destination.

Montessori – A Modern Approach: The Classic Introduction to Montessori for Parents and Teachers

• Author: Paula Polk Lillard

This book is not just a popular introduction in Montessori education. It is also that, of course: a well-chosen and coordinated presentation of its basic principles and techniques, preceded by a historical survey of its vicissitudes in the States and a preface giving a flash of a classroom at work, and ending with some considerations of its present-day value plus a perspective of ongoing research. As such, it offers to any educated person wishing to know what’s what a condensed, all-around view of the whole field, based on reliable, well-documented information.

This book, in which the author has tried to put together in an organized way, and principally in her own words, the essence of Montessori, will inspire others to learn as much as they can about Montessori’s contribution so that those who can will go beyond it.

Montessori from the Start: The Child at Home, from Birth to Age Three

• Authors: Lynn Lillard Jessen and Paula Polk Lillard

This book has different chapters. The authors have presented the stimulating and intellectually challenging approach to parenthood implicit in Montessori education. The Introduction begins with a brief description of Montessori’s approach to children and why they believe that she succeeded, where others had failed, in the “discovery of the child.” Maria’s concept of the infant as an incomplete being, following specific planes of development in a process of self-formation, and her revolutionary definition of education are explained.

Teaching Montessori in the Home: Pre-School Years: The Pre-School Years

• Authors:  Elizabeth G. Hainstock, Lee Havis

It is the first handbook for mothers to introduce their children to the dynamic Montessori method of education at home. Increasingly popular with parents and schools, the Montessori method places particular emphasis on the importance of early learning. It stresses the individual growth of the physical, intellectual and psychological abilities of the child. 

In addition to approximately fifty exercises, the book shows the mother how to make all the Montessori equipment used in the exercises, easily and inexpensively.

Montessori at Home: A Practical Guide for Parents

• Author: Tara Greaney

This book is well-organized, attractively formatted, and quite full of great ideas on how to talk to a toddler, and how to incorporate hands-on learning in the home. This book enables you to teach your kid at home already the basics of what a Montessori school will be like. This book is intended for parents of pre-K kids, up to three years of age, and to allow them to establish a Montessori-style environment in their home and adapt kids to this learning approach.

The Absorbent Mind: A Classic in Education and Child Development for Educators and Parents

• Author: Maria Montessori, John Chattin-McNichols Ph.D. (Foreword)

In this book the author exposes the unique mental powers of the young child which enable him to construct and firmly establish within a few years only, without teachers, without any of the usual aids of education, nay, almost abandoned and often obstructed, all the characteristics of the human personality. This achievement by a being, weak in its physical powers, who is born with great potentialities, but practically without any of the actual factors of mental life, a being who may be called a zero, but who after only six years already surpasses all other living beings, is indeed one of the greatest mysteries of life. 

In this volume Dr. Montessori not only sheds the light of her penetrating insight, based on close observation and just appreciation, on the phenomena of this earliest and yet most decisive period of human life, but also indicates the responsibility of adult humanity towards it. She, indeed, gives a practical meaning to the now universally accepted necessity of ” education from birth “. This can be given, only, when education becomes a ” help to life ” and transcends the narrow limits of teaching and direct transmission of knowledge or ideals from one mind to another. 

Theories of Childhood, Second Edition: An Introduction to Dewey, Montessori, Erikson, Piaget & Vygotsky

• Author: Carol Garhart Mooney

Theories of Childhood is a practitioner’s manual as well as a college textbook. It is designed for the person working with young children who wants to better understand how children think and act and how to be more effective with them.

It begins with a discussion of the interactive nature of theory and practice that is necessary to make either meaningful. It includes information about and reflection on the work of five of the major contributors to the body of knowledge upon which our best practices in early childhood education are based. Author hoping to whet the appetite of those interested in the relationship of theory to practice and its impact on real children, teachers, and classrooms.

For this reason, each chapter concludes with discussion questions and suggestions for further reading. The stories shared here are from real classrooms where author have either worked or observed others at work. Each chapter provides the reader with background information on the theorist’s life and work. Classroom stories are used to illustrate the point of the original writings.

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