The other day on Facebook I saw an ad for a “Montessori Letter Tracing Board” with recessed lower case letters for children to follow (trace) the indentations to practice printing. First of all, I’m not sure how Dr. Montessori would have actually felt about this device, but it certainly had some positive aspects IF USED BY CHILDREN READY FOR IT.

My concern came with the comments following the posted ad, many of which said things like, “It is great, but I’d like to see it have a green dot and a red dot to show the child where to begin and end printing the letters so THEY MAKE THEM THE RIGHT WAY using the top to bottom rather than the bottom to top method,” and “When are you coming out with a cursive one?”

AGH! Where is the ‘rule’ that says we must print our letters – or do anything else – the “RIGHT” way in preschool? How tedious and frustrating must the writing experiences in those commenters’ classes be? I can only imagine the angst being created in a four, five, or six year old boy trying to sit still and hold and move his fingers along those lines but being told he must do it in a certain direction as he is not doing it “right”. And CURSIVE??

Let me stop you now, as you might be saying that the device is only used for children who are interested in it and enjoy it (geeze, I hope so) or that you are a teacher who even uses it with twos and threes and they just love it (good for them) and you do not use it to assess the dexterity of your little learners so you can make them READY for Kindergarten (please tell me that’s not your ultimate goal).

It was the attitude I felt behind the comments that bothered me – early childhood educators making sure their children were gaining a skill that had to be “right” before it was acceptable. It made me sad and extremely frustrated to know there are still teachers out there who Teach with a Capital T (all their 3’s sit still in Chapel and all their 2’s are potty trained). They have forsaken developmentally appropriate practice and forgotten that the essence of quality learning lies in the child’s ownership of his/her/their work and not its value according to a set of unrealistic standards.

Each child has the right to gain skills in his/her/their own way and to have those skills honored. If you can read it, it is right. If you insist on ‘one way or the highway’, you are not encouraging quality learning, but mediocre imitation. There are French fries, American fries, home fries, mashed, baked, and sweet potatoes – let those little spuds grow in their own ways.