The Technologies and Children Aged Three to Six

The Technologies and Children Aged from Three to Six

Montessori classrooms for children 0-6 years hold firmly to the view, backed by both observation and research that children learn best through multisensory, concrete experience. Similar research warns of the negative outcomes in both the short and long term of over-use on the physical, social, cognitive, psychological wellbeing of children and young people.[1] This is especially true of children from birth to three years of age but remains significant for children aged from three to six in the Children’s House. During the years from three to six, children’s development continues to depend on opportunities for movement and play. Increasingly, children become interested in manipulating real objects to achieve meaningful goals in the concrete and social world around them. During activity of this type, as children learn to regulate and refine the movement of their hands, they are also learning to regulate their mental attention, and thus, their powers of concentration. In addition, purposeful activity that involves manipulating real objects enables children to refine their powers of perception and discrimination using all their senses. During these years children also need interactions with people to develop the ability to build personal relationships and culturally appropriate behaviour.

For this reason, Montessori classrooms for 3–6-year-olds are screen-free zones, with the focus on children’s work with the Montessori materials and meaningful interaction and the opportunity to develop relationships with other children and adults within the environment.

The foundational skills required for future capacity and success in technologies are, however, developed during these years, especially in the exercises of practical life and the exercises of the senses.

The materials and their embedded processes help in the establishment of early logical and observational thinking understood better in:

Order and symmetry

The pink tower, knobbed cylinders, geometric cabinet, setting up workspaces

Motor skills and coordination

Pouring grains, using tweezers, buttoning and zipping frames, clay modelling

The foundations of algorithmic thinking

Step by step tasks, moving objects in sequence, bead stairwork

Observational skills

Silence game, nature walks, object matching games, storytelling with visual cues

Data sorting and classification

Sorting shells, leaf or animal cards, geometric shapes, classification charts

Attention to detail

Sandpaper letters, mystery bag, binomial cube, identifying small changes in materials

Digital citizenship as practical life

Grace and courtesy around devices (and within the environment on general), discussions on responsible choices, storytelling with picture sequences

                               Source: Broughton, K (2025) Mapping Montessori Materials for AI Competencies and Development

Children design, map and create within the 3-6 environment. They begin to see and consider the systems around them in the patterns, interactions and structures and are involved in creating, co-creating and collaborating on designed products within the Children’s House. Opportunities to interact with digital tools as another material are also embraced, particularly in supporting children’s observational skills and allowing them to see the value of technologies as another material to be used in their environment, similarly respected and a strong part of their culture.

Children are required to be multiliterate, in other words, to be literate in ‘multimodal ways of communicating through linguistics, visual, auditory, gestural and spatial forms’ requiring ‘the knowledge and skills needed to read, write and use spoken and written language and sounds and images’ (Hill 2007: 56). Montessori educators would argue that the diverse multimodal resources and activities in Montessori early childhood settings successfully equip children with the knowledge and skills that will set them up for success in a world in which technologies and multiple forms of literacy play an important role.

[1] Too much time on screens? Screen time effects and guidelines for children and young people | Australian Institute of Family Studies