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Natural Education
Rousseau believed that education should be natural. He thought children should only be asked to learn things that they are developmentally ready to learn. Rousseau supported getting rid of forced instruction to instead allow children to have the freedom to learn on their own and of their own curiosity. He believed there should be little adult intervention as possible. -
Principles for Learning
Pestalozzi believed in natural learning like Rousseau, but he created principles for learning that mixed the natural learning that had previously been developed with informal instruction. Pestalozzi believed that it was impractical to believe that children could learn to read on their own with no help. He proposed that children grow through sensory manipulative experiences. Ultimately, children learned through touch, smell, language, size and shape. -
Play in Learning
Froebel also believed in the natural learning of a child and he followed Pestalozzi's ideas by creating plans for instructing young children. He thought it very important to include play in learning. He believed children needed adult guidance and a planned environment. The teacher was to be a designer of playful activities that facilitate learning. The strategies he created are still used in classrooms today. He created the term kindergarten which means "children's garden." -
Behaviorism
B.F. Skinner found that human learning was not automatic and unintentional and that it requires explicit instruction. His research demonstrated that positive reinforcement for a certain behavior increased the child demonstrating that behavior. Skills are created in a series of steps that are small enough to avoid failing, with rewards being given at each level. He found that learning requires time on task, structure, routines, and practice. -
Senses and Systems
Maria Montessori, one of the first women theorists, believed that children needed early, orderly, systematic training in order to master certain skills that are needed. She created an environment with materials for learning concepts to meet specific objectives. The child is to imitate the use of materials modeled by the teacher. Montessori states that the teacher is a guide who prepare an environment with materials designed to teach specific skills. The five senes play a big role in her theories -
Progressive Education
John Dewey's philosophy of early childhood education led to the concept of the child-centered curriculum or progressive education. He believed curriculum should be built around the interests of children and that children learn through play. His theories are still used in classrooms today and are one of the most prominent theories. He believed social interactions encourage learning and that themes of interest to children, such as learning about dinosaurs, are the vehicles for learning skills. -
Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development stages are:
1. sensorimotor period (0-2 yrs.) thoughts determined by sensory exploration
2. proportional period (2-7 yrs.) child's language develops, and thinking is concrete. Child begins to organize his world.
3. concrete operational period (7-11 yrs.) child begins thought process and moves into abstract ideas
4. formal operations period (11-adult) involves using language to deal with abstract thought -
Schema Acquisition
Vygotsky's general theory suggest that learning occurs as children acquire new concepts. The new concepts are considered schema which are mental structures where people store information. New concepts are acquired as children interact with others who provide feedback for their thoughts. Parents and teachers who are more knowledgeable need to scaffold how to complete new tasks for children by modeling what it looks like. The scaffolding directs a children's attention to what they need to know. -
National Reading Panel Report
Significant meta-analysis that revealed key elements to literacy success. The report revealed that learning the following processes were crucial to becoming a fluent reader by the end of third grade:
-phonemic awareness (individual sounds are in words)
-phonics (sound-symbol relationships)
-vocabulary (learning the meaning of many words to understand what is read)
-comprehension (being able to understand what is read)
-fluency (reading with expression and appropriate speed) -
No Child Left Behind
This law was passed by the Bush administration in 2001. This program had involvement with the federal government with grants to improve literacy in grades K-3. The goal was for every child in the U.S. to become a fluent reader by the end of 3rd grade. It was designed to close the achievment gap in literacy development between socioeconomic classes. To qualify for the grant states had to identify the reading assessments and programs in use, -
National Early Literacy Panel Report
The variables the panel identified as those that needed to be acquired by the end of kindergarten were:
Knows letters and sounds of the alphabet
Knows words are made up of individual sounds
Can rapidly name letters and numbers
Can identify colors, can remember names of pictures
Can write their name and letters
Can remember what was said to them
Knows words are read from left to right
Can produce or comprehend spoken language
Involving children in appropriate activities will help them develop -
Common Core State Standards
CCSS are a set of goals initiated under the auspices of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The CCSS try to ensure that at the end of K-12, students are prepared to enter college or the workforce and be contributing members of society. It was intentionally designed to improve upon the standards of individual states by creating clear, consistent, and rigorous standards for the country, globally, and in a digital world. -
Citation
Morrow, L. M. (2020). Literacy development in the early years: helping children read and write. Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
