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Rousseau
He wrote "Emile" in 1762 which discussed how children's early childhood education needs to be developmentally appropriate depending on their age. He believed children learn through curiosity, and they should be able to freely learn with little adult intervention. -
Pestalozzi
Pestalozzi believed in natural learning with informal instruction. He didn't think children could learn to read on their own, so he wanted teachers to create an environment to make reading possible. He thought the best way to learn was through sensory items that could be manipulated. -
Froebel
Froebel believed children should learn through play. This play should be monitored by adults and intentional when being set up. He was the first person to create a curriculum for children that included various materials. He also made the word kindergarten, which means "children's garden". -
Montessori's Senses and Systems
Maria Montessori believed that for children to master skills, they must be trained in a systematic way. The teacher uses materials in the classroom, then the student imitates it with the same materials. When the child makes a mistake, they must correct themselves. The materials are laid out in the room in order from easy to difficult. For each task, there are exact steps that must be followed to accurately complete them. Children are expected to master a goal and focus less on their curiosity. -
Emergent Literacy
This perspective was created by Marie Clay. Emergent literacy is a perspective that says children learn literacy through models helping to formulate their perspective on reading, writing and speaking. Children develop literacy very early in life in their home before even coming to school. Literacy development is ongoing throughout life. -
John Dewey's Child-Centered Curriculum
This philosophy was based on the belief that curriculum should be created around the interests of the children. Dewey wanted children to learn through their play in real-life settings. Many classrooms in the United States adopted these beliefs with centers for different activities with areas filled with varying materials for children to be creative. -
Piaget's Cognitive Development
Piaget believed children learned through their interactions with their environment. Teachers practice this concept through problem solving using assimilation and accommodation. He believes children should learn through being creative and curious, so he does not stress content area information. Children should learn through cognitive actives such as: language development, classifying, seriating, representing in different modalities and spatial relations. -
Balanced Comprehensive Approach
Instead of teaching the whole class the same, this approach says teachers must teach to the needs of each individual child. To do so, teachers must know the social, emotional and physical needs of each child in the class to effectively teach them. This approach includes theories and research based practices that have proved to be effective in teaching children. Then, they include each individual child's preferred learning style to teach them how to read. -
National Reading Panel Report
This panel reviewed the ways to teach children from Kindergarten to 3rd grade to read. There were some elements they found crucial for children to be proficient readers by the 3rd grade. These elements were: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency. -
No Child Left Behind
This program got grants from the federal government to improve children's literacy skills while closing the word gap between differing socioeconomic groups in Kindergarten through the 3rd grade. The program wanted to make every child a proficient reader by the time they finished 3rd grade. To receive these grants, the states had to prove the assessments were in use, valid and scientifically based. -
National Early Literacy Panel Report
This panel studied children from birth to age 5 in how their abilities reflect their proficiency in reading later on. Once they determine the abilities that help children become successful in reading, they look at the environmental factors at play. Some of the variables that needed to be mastered by the end of kindergarten are: knowing the letters and sounds of the alphabet, phonological awareness, identifying colors, writing their name and letters, and comprehending spoken language. -
Common Core State Standards
These are a set of goals established among schools in the United States that prepares students from Kindergarten to 12th grade to be ready for college or the workforce. This was intended to create clear and consistent standards among each classroom around the USA. The way the Common Core State Standards are taught vary among teacher to teacher in different states. -
References
Morrow, L. M. (2020). Literacy development in the early years: helping children read and write (9th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
