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Philosophers, theorists, psychologists, and Educators
Since the 1700s, these people have talked about finding appropriate educational practices for learning in early childhood. They looked at the issue of whether learning to read is a matter of nature or nurture. -
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a philosopher, writer, and composer. In 1762 he published a book called Émile.
Rousseau believed that a child's early education should be natural. He thought that children should learn through curiosity and that they have individual ways of learning.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau also believed that formal instruction interfered with their development. -
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Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was influenced by Rousseau's natural learning ideas but added another concept to it.
Johann Pestalozzi suggested that children’s potential develops through sensory hands-on experiences, so he designed lessons that included hands-on objects that he called “gifts”. -
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Friedrich Froebel
Friedrich Froebel was a pedagogue and one of Pestalozzi’s students. He believed in the natural unfolding of a child. Froebel is known for emphasizing the importance of play in learning.
Froebel saw the teacher as someone who makes playful activities and experiences that make learning easier.
Froebel also made the term kindergarten which helps prove his philosophy that children grow if they are tended to and cared for by the teacher. -
Arnold Gesell
Arnold Gesell advocated maturation as the biggest factor in learning to read. He believed that preschool and kindergarten teachers were told not to teach reading because the students were too young to learn how to read. -
Morpheme and Washburne
Morphett and Washburne followed the prolongment of reading instruction until a child was mature enough. Teachers felt uncomfortable about waiting so long so they provided experiences they thought would help get those children get ready for reading. -
Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori created a way of teaching that pulled on senses to promote learning. She believed that students needed early orderly training so that they were able to master skills.
Montessori’s curriculum is based on a behaviorist theory. She thinks that curiosity, exploration, and play are not as important as work. -
John Dewey
John Dewey believed that the curriculum should be child-centered, or progressive education as it was called. Dewey believed that the curriculum should be based off the interests of the children in the classroom. He also thinks that learning is expanded through integrating content areas. -
Emergent Literacy
Emergent literacy, a word first coined by Marie Clay, infers that the child needs some knowledge about language, reading, and writing before coming to school.
Emergent literacy accepts children at the level they are functioning at and provides a program fit for their individual needs. -
Jean Piaget
Cognitive development is the theory that Jean Piaget created which describes the intellectual capabilities of children at their different stages. The different stages are the sensorimotor period (0-2), the preoperational period (2-7), concrete operational Period (7-11), formal operations period (11-adult). -
Explicit Approach
Explicit approach for literacy includes a strong phonics program that has a systematic, explicit instruction of skills with scripted guides for teachers. -
Whole Language Literacy
Whole language literacy expresses the use of real children’s literature and showed the joy of reading, the use of narrative text, and understanding what was read. -
Lev Vygotsky
Lev Vygotsky enjoyed the idea of scaffolding. The child needs to seek the help of a more knowledgeable person to model the new ideas. Scaffolding directs the child’s focus to what they need to know.
Vygotsky is big on the “zone of proximal development” when a child can do some parts of an activity but not all. Vygotsky’s approach uses a social constructivist theory. The theory recognized as a fitting model for early literacy. -
Balanced Comprehensive Approach
Balanced comprehensive approach includes careful selection of the best theories based on the theories to the learning styles of each child to help them learn how to read. Balanced comprehensive approach relies more heavily on what is important for each child as an individual. -
National Reading Panel Report
National Reading Panel Report was an important meta-analysis that revealed the key elements to literacy success. Like phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency. -
No Child Left Behind Act
No Child Left Behind Act is an act that requires all U.S. children to become fluent readers by the time they reach third grade. The districts that were able to achieve this goal were awarded with grants. -
National Early Literacy Panel Report
The National Early Literacy Panel Report studied existing research, which was scientifically based, to find the skills and abilities of young children from birth through age 5 that will predict the later achievement in reading in these children. -
Common Core State Standards
Common Core State Standards were first introduced as a way to lessen the difference of standards from state to state. Also they wanted to raise the level of expectation in the U.S so that we could compete with other nations in our world.
