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Natural Elements with Informal Instruction
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi believed parents and teachers should create a reading environment through sensory manipulative experiences -
Maturation
Arnold Gesell considered maturation the most important factor in learning how to read. -
Postponement of Reading Instruction
Both Morpheme and Washburne believed in waiting until the child is "developmentally ready" at around age 6 and a half to begin teaching literacy. -
Reading Readiness
This became popular in the 1930s and 1940s, the focus of reading readiness was for educators to nurture student maturation through skills like auditory discrimination, visual discrimination, visual motor skills, and large motor skills rather than waiting on maturation to happen on it's own. -
Emergent Literacy
Marie Clay created the phrase "emergent literacy" for children who acquire some knowledge of reading, language, and writing before starting school. -
Whole-Language Instruction
Supports both the constructivist perspective and natural approach of learning. This form of of literacy learning is child-centered and designed to be meaningful, relevant, and functional. -
Balanced Comprehensive Approach
No single method or single combination of methods can successfully teach all children to read. -
National Reading Panel Report
This report reviewed over 100,000 studies and revealed the most effective strategies for teaching children to read. -
National Early Literacy Panel Report
This report used scientific research to determine the skills and abilities of children from birth to age five to predict future literacy achievement. -
Common Core State Standards Initiative
An attempt to reduce the variability of student knowledge from different schools. The goal of the Common Core State Standards is to create clear, consistent and rigorous standards to which each American student will be held.