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Reading Readiness
This concept allowed educators to focus on nurturing the maturation of children's readiness to read, rather than waiting for a child's maturation to unfold. The reading-readiness model implies that children prepare for literacy by acquiring these four skills; auditory discrimination, visual discrimination, visual motor skills, and large motor skills. -
Behaviorism
B.F. Skinner found that learning is not automatic and unintentional; people operate on their environment to produce learning. Children learn though imitation and association, and through conditioning, or a series of steps that are repeated so that the response becomes automatic. Learning requires direct instruction, time, structure, routines, and practice. -
Senses and Systems
In 1965, Maria Montessori created a method of instruction that used the senses to promote learning. She believed that children needed early, orderly, systematic training in order to master skills. Montessori created an environment supplied with materials for learning specific concepts to meet specific objectives. Materials were self-correcting with precise steps to complete each task correctly. Montessori big on promoting independent learning for children. -
Progressive Education
John Dewey believed that children learn through a hands on approach. With that being said, reading and writing were not taught formally. Students did not have workbooks or commercial reading materials to learn from. Teachers led informal activities that could eventually lead to reading, but they did not explicitly teach children how to read. -
Emergent Literacy
Emergent literacy, a phrase first used by Marie Clay, assumes that the child acquires some knowledge about language, reading, and writing before coming to school. This development occurs in everyday contexts at home, community, and school through meaningful and functional experiences that require the use of literacy in natural settings. Emergent literacy accepts children at all levels and provides a program for instruction based on their individual needs. -
Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development describes the intellectual capabilities of children at their different stages of cognitive development; sensorimotor period, preoperational period, concrete operational period, and formal operational period. Piaget believed that a child acquires knowledge by interacting with the world. He also agrees that young children should use their curiously and spontaneity to learn. -
Schema Acquisition
Lev S. Vygotsky's theory of intellectual development suggests that learning occurs as children acquire new concepts or schemas. To build new concepts, children must interact with others help them complete a task they could not do on their own. Children need help from a more knowledgeable person to scaffold the new ideas. Children learn by internalizing the activities and language of others into their world. -
Common Core State Standards
The Common Core State Standards represent the latest, and most ambitious, version of what standards can do for schools, teachers, and students. These standards attempt to ensure that at the end of K-12, students are prepare to enter either college or the workforce and take their place as knowledgeable, contributing members of the American economy and society. -
Balanced Comprehensive Approach
The balanced comprehensive approach (BAC) includes a careful selection of the best theories available and matches learning strategies based on these theories to the learning style on individual children to help them learn to read. Teachers must select strategies from different learning theories to provide appropriate balance. This approach focuses more heavily on what is important for individual children to help them do their best. -
National Reading Panel Report
The National Reading Panel Report was a significant meta-analysis that revealed key elements to literacy success. This report presents finding the most effective strategies for teaching children to read. Phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency were all reported to be crucial elements to early literacy success. -
No Child Left Behind
No Child Left Behind is an act passed by the Bush administration that designed to close the achievement gap in literacy development between socioeconomic classes and prevent literacy problems before they occur. To qualify for these grants, states had to identify the reading assignments and programs in use and demonstrate that the programs were reliable, valid, and scientifically or evidence based. -
National Early Literacy Panel Report
The National Early Literacy Panel Report studied existing scientifically based research to identify the skills and abilities of young children from birth through age 5 that predict later achievement in reading, such as the ability to decode and comprehend. After identifying the variables, the panel determines the skills that are linked to later outcomes of reading. An important conclusion to this report is that involving children in appropriate activities will help them develop in listed areas.
