Literacy Timeline

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    Jean- Jacques Rousseau

    A child's early education should be natural. Students should learn with freedom.
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    Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi

    Believed teachers should create the conditions in which the reading process grows. He developed sensory manipulative experiences.
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    Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel

    Stressed the importance of play in learning. Designed a systematic curriculum for students that included different objects and materials.
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    John Dewey

    Philosophy of progressive education. Examples: Children learn through play in real-life settings.
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    Maria Montessori

    She believed that children needed early, orderly, systematic training in order to master skills. Material would be demonstrated by the teacher and imitated by the students. She also believed in self-correcting.
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    Jean Piaget

    Study children at different stages of their cognitive development. Stages include: sensorimotor (0-2 years), preoperational (2-7 years), concrete operational (7-11 years), and formal operations (11 years-adult).Believed that children gained knowledge by interacting with the world.
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    Lev S. Vygotsky

    Believes that learning occurs as children acquire new concepts, or schema. Also believed in scaffolding, which directs a child's attention to what they need to know and do. The "zone of proximal development" is when a child can do some parts of a task but not all.
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    Reading Readiness

    Standardized tests were developed that included sections of specific skills used to indicate whether or not a child was ready to learn to read. Skills include: auditory discrimination, visual discrimination, visual motor skills, and large motor skills.
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    The Research Era

    Research took place in in diverse cultural and socioeconomic settings. Researchers got an understanding of the processes involved in becoming literate, how children learn, and how to teach initial reading and writing.
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    Phonics

    Whole-language instruction was criticized because test scores were not indicating that students were ready to read. Phonological awareness became more necessary for teaching students how to read.
  • Balanced Comprehensive Approach

    The International Literacy Association suggested that there is not one single method to successfully teach students how to read. According to the association, teachers must know the social, emotional, physical, and intellectual status of all the children they teach.