"How Most Children Learn to Read"

Literacy development programs should be based on an understanding of child development, recent research on brain development, and the natural, ongoing process through which most young children acquire language skills and become readers and writers. Successful programs to promote children's reading and literacy development should build on this foundation.

This will covers the following topics:

* How young children develop- an overview of child development;

* Understanding brain development- the importance of the early years;

* Emerging literacy- how children make their own language discoveries; and

* Becoming readers and writers- how children build on their early literacy skills to become readers and writers.

"How Young Children Develop"

As young children grow, mature, and acquire new skills they go through specific stages of development in four areas: physical, cognitive and language, social, and emotional. Physical development includes gaining control over the small muscles used to pick up and hold things and building the large muscles used to walk or throw a ball.

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Die Bewegung des Laserschlittens in einem CD-Rom L...

English: Three Lao girls sit outside their school,...

Cognitive and language development includes the thinking and reasoning skills used to solve problems and the acquisition of language. Social development involves learning to develop relationships and get along with other children and adults. Emotional development is closely tied to social development and leads to a sense of identify and self-esteem.

This discussion of the learning-related outcomes of computer technology in K-12 education assumes:

(1) That the technology is used in appropriate ways, and

(2) That the technology is used in the course of teaching, by a teacher who both knows the subject matter and understands the role(s) of technology-based methods in presenting subject matter and in encouraging and enabling students to explore.

That is, technology may be productive in K-12 schools when it is applied within an appropriate educational framework under the direction of a teacher, and...