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The hornbook was one of the very first tools used to teach children how to read. It was a small wooden paddle with a sheet of paper or parchment attached, showing the alphabet, numbers, and sometimes the Lord’s Prayer. A thin piece of transparent horn was placed over the sheet to protect it, which is where the name came from. Hornbooks were common in England and colonial America and show how early literacy was closely connected to religious and moral instruction.
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The McGuffey Readers were a series of graded textbooks created by William Holmes McGuffey in the 1830s. They became one of the most widely used teaching tools in American schools, with over 120 million copies sold. The books included lessons on reading, phonics, and spelling, but also taught morals, values, and etiquette. They helped standardize education across the United States and influenced how generations of children learned to read and behave in society.
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they work with others. He created the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development, which shows what students can do on their own and what they can do with help. His ideas are important for teaching reading and writing because kids often learn better when teachers or classmates guide them.
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Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist who studied how kids learn and think. He came up with the stages of cognitive development, like the preoperational and concrete operational stages. His ideas help teachers know what reading and writing skills kids are ready for at different ages.
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Federal funding to close literacy gaps among disadvantaged students and improve instruction
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Bilingual Education Act was the first-ever federal law to officially acknowledge the needs of students with limited English proficiency. It provided federal grants to support bilingual instruction, helping students acquire literacy skills in both their native language and English. This law marked a major step toward inclusive education and recognizing literacy as a multilingual, multicultural challenge.