IMPROVE STUDENT READING: TEACH SOCIAL STUDIES

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WANT READERS TO GROW? TEACH SOCIAL STUDIES
WANT READERS TO GROW? TEACH SOCIAL STUDIES

A couple of years ago, I read this headline: Want Kids To Be Better Readers? Teach Social Studies. I was gobsmacked. This was a title from an article by Natalie Wexler (author of the Knowledge Gap) published in Forbes’ website on September 26, 2020 and it lit a fire under me. Finally! someone said what I’d known for years: If you want to improve student reading, teach them social studies!

For years I watched with dread as social studies was pushed out of the elementary school day. Those that have been in this game for a while know what I’m talking about. In the not so distant past, social studies and science were taught every single day in every classroom. But then No Child Left Behind came along. And then the push for STEM came along. Pretty soon social studies was relegated to once every other week for 45 minutes, or some other paltry number. “The focus needs to be on reading,” we were told, “and you must use this book, and every grade level needs to be on the same page at the same time.”

My colleagues and I fought our principals and district administrators against this trend. We had meeting after meeting and tried to convince them the importance of reading real books, and integrating social studies into language arts and vice versa. During the meeting, we emphasized the importance of teaching social studies and how it would hook the kids into reading more about the topic. We fought and fought. We fought so hard a teammate was involuntary transferred to a different school … the year she was to retire. I stayed teaching at the elementary level for one more year after that and then I transferred to middle school to teach … social studies.

So… after I read Want Kids To Be Better Readers? Teach Social Studies I immediately sent it the superintendent who had pushed back so hard years before. Do you know what she said? “Yes! There is all this new research out now. Here’s another article.” I wanted to scream. We tried to tell you that 10 years ago ma’am!

What’s the point? The point is that now that I’ve left the classroom, I want to help teachers teach social studies so that they can help improve their student reading. I will share ideas and resources that will make it so easy to incorporate social studies into their day that they will be excited about it. I want to help transform elementary classrooms to help teachers make their students better readers by teaching social studies.

(If you want to read more from Natalie Wexler, I highly recommend The Knowledge Gap. Here is a link for her book.)