The more students know about the world, the easier it is for them to understand what they read. Elementary students who spend more time learning social studies become better readers, concludes a new Fordham study. More time on English Language Arts doesn’t improve reading.
Learning that fire fighters are “helpers” doesn’t extend children’s knowledge.
Dale Chu agrees with the need to “infuse more content-rich texts and topics into the literacy block and align reading assessments with curricular content à la Louisiana.”
But he wants to “look under the hood and see what’s actually being taught.” A former elementary school principal, Chu warns that elementary social studies, if it’s taught at all, is “largely free of content and coherence,” so “watered down or devoid of controversy that it neither builds knowledge nor captures student interest.” His school used a bland “community helpers” curriculum that taught children about their own neighborhoods.
An earlier Fordham study called social studies instruction a “muddled, ineffectual curricular and pedagogical wasteland.”
“Good social studies requires both knowledgeable teachers and sound curricula,” writes Chu. “Absent that, there’s not much point to devoting more time to it.”