Under pressure to boost test scores over the last 20 years, elementary schools have marginalized social studies to focus on reading comprehension skills like “finding the main idea.” But research shows that comprehension primarily depends on how much knowledge and vocabulary the reader has relating to the topic. When students reach high school, they often lack the background knowledge assumed by grade-level texts. The solution? Elementary students should be getting more social studies and other content-rich subjects, not less. And at any grade level, explicit writing instruction grounded in the content of the curriculum can build knowledge and compensate for gaps.
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2 of the 3 districts I have taught in were so adamant that the reading scores were low b/c of the English Department. Being in both ENG and SS departments, it is not the case. ENG should be supporting…
Great observations, Megan Paszek. I think the fairly recent focus on "close reading" is one attempt to deal with this. Of course, the end-game is test scores, which is a completely separate conversation…
Powerful video and I couldn't agree more. I know our students need to learn to love reading and often times that comes from emerging themselves in great fictional chapter books, but they often struggle…