Another reason to teach more social studies in elementary school

Have you been pressured into giving up social studies time to focus on "core subjects" (e.g., reading and math)? You aren't alone.

I've commiserated with a lot of elementary teachers who've faced pressure from their administration, and I've always told them teaching social studies should and could improve student literacy, but I didn't have the hard evidence they could use to sway their administrators. Now I do! 

April Wills, one of our Teacher Leaders in History, just sent me a fascinating article from Social Education titled "How Social Studies Improves Elementary Literacy" that reports its findings using data from a longitudinal study of 18,000 K-5 students.  Here's the take-away: 

"Social studies is the only subject with a clear, positive, and statistically significant effect on reading improvement. In contrast, extra time spent on English Language Arts (ELA) instruction has no significant relationship with reading improvement....

"On average, students who receive an additional 30 minutes of social studies instruction per day ... in grades 1–5 outperform students with less social studies time by 15 percent of a standard deviation on the fifth-grade reading assessment."

You read that right! Spending time on social studies improves reading. I hope you'll read the entire study (and maybe share it with your administration).

Here are some other things to know about how MTHS lessons are especially designed to improve literacy: 

1. Most Montana Historical Society lesson plans are designed to be interdisciplinary; some align to art and math standards, but most align to ELA standards. And, of course, they all align to the social studies standards.
2. We've integrated many, many different literacy strategies and ELA skills practice into our lessons. For example, in the fourth-grade curriculum, students practice fluency, write (and revise) opinion pieces and narratives, make evidence-based claims, analyze primary source documents, and practice close reading. They summarize and paraphrase, learn vocabulary and parts of speech, and determine main ideas. In other words, we've made a concerted effort to make sure that teaching Montana history is teaching ELA.

P.S. Don't forget to sign up for next month's Monday Meetup with Mike Jetty: November 13, 2023: Indian Education for All Resources, 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.  Register here.