Improving Reading Skills in the Social Studies Classroom

In order to understand social studies you have to be capable of reading.  This article talks about students difficulties in reading social studies materials.  Students have difficulties reading social studies materials.  Even I had trouble reading social studies material when I was in middle school.  The article discusses three reasons why students struggle reading social studies materials.  Three reasons are expository text, subject-specific vocabulary, and densely factual material.  This is true because when I was in middle school, I was familiar with narrative text than expository text.  When I was giving outside resources on a topic with a narrative format, I understood the topic more than I did with resources that had an expository format.  I was also not able to grasp terms in social studies because familiar words that are used in normally are also used in unfamiliar ways.  However, the article also provides strategies in helping students improve their reading skills in social studies.  If I were taught these strategies in middle school, then maybe I would have not struggled so much.

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/subject/improving_reading.phtml