Building Literacy in Social Studies: Strategies for Improving Comprehension and Critical Thinking

Preparing students to be active, informed, literate citizens is one of the primary functions of public schools. But how can students become engaged citizens if they can't read, let alone understand, their social studies texts? What can educators—and social studies teachers in particular—do to help students develop the knowledge, skills, and motivation to become engaged in civic life?

Building Literacy in Social Studies addresses this question by presenting both the underlying concepts and th...