Social studies is an essential component of literacy, because it allows students to build the knowledge and vocabulary they’ll need to comprehend increasingly complex texts. In this episode, host Kyair Butts is joined by guest Melissa Loftus, a former teacher, curriculum developer, and co-host of the Melissa & Lori Love Literacy podcast. She explains why phonics alone is essential but not enough, and that even very young children can “read to learn” through content-rich children’s books and read-alouds of more complex texts. 

“What they know about the world is going to help them comprehend what they read,” Melissa says. “Social studies is learning about the world. It's the exact knowledge, vocabulary that complex texts are going to assume that they know.”

Reading comprehension depends not only on decoding words but also on knowing enough about the world to make sense of what authors assume readers already understand. Effective literacy instruction balances foundational reading skills with opportunities to build knowledge through rich content. Social studies content is especially potent, because it builds vocabulary, knowledge, and familiarity with important information and ideas, and also nurtures students' natural curiosity about the world. Research shows that spending more time on social studies accelerates literacy more than extra time in English language arts. 

Melissa compares the role of content knowledge in reading with being in a familiar environment. Walking through your hometown, you can notice details, ask questions, and pick up on nuances. In a completely unfamiliar place, your brain is working hard just to get from point A to point B. She and Kyair discuss how history, geography, and civics also build confidence, encourage participation, and help create more equitable learning opportunities by giving all students access to shared knowledge. They conclude that history should not be sacrificed due to scheduling pressures, but instead integrated throughout the school day, helping students become stronger readers, informed citizens, and lifelong learners.

This podcast is produced by Knowledge Matters on behalf of the History Matters Campaign. Follow Knowledge Matters on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter/X. Search #historymatters to join the conversation.

Production by Tressa Versteeg. Original music and sound engineering by Aidan Shea.

Resources:

• Adam Tyner and Sarah Kabourek. Social Studies Instruction and Reading Comprehension: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. Washington D.C.: Thomas B. Fordham Institute (September 2020).
• Loftus, Melissa, and Lori Sappington. The Literacy 50–A Q&A Handbook for Teachers: Real-World Answers to Questions About Reading That Keep You Up at Night. Scholastic Teaching Solutions, 2024.
• Melissa & Lori Love Literacy Podcast

Season 2 of the History Matters Podcast begins with a fascinating conversation between a cognitive scientist and middle-school teacher about the powerful connection between social studies, literacy, and learning.

Today’s guest is Dr. Cynthia Nebel, the Director of Learning Services and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at St. Louis University School of Medicine. She’s also an active collaborator with The Learning Scientists, which is dedicated to bridging research and practice to improve educational and organizational outcomes. The episode is hosted by Kyair Butts, an award-winning Baltimore middle-school teacher, former Goyen Fellow, curriculum coach, and contributor to Knowledge Matters.

Cindy explains that background knowledge is one of the strongest predictors of reading comprehension. She highlights classic studies on baseball and chess, showing that readers with relevant knowledge process information more efficiently because they can organize and connect new ideas rather than treating them as isolated facts.

She argues that reading comprehension is not simply a matter of decoding or general reading ability; it also depends on having the context necessary to make sense of what is being read. History, geography, civics, and other content-rich subjects provide the knowledge and vocabulary students need to understand increasingly complex texts. Kyair reflects on how familiarity with historical events enriches experiences with books, films, and cultural references, illustrating how background knowledge deepens engagement.

The discussion also explores the reciprocal relationship between literacy and content learning. Reading strengthens students’ understanding of academic subjects, while subject-area instruction makes reading more meaningful and accessible. This connection is often overlooked because literacy researchers and social studies educators tend to work in separate fields, despite their shared goals.

Educators have an ethical responsibility to intentionally build students’ background knowledge. By providing all students with rich content and historical context, schools enable them to think critically, participate fully in civic life, and engage confidently with complex texts and ideas.

This podcast is produced by Knowledge Matters on behalf of the History Matters Campaign. Follow Knowledge Matters on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter/X. Search #historymatters to join the conversation.

Production by Tressa Versteeg. Original music and sound engineering by Aidan Shea.

Resources:

• The Learning Scientists
• Chase, W. G., & Simon, H. A. (1973). Perception in chess. Cognitive psychology, 4(1), 55-81.

What kinds of history instruction build content knowledge and civic awareness? Why is social studies content such a power player when it comes to literacy? How can schools make time for these critical learning opportunities? 

In Season 2 of the History Matters Podcast, hosts Kyair Butts, Barbara Davidson, and Ebony McKiver explore these questions in dynamic conversations with educators, experts, and leaders working to bring rich history lessons into the classroom. 

In six fast-paced episodes, “Connecting History to the Classroom” examines why strong history instruction is uniquely well-suited to support literacy and civic engagement and how schools and systems are implementing content-rich history right now. Join Kyair, Barbara, and Ebony as they bring listeners inside the classroom and the brain, with insights from literacy experts, cognitive scientists, education leaders, and curriculum writers.

This podcast is produced by Knowledge Matters on behalf of the History Matters Campaign. Follow Knowledge Matters on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter/X. Search #historymatters to join the conversation.

Production by Tressa Versteeg. Original music and sound engineering by Aidan Shea.

Welcome to a special edition of the Knowledge Matters Podcast. 

This episode is a special bonus—an audio recording of our recent webinar, Literacy and the Science of Learning. It is a dynamic, hourlong conversation between three exciting experts in the field: Dylan Wiliam, Doug Lemov, and Natalie Wexler, facilitated by Kristen McQuillan of StandardsWork.

In this webinar, the panel responds to listener questions based on the podcast season that shares the same title. They explore what happens in the brain when students read and write and why that matters for teaching and learning. We found the conversation so fascinating, we wanted to make it available in as many formats as possible.

Nearly 800 people joined the original webinar, representing more than 45 states and 40 countries. Listeners praised a “brilliant discussion” by “my edu-heroes” and described it as “excellent virtual PD.”

Resources mentioned in this webinar:

• Knowledge Matters Review Tool: A Guide for Evaluating K-8 Curriculum
• Knowledge Matters Season 3 Podcast
• “Reading Whole Books and Miracles in Education” by Natalie Wexler

You can watch this webinar as a video recording, as well as the rest of our webinars on our website. 

In addition, new “Literacy and the Science of Learning” study guides are available for download. In these user-friendly guides, Dylan goes deep on cognitive load and how to boost long-term memory, Doug discusses fluency and the value in reading whole books, and Natalie dives into the power of writing to support comprehension, knowledge retention, and critical thinking. These guides ask big questions while also addressing practical concerns, with clear takeaways for teachers.

Stay in the loop! Sign up for our newsletter to find out about the next webinar.

Original music and sound engineering by Aidan Shea.

Thirteen colonies rose up, rebelled against an Empire, and won their independence. These unlikely victors built a new nation on democratic principles that inspired similar movements around the world.

How should we tell the story of our nation’s founding? Guests Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, who co-directed The American Revolution with Ken Burns, explain how chronology and characters shape their longform PBS documentaries and accompanying curriculum materials, in a bonus episode of the History Matters Podcast.

“We always work chronologically. We don’t work thematically. And I think when teaching history, I have been fairly convinced that that’s the way to do it,” says Botstein. “When you teach thematically, you silo things. When you work chronologically, you show the complexity, the nuance, unbelievable heroism, the ways people do great things and terrible things all at once, particularly in the story of a war.”

Children are “capable of understanding these complex stories,” Schmidt says. “I think you can trust children’s intelligence a little more than we often do.”

The filmmakers describe the important role that characters play in keeping learners and viewers engaged. Their series follows George Washington and other leaders, as well as a native community in the Shenandoah Valley, young soldiers who volunteered for the fight, and Betsy Ambler of Yorktown, Virginia, who ages from 10 to 18 during the war.

“She lived much of her life as a refugee and her town was completely destroyed by that war. She never witnessed a battle, but she was impacted by the war every day,” Schmidt says. “These are people who are not dissimilar from you and me.”

“If you are following stories of these other people, you’re worried about what George Washington might do, because you are worried about them,” Botstein says. “It makes students understand why history matters. We’re all impacted by decisions that leaders make and by world events—small, medium, and large.”

They also discuss how visual artifacts like paintings and maps are especially engaging for young students and can help them understand a history story from different points of view.

“It’s really important when teaching history to show a variety of perspectives,” Botstein says. “To have empathy and openness and generosity, to try to understand why people did good things and why people did bad things, and how we can be optimistic in learning about history to make a better future, and make better on the promises that the revolution tried to inspire.”

This podcast is produced by the Knowledge Matters and StandardsWork, on behalf of the History Matters Campaign. Follow the History Matters Campaign on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter/X. Search #historymatters to join the conversation.

Production by Tressa Versteeg. Original music and sound engineering by Aidan Shea.

In Thermopolis, Wyoming, second-grade students love learning about the War of 1812, from the swashbuckling sea battles off the coast of Louisiana to the bombardment at Maryland’s Fort McHenry that inspired the “Star-Spangled Banner”—engaging lessons that build knowledge alongside literary and historical thinking skills.

This type of learning is powered by a strong, coherent curriculum that ensures learning connects from unit to unit and year to year, says teacher Laura Stam, a 2024–25 Goyen Literacy Fellow who writes about the sciences of reading and learning on her Substack, The Knowledge Exchange. “As soon as we start teaching it, teachers talk about how excited their students are,” she says.

In this final episode of the first season of the History Matters Podcast, Stam also explains that such curriculum helps bridge gaps in elementary teachers’ historical content knowledge. In elementary classrooms, building content expertise is a challenge because “we’re teaching all of the subjects,” she says. Strong curriculum is a sound starting point for teachers to build the knowledge they need to confidently teach history. And rather than curating content, teachers can focus on delivering instruction and connecting history lessons to art and culture.

“A really good curriculum brings in not just that history, but brings in all of the cultural pieces attached to it, the art and the poetry and the music that really enrich that knowledge,” she says. “If a really good curriculum has all those pieces built in for you, you just get to be the expert and deliver that, be the artist that delivers that for your students without having to curate it all yourself.”

Stam also describes how her students’ curiosity about historical topics extends beyond classroom instruction. Parents have shared stories of students connecting family vacations to history lessons about the Underground Railroad, for example, and Stam has overheard young students debating the relative merits of living in modern times versus the ancient Indus Valley Civilization while watching a local basketball game.

“They’ll go home and they want to explore their own interests,” she says. “They are getting books and looking on the Internet and finding out more information on their own topics that may not necessarily be what we learned in school. It’s interesting. It’s inspiring to know that they can learn about these things on their own. That’s the end goal, right? We want to teach them to be their own learners.”

This podcast is produced by the Knowledge Matters and StandardsWork, on behalf of the History Matters Campaign. Follow the History Matters Campaign on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter/X. Search #historymatters to join the conversation.

Production by Tressa Versteeg. Original music and sound engineering by Aidan Shea.

Many teachers build history lessons on primary sources like letters and legal documents. But without context and historical thinking skills, students can’t make much meaning from them, say guests Jon Bassett and Gary Shiffman, co-founders of the Four Question Method for history instruction.

“Primary sources, for us, are ways to practice doing what historians do. 8th graders aren't historians, 12th graders aren't historians. So it’s the silly mistake that says, we need to do exactly what the experts do so that we become experts. We actually need to do what the experts did before they were experts so that they became experts, which means learn a lot of stories,” Shiffman says.

“One of our slogans is ‘Story First’. And everything flows from that,” Bassett tells host Barbara Davidson.

In the Four Question Method, history is taught as a series of narratives and events are explored in a coherent, chronological way. Question One is simply, “What happened?” In other words, what’s the story? Question Two is “What were they thinking?” and helps students understand and interpret the perspectives of people involved in the story.

Question Three is “Why then and there?” which targets explanation as a skill. For example, students studying the American Revolution can contrast the Canadian colonies, which stayed with Great Britain, with the 13 colonies that went to war. 

“That asks kids to think in a more sophisticated way about the specific story and say, ‘Wow, stories like this, they happen sometimes and not others. Why then? Why there?’” Shiffman says.

Question Four is “What do we think about that?” and develops judgment, which Shiffman defines as “the capacity to generalize from your specific reaction to a case and to say, ‘Hold on. What are the general features of this case? And how can I make a rule to guide my own behavior in the world so that I know when to support the revolution and when not to?’ ” 

Bassett and Shiffman describe visiting a Tennessee classroom using a 4QM elementary history unit where students were learning about the decision of a Lakota Sioux leader to surrender the U.S. Army.

“The kids in the room, they knew a lot. They knew the story, they knew about this guy, and they got to deliberate toward judgment about whether Chief Joseph made the right choice or not. They can do that in fourth and fifth grade, absolutely,” Shiffman says.

This podcast is produced by the Knowledge Matters and StandardsWork, on behalf of the History Matters Campaign. Follow the History Matters Campaign on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter/X. Search #historymatters to join the conversation.

Production by Tressa Versteeg. Original music and sound engineering by Aidan Shea.

What do teachers need to successfully teach high-quality history lessons in elementary school?

A strong curriculum is a great start, but teachers also need aligned professional learning and time to dig in and build the content knowledge that supports confident instruction, says guest Courtney Dumas. In this episode, she explains how her organization, Edu20/20, is supporting Louisiana educators as they implement the state’s content-rich Bayou Bridges elementary social studies curriculum.

Effective professional learning for social studies instruction is rooted in curriculum, but it doesn’t just cover how the curriculum works, she says. Dumas and Edu20/20 discuss specific content in detail and then lead model lessons where teachers pretend to be fifth graders, which allows them to experience the curriculum as their students will.

“Professional learning in social studies is different because the No. 1 thing is the content,” she says. “In Ouachita, we talked about their grade level, their specific content, their specific units, their specific assessments. And then we had them experience a lesson as a student. And that was kind of where the magic happens.”

Dumas also stresses the importance of giving teachers time to study history content together. Many elementary teachers are generalists, so building historical content knowledge is an important aspect of effective professional learning in social studies, she notes.

“We set lots of high expectations for curriculum, but sometimes we don’t give teachers the time and space to meet those expectations,” she says. “You’d be surprised how many people don’t know basic history. . . It is so important that we give teachers the time and space to interact with that content.”

Dumas sees a bright future for elementary history instruction, because “people are understanding the importance of it and how it complements literacy,” she says. 

“We think that by giving more time to ELA, that’s going to be the answer. But really, social studies is ELA,” she says. “It’s going to make them better writers, better readers, better citizens. That’s what we want.”

This podcast is produced by the Knowledge Matters and StandardsWork, on behalf of the History Matters Campaign. Follow the History Matters Campaign on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter/X. Search #historymatters to join the conversation.

Production by Tressa Versteeg. Original music and sound engineering by Aidan Shea.

In Medway, Massachusetts, “social studies is a subject to be valued,” fifth-grade teacher Jennifer Lindsey explains in this episode. “It’s the place to teach kids how to talk to each other and negotiate conversations and digest information and form an opinion—but also listen to others’ opinions and back that up with evidence,” she says.

This content-rich, inquiry-based learning is powered by Investigating History, a new, free social studies curriculum developed by Massachusetts teachers, scholars, and the state education department. It’s aligned to state standards and is available for grades 5–7; a pilot of grades 3–4 is underway.

Lindsey describes the “resource gap” of the past: either textbooks from 1992 or materials from the Internet, much of which is intended for teenage students. The state-developed curriculum is designed to build knowledge and literacy and critical-thinking skills in young students and works within a daily 30-minute timeslot, she tells host Barbara Davidson.

“Three core routines—a supporting question launch, an investigating sources routine, and a putting it together routine—really set kids up nicely to learn some solid informational texts and written and oral discourse skills because they are starting from a place of curiosity,” she says. “And in my literacy block, I’m teaching kids how to ask questions to keep themselves engaged and how to clarify ideas by asking questions. Those two things go hand-in-hand.”

The curriculum also is designed to support teachers with their content knowledge and provide guidance for challenging questions and conversations, Lindsay says. In one lesson, fifth-grade students are tasked with advising the president on a major decision, such as whether to declare war on Great Britain in 1812. They research the options and present their advice to the class—and often disagree with what actually happened.

“Fifth graders are talking about foreign policy and it will blow your mind,” she says. “Tiny humans can have the hard conversations.”

This podcast is produced by the Knowledge Matters and StandardsWork, on behalf of the History Matters Campaign. Follow the History Matters Campaign on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter/X. Search #historymatters to join the conversation.

Production by Tressa Versteeg. Original music and sound engineering by Aidan Shea.

In the typical American high school, 9th-grade history students are expected to dive into the historical content, grapple with complex ideas, and engage in deep inquiry. But teenage students often lack the historical knowledge such tasks require. If you haven’t learned much about the Civil War, for example, you won’t be ready to discuss whether the Compromise of 1877 was a fair deal.

That’s one of the challenges described by this episode’s guest, Ebony McKiver, a curriculum expert and former high-school history teacher and state social studies lead. In her high-school history classroom, she recalls, “we were trying to keep pace with the scope and sequence and teach content that was actually going to be new for students, [but] we were actually spending a lot of time revisiting old, previous content that students should have had.” 

The missing link? “Better history curriculum for our elementary students.” 

Young students love history, which has a “natural lens of storytelling,” she notes. Strong history instruction is coherent and chronological instead of “one-off facts about important people and events.” It deserves more time during the school day and can be paired with English Language Arts (ELA).

“Historical thinking skills and literacy skills are two sides of the same coin,” she says. “If we truly want stronger readers, we need ELA and social studies to work together at every level.”

McKiver offers examples of states developing curricula: Louisiana, Massachusetts, Georgia, and Utah. She describes visiting a Louisiana classroom where an ELA lesson “had students that were building timelines and analyzing decisions made by leaders like George Washington.”

“It is proof that when you prioritize social studies and you work intentionally with other content areas, especially ELA, all students no matter their age, are capable of engaging deeply, mastering historical content, and also applying historical thinking skills.”

This podcast is produced by the Knowledge Matters and StandardsWork, on behalf of the History Matters Campaign. Follow the History Matters Campaign on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter/X. Search #historymatters to join the conversation.

Production by Tressa Versteeg. Original music and sound engineering by Aidan Shea.

The more history young students know, the more they want to know. That’s one of the joyful discoveries that elementary teachers are making in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. In this episode, guests Angela Barfoot and Lauren Cascio describe the rewards of using Bayou Bridges, a content-rich, knowledge-building social studies curriculum, in combination with a high-quality ELA curriculum, Louisiana Guidebooks.

Extensive teacher notes, rich texts, engaging visuals, and tie-ins to virtual field trips make for exciting history study in the elementary grades, the teachers tell host Barbara Davidson. For example, after studying Native American communities in class, students visited the nearby Poverty Point World Heritage Site and were cheering with excitement on the bus, Barfoot says.

“We’re not even there yet, and the kids start screaming, ‘The bird mound! Mound A!’ And they’re just—they can see it and they are just thrilled out of their minds. . . they were just beyond thrilled that they knew all this!”

Students are also choosing to read about historical topics at the school library, Cascio reports. They are reaching for historical fiction and non-fiction texts about what they’ve learned in social studies.

“Fifth graders love a fact,” she says. “It excites me because I want them to read different genres, and because that’s part of what I need them to do.”

Learning about different people, places, and times is enriching in multiple ways. Between knowledge-building instruction and engaging texts in their social studies and ELA curricula, students are being shown “a world that they’ve never seen before,” Cascio says.

“It is teaching them to think,” Barfoot says. “And to not take things at face value, but to really dive deep.”

Ouachita Parish was recently featured by the Knowledge Matters School Tour; visit our website for more information, including videos of lessons and interviews with students and teachers.

This podcast is produced by the Knowledge Matters and StandardsWork, on behalf of the History Matters Campaign. Follow the History Matters Campaign on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter/X. Search #historymatters to join the conversation.

Production by Tressa Versteeg. Original music and sound engineering by Aidan Shea.