Teaching American History

Overcoming Historical Illiteracy

(2003-2006)
serves grades K-3

Overcoming Historical Illiteracy: Building the Foundation (2003-2006)

Serving K-3 teachers, this program was designed to enhance the teaching and learning of American history content in the primary grades. Reading the biographies of historically significant Americans, engaging in evocative interactions with professional historians, and traveling to historic sites provided a previously underserved segment of educators with the foundation knowledge of the history of our nation. This newly acquired knowledge enables our K-3 teachers to deliver better instruction in American history content to our youngest groups of learners.

The following high-quality professional development programs are proposed:

Annual keynote address from a nationally recognized historian,

Biographies of great Americans and professional development symposia,
Age-appropriate American biographies with lesson plans,

Summer Travel Institutes to historic sites,

Traveling panel exhibitions on U. S. history themes,

Mentoring for teacher support and for program evaluation,

The goal of this literacy-based approach of this program is to narrow the student achievement gap by focusing on increased comprehension and vocabulary, while building students’ word and world knowledge (E.D. Hirsch).