Beyond Columbus: Helping Young Children Develop a Conceptual Understanding of “Exploration”

Abstract

This article presents an approach to teaching concepts through reading. It acknowledges the importance of children's active roles in the learning process as they make sense of the world around them through the content they are taught. In this article, the authors use the example of elementary level teachers who work to develop children's social studies concepts through content-rich texts. The findings suggest a strong relationship between students' domain-specific knowledge and their future success.