Bringing the Story Back Into History: Teaching Social Studies to Children With Learning Disabilities

Abstract

Many at-risk students and students with learning problems struggle to understand social studies textbooks. Textbooks have been described as being "inconsiderate" of their readers (B. B. Armbruster & T. H. Anderson, 1988) because their authors have relied on an expository, rather than narrative, approach. In this article, the authors present ways that textbooks might be improved by offering examples from Ghanaian textbooks. The authors also suggest strategies teachers might use to bring back the story in social studies.

Keywords:

• history
• learning disabilities
• reading
• social studies
• textbooks