First-Grade Students' Qualitative Retellings of an Integrated Social Studies Literacy Unit

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 3:35 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Elevating Early Language Learning and Reading Proficiencies in Early Childhood Settings (Table 5)

Abstract

Using elementary literacy instruction with content-area concepts, such as social studies, has become popular recently with the adoption of knowledge-centered curricula. As students come to reading with a vast array of cultural/linguistic and prior knowledge, it is rarely applied in traditional teaching settings. In this paper, we focus on the qualitative portion of a larger mixed-methods quantitative study developed during a contextually-relevant social-studies literacy unit to answer the question: how does a context-specific, social studies-literacy unit support first-grade students’ vocabulary and knowledge development? Findings included use of literacy strategies to support social studies learning about communities and responsibilities, mismatches regarding the abstract concepts and polysemic words from the study, and strong connection to more local topics than global.

Authors

• Jennie Baumann, Auburn University

• Courtney Hattan, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Deborah Ann MacPhee, Illinois State University

• Meghan M. Parkinson, University of North Florida