Supporting Historical Thinking in Grades K–2: Insights from iCivics’ Private i History Detectives Lessons

• In Event: Assessing How Historical Content is Learned: Research on Student Thinking and Understanding

Abstract

As state standards increasingly call for disciplinary inquiry in the early elementary grades, teachers lack exemplars of developmentally appropriate historical thinking. This study analyzes 25 K–2 lessons from iCivics’ Private i: History Detectives curriculum. Through content analysis, we identified when students were invited to engage with historical sources and how those tasks were structured to elicit student responses. We then examined the scaffolds that supported students’ analysis, including modeling, source-marking, and sentence starters. Results show that the curriculum embedded clear opportunities to work with evidence and provided developmentally appropriate supports. Lessons supported students in observing and comparing historical sources and constructing evidence-based claims, offering a concrete example of how curriculum can structure disciplinary thinking in developmentally appropriate ways.

Authors

• Ryan E. Hughes, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Katy Field, High Point University