Using Scaffolding Techniques to Teach a Social Studies Lesson About Buddha to Sixth Graders

As with fifth and sixth grades, the seventh grade classroom depends on whether the school is an elementary school or middle school. In many Kindergarten through eighth grade schools in Philadelphia, seventh graders have two different teachers rather than only one as with sixth graders. One teacher concentrates on literacy and social studies, while the other teacher takes on mathematics and science. These students cycle between two different classrooms. In contrast, students in middle schools may have a homeroom teacher, but they cycle through a number of different classrooms and teachers for each subject. Their school experiences are much different from those of students who only travel between two classrooms.

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Vocabulary Difficulty, Prior Knowledge, and Text Comprehension

Journal of Reading Behavior ◽

10.1080/10862968609547578 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 18 (4) ◽

pp. 309-323 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Steven A. Stahl ◽

Michael G. Jacobson

Keyword(s):

Social Studies ◽

Prior Knowledge ◽

Text Comprehension ◽

Sixth Graders ◽

Relative Importance ◽

Text Difficulty ◽

Knowledge Based ◽

Narrative Passage

In order to examine the relative importance of vocabulary difficulty and prior knowledge to the comprehension of a narrative passage taken from a social studies text, 61 sixth graders were given either an easy vocabulary or a difficult vocabulary version of a text. They also were given either relevant or irrelevant preinstruction about the culture described in the text. Both vocabulary difficulty and type of preinstruction had significant effects on comprehension, but the two effects did not significantly interact, partially replicating the findings of Freebody and Anderson (1983b). The results indicate that knowledge-based preinstruction can significantly improve comprehension of a text written about an unfamiliar topic but cannot compensate for the effects of text difficulty in itself.

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The Interaction of Metadiscourse and Anxiety in Determining Children's Learning of Social Studies Textbook Materials

Journal of Reading Behavior ◽

10.1080/10862968809547642 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 20 (3) ◽

pp. 249-268

Author(s):

Avon Crismore ◽

Kennedy T. Hill

Keyword(s):

Social Studies ◽

Reading Ability ◽

Significant Interaction ◽

Opposite Effect ◽

Sixth Graders ◽

First Person ◽

Student Anxiety ◽

High Anxious ◽

Social Studies Textbooks

The role of attitudinal, voice, and informational metadiscourse characteristics and level of student anxiety were studied as they affect learning from social studies textbooks for 120 sixth-graders. Analyses of covariance, controlling for reading ability, revealed significant interaction effects involving metadiscourse and anxiety. As expected, high anxious students showed their best performance with first person voice and no attitudinal metadiscourse while low anxious students showed the opposite effect. The importance of studying the joint effects of metadiscourse and anxiety as determinants of textbook reading is discussed.

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