The History Matters Campaign is a project of the Knowledge Matters Campaign. Today, the Knowledge Matters Campaign debuts the History Matters Review Tool, which sets forth an ambitious and achievable vision for high-quality social studies instruction in the elementary grades.
The tool makes the case that high-quality, content-rich history instruction and materials are essential to students’ intellectual and civic development—on par with reading and math—and describes how such instruction can be included in elementary schools’ daily schedules, where it has been pushed to the margins for too long.
“History and civics instruction is essential in the earliest grades if we’re to achieve our goals for an educated citizenry,” said Barbara Davidson, Executive Director of the Knowledge Matters Campaign. “The History Matters Review Tool can help educators, states, and publishers capitalize on the tremendous potential of high-quality elementary social studies materials and instruction to accelerate literacy and build a foundation of historical knowledge. The tool lays the groundwork for making this shift in real time.”
At its core, the History Matters Review Tool advances four big ideas:
- History is the foundation of social studies, providing the context that makes civics, geography, and economics meaningful.
- History should be taught as a story—rich with characters, conflicts, and consequences—so young students understand how events connect across time.
- Literacy and historical understanding should grow together, with reading, writing, and discussion grounded in meaningful content.
- Civics is best learned through history, as students encounter the people and debates that shaped our democratic ideals.
The tool also specifies 29 criteria aligned to those principles to describe a content-rich history curriculum that supports literacy and meaning-making and prepares young students for meaningful civic engagement. It is modeled after the Campaign’s highly regarded Knowledge Matters Review Tool for English language arts curricula, which has an audience of more than 20,000 unique viewers since its release in 2023.
The tool has been hailed by leading social studies and literacy experts as an important, pathbreaking contribution to the field that offers accessible guidance, lays a critical foundation for students’ development as thinkers and citizens, and raises the bar around both the amount and quality of instruction needed by all elementary students.
Praise for the History Matters Review Tool
“The History Matters Review Tool is an important contribution to the field. It provides what we have lacked: practical guidance for adopting high-quality K–5 curriculum that honors both historical content and literacy development,” said Louise Dubé, Chief Executive Officer of iCivics. “It illustrates how a content-rich curriculum supports student literacy and meaning-making through text-based inquiry and reasoned argument. With a clear-eyed understanding of the current educational landscape, it offers a sophisticated yet accessible framework that balances three critical goals of childhood education: historical understanding, literacy development, and, importantly, preparation for civic engagement.”
“The History Matters Review Tool emphasizes sustained inquiry, evidence-based reasoning, and disciplinary discourse in developmentally appropriate ways,” said Beth Ratway, Principal Technical Assistance Consultant at American Institutes for Research (AIR) and leader of AIR’s Social Studies Portfolio. “I especially value how it reinforces that rich, text-grounded discussion is not an add-on but a core vehicle for building knowledge, civic dispositions, and analytical thinking in elementary classrooms.”
“Thank you to the Knowledge Matters Campaign for your leadership in developing the timely and important History Matters Review Tool for elementary social studies/history,” said Beth Battle Anderson, President & CEO of the Core Knowledge Foundation. “At a moment when civic knowledge and trust are eroding and literacy development requires more than ELA instruction alone, this tool provides practical, nonpartisan guidance to help states, districts, schools, and publishers deliver coherent, historically grounded social studies instruction.”
“The History Matters Review Tool is a powerful instrument that prioritizes the teaching of civics and history together, thereby articulating the inextricable relationship between our past, how we come to understand it, and what it means for us today,” said Donna Paoletti Phillips, President & Chief Executive Officer at the Center for Civic Education. “Leveraging inquiry as the primary mode of instruction, this tool will support deep content learning in civics and history.”
“Is your child’s elementary school teaching history well?” said Chester E. Finn, Jr., Distinguished Senior Fellow and President Emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Volker Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. “Young students adore history when the curriculum is rich and the teaching strong. And the early grades are when to engage their interest while boosting their reading prowess. But how to know if it’s being done well? The pathbreaking History Matters Review Tool is exactly how. Check it out—and introduce it to your school.”
“This tool fills an important gap in the field by making a clear and persuasive case for placing history in a more prominent place in the elementary curriculum, and by specifying what that looks like in classroom practice,” said Susan B. Neuman, Professor of Childhood and Literacy Education at New York University. “Its emphasis on coherent, content-rich instruction that simultaneously builds literacy and civic understanding offers a timely and much-needed roadmap for states, districts, and publishers.”
“At a time of great national division, we need to teach students real history, not just social studies,” said Richard D. Kahlenberg, Director, American Identity Project, Progressive Policy Institute. “And we need to start early. The History Matters Review Tool lays out a smart path for doing so.”
“Elementary history instruction lays a critical foundation for students’ development as thinkers and citizens by equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind to understand the world and their place in it,” said Reuben Henriques, Senior Director at Investigating History Magnify. “In the face of years of marginalization and underinvestment, this tool raises the bar around both the amount and, more importantly, the quality of that instruction for all students.”
“This easy-to-use, common-sense review tool is a breath of fresh air,” said Natalie Wexler, Education Writer. “With its help, educators and decision-makers can now identify elementary curricula that put history at the center of social studies, where it belongs, and engage students in learning that develops not only their knowledge of the past but also their reading, writing, and speaking abilities.”
“While we increasingly recognize the role history plays in supporting literacy, we do not always have clear guidance on how to evaluate curriculum quality,” said Lauren S. Brown, teacher/consultant of the U.S. History Teachers’ Lounge and editor/writer of Lauren Brown on Education. “The History Matters Review Tool addresses that gap by clearly identifying the design elements most essential in building coherent, meaningful knowledge over time.”
About the Knowledge Matters Campaign
The Knowledge Matters Campaign garners national awareness for the importance of building students’ background knowledge of the world through high-quality literacy and history instruction, including through its School Tour and Review Tools. The Knowledge Matters Campaign, a project of StandardsWork, supports and amplifies the good work of educators and demonstrates the value of three core principles: curriculum counts, knowledge matters, and proven practices deliver. For more, see knowledgematterscampaign.org.