Introducing the History Matters Podcast!
Curious. Confident. Knowledgeable about the world. A content-rich approach to teaching history supports all this and more—even in our youngest students. Yet history has all but disappeared from American elementary schools. In the inaugural season of the History Matters Podcast, we explore the vast untapped potential of high-quality history instruction to build knowledge, accelerate literacy, and prepare students to participate in civic life. New episodes drop Tuesdays!
About the campaign
Research shows that students’ reading ability improves when they get added time for social studies—more so than when schools extend time for English language arts. Yet social studies is virtually ignored in most elementary schools.
The critical role of content knowledge in reading comprehension is well established. High-quality ELA curricula have introduced educators to the benefits of instruction rooted in content-rich texts and based on the science of reading. What if we baked evidence-based instructional practices that borrow from all we know about strong literacy instruction into coherent history and civics curricula?
As a field, we need to determine what constitutes high-quality instructional materials and aligned curriculum-based professional learning for history. We also need to find time in the already-full elementary school day to teach this important discipline.
As always, our motto is to “find the good and praise it.” We do this through school visits, podcasts, social media sharing, and blog posts.
Join the conversation and help us lift up excellent history instruction, because #HistoryMatters.
Media
- The Knowledge Matters Campaign
11/11/2025
- The Knowledge Matters Campaign
11/04/2025
- Vaishali Joshi
10/28/2025
- The Knowledge Matters Campaign
10/28/2025
- The Knowledge Matters Campaign
10/21/2025
- Jon Bassett and Gary Shiffman
10/14/2025
- The Knowledge Matters Campaign
10/07/2025
- The Knowledge Matters Campaign
09/30/2025
- The Knowledge Matters Campaign
09/30/2025
- Barbara Davidson
09/30/2025
- Amy Holbrook
08/26/2025
07/22/2025
05/22/2025
05/10/2025
West Monroe, LA
- Matthew Levey
03/18/2025
01/23/2025
01/30/2025
- Matthew Levey
01/22/2025
- Barbara Davidson
01/08/2025
- Barbara Davidson and Kristen McQuillan
11/12/2024


