[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-412080-105":59,"doc-detail-412080-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","unlocking-social-studies-text-how-high-school-teachers-can-support-students-with-reading-difficulties","Unlocking Social Studies Text - How High School Teachers Can Support Students with Reading Difficulties","","Addresses how high school teachers in social studies can support students who enter high school without reading proficiency. Explains that content-area learning requires students to identify and communicate key ideas, use evidence, evaluate perspectives, and apply discipline-specific language to reasoning and decision-making. Notes stark disparities in reading achievement within typical classes and highlights gaps in vocabulary, text structure, background knowledge, and comprehension monitoring. Proposes embedding discipline-specific literacy instruction within social studies content, outlining research-based practices to enhance comprehension and content learning.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":57,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/general/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/unlocking-social-studies-text-how-high-school-teachers-can-support-students-with-reading-difficulties/412080/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/unlocking-social-studies-text-how-high-school-teachers-can-support-students-with-reading-difficulties/412080.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Jacob","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-20","2026-09-28",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":24},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why do students with reading difficulties face major challenges in social studies?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"They struggle with identifying key ideas, using evidence, understanding discipline-specific language, and applying strategies for reading comprehension while learning complex content.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What problem do social studies teachers face when classrooms include very different reading abilities?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Students’ reading achievement can vary widely in the same class, making it difficult to focus only on primary and secondary text content without additional supports.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How can disciplinary literacy be embedded into social studies instruction?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Teachers can incorporate instructional practices such as supporting students to read increasingly complex text, providing explicit vocabulary and concept instruction, and using content and text discussions to promote higher-level reasoning.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},412080,1791252336,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":56,"category_name":57,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":24,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":24,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":39},962084931830,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_a8503ba1806abce46bf441b54a3ca4cd","ILLUSTRAT IONS BY DAVID VOGIN  \nUnlocking Social Studies Text  \nHow High School Teachers Can Support Students with Reading Difficulties  \nBy Jeanne Wanzek  \nH  \nigh school students with reading difficulties face incredible challenges navigating content learning. Content-area teachers in disciplines such as social studies seek to cultivate students who can identify and communicate key  \nideas, provide explanations of and evidence for these ideas, and evaluate differing perspectives on a topic by assessing evidence and claims. These crucial goals require active engagement of students to obtain a great deal of new content knowledge and to assimilate it with their existing background knowledge. In addition, students need to learn and use the language of the discipline, read and understand text within the discipline, and actively apply their newly obtained knowledge to reasoning and decision-making tasks.  \nHowever, across the United States there are students in nearly every class who have not achieved proficiency in reading by the time they enter high school.1 These students face significant barriers in preparing for college, for careers with livable wages, and for civic engagement.  \nJeanne Wanzek is the Currey-Ingram Endowed Chair and a professor in the Department of Special Education at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. A former special education and elementary school teacher, she researches effective reading instruction, intervention, prevention, andremediation for students with reading difficulties and disabilities.  \nSocial studies teachers also face significant challenges; it is very difficult to meet all students’ needs when some can easily learn independently from text and others require extensive supports to understand text adequately. The data from a recent study with 11th-grade social studies classes revealed that disparities between students are often quite stark: fall reading achievement scores in a typical class spanned more than 2.5 standard deviationsof reading achievement,2 which means reading achievement in many classes can span more than 70 percentile points (e.g., 9th percentile to 82nd percentile). With such a wide range of reading abilities in their classes, it was impossible for those social studies teachers to focus solely on the content and discourse of the primary and secondary text sources in their curricula. Although thereis enormous variety among high school students with limited literacy, many have some foundational word-reading skills* but may struggle with text because of its vocabulary, structure, or length; they may also have difficulty making connections and inferences in the text, in part because they lack assumed background knowledge or effective strategies for monitoring their comprehension of the text while reading.  \nHow can a teacher address the needs of students who are not proficient readers atthe sametime they are trying to teach amoun-  \n*For more on foundational literacy skills, see “Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science” in the Summer 2020 issue of American Educator: [aft.org/ae/summer2020/moats](aft.org/ae/summer2020/moats).  \n10 AMERICAN EDUCATOR | SPRING 2021  \ntain of content? Although it is critical that students with reading difficulties receive appropriate interventions outside of the social studies classroom to improve their reading achievement, embedding disciplinary literacy within the content may help teachers address the diverse needs of students and stay focused on the important content they are teaching. In truth, most students (even many who are strong readers) need instruction in successfully reading and understanding text in specific disciplines.3 For example, a historian may read a diary entry by a famous politician skeptically (i.e., is she intentionally writing for posterity?), but take a diary entry by a not-famous waitress in a small town at face value. Likewise, a historian would consider related factors, such as when and where each diary entry was written","cbCairTOypzyw3bF","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCairTOypzyw3bF","pdf",673382,"English","# Unlocking Social Studies Text\n## How High School Teachers Can Support Students with Reading Difficulties\n## Start with a Comprehension Canopy","[{\"question\":\"Why do students with reading difficulties face major challenges in social studies?\",\"answer\":\"They struggle with identifying key ideas, using evidence, understanding discipline-specific language, and applying strategies for reading comprehension while learning complex content.\"},{\"question\":\"What problem do social studies teachers face when classrooms include very different reading abilities?\",\"answer\":\"Students’ reading achievement can vary widely in the same class, making it difficult to focus only on primary and secondary text content without additional supports.\"},{\"question\":\"How can disciplinary literacy be embedded into social studies instruction?\",\"answer\":\"Teachers can incorporate instructional practices such as supporting students to read increasingly complex text, providing explicit vocabulary and concept instruction, and using content and text discussions to promote higher-level reasoning.\"}]","Unlocking Social Studies Text - How High School Teachers Can Support Students with Reading Difficulties | PDF",1790590435]