Abstract
A balanced curriculum in elementary schools has been a topic of controversy for many decades. The standards-based reform movement evolved out of this controversy. Standards-based reform was designed to measure students’ academic achievement by mandating that states implement accountability through annual assessments. Then, in 2002, with the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), accountability transferred from a state wide issue to a federal issue. With NCLB, states are now mandated to annually assess elementary students nationwide in grades second through sixth in the content areas of reading, language arts, and mathematics. There have been several negative effects on the elementary curriculum as a result of these mandated assessments; which, among others, include an unbalanced curriculum and teachers being pressured into making decisions to allot more time for teaching the assessed content areas and less time for teaching the non-assessed content areas (history-social science, art, and physical education). Concentrating on history-social science in particular, research has shown that history-social science is not only being taught less but is being eliminated in many elementary schools throughout the United States. The result of eliminating history-social science is an unbalanced curriculum, which is unfair to students and teachers alike. Curriculum integration is a reasonable solution. My curriculum guide addresses the need for a balanced curriculum by integrating history-social science and reading. Project The curriculum guide is designed for the fourth grade teachers at Gold Oak Elementary (Placerville, CA) who use the district adopted Scott Foresman History-Social Science program, Our California, in conjunction with the Open Court program, Open Court Reading: Level 4. It encourages fourth grade teachers to include history-social science standards in their curriculum while they teach the mandated reading, writing, and oral language standards. The curriculum guide provides fourth grade teachers with integrated history-social science and reading lesson ideas, content, and activities. The activities include reading, video, and poetry supplemental resource extensions. Fourth grade teachers can use these extensions as enrichment for either introducing a topic or extending content knowledge of a unit or lesson. The supplemental resource extensions create connections between history-social science and reading that will engage students cognitively and help them to retain important history-social science content knowledge. Sources of Data This project used the fourth grade edition of Scott Foresman’s Our California and Open Court’s Open Court Reading Level: 4 programs to create the integrated connections in the curriculum guide. Searches of the ERIC database provided additional resources for research that contributed to the project. Conclusions Reached The curriculum guide is designed to help fourth grade teachers deliver a balanced curriculum to their students. It offers teachers a variety of instructional materials and supplemental resource extensions to assist them in meeting all their students’ needs. Most important, the curriculum guide helps teachers save time when preparing their lessons. This will encourage teachers to include history-social science into their curriculum and, as a result, will then prepare their students for history-social science classes in middle school.