Knowing the How and Why of History: Expectations for Secondary Students with and without Learning Disabilities

Abstract

This article reviews instructional approaches for students with mild disabilities in the domain of social studies with an emphasis on methods that provide meaningful access to the general education curriculum. Following an overview of reform efforts in history and the special problems that social studies instruction presents for students with learning disabilities (LD), we discuss research on general literacy and learning strategies in the context of social studies instruction. Next, we describe a small body of research that has used domain-specific instructional approaches to teach social studies concepts such as historical understanding and historical reasoning. We end with a call for special education researchers and practitioners to respond to new educational challenges by focusing on important concepts and ways of thinking that are particular to the discipline of social studies.