The Challenge of Early Learners

If you teach kindergarten or first grade (maybe even second) and you’ve been told you need to introduce your students to primary sources, you may be tearing your hair out. We have just one word for you: show and tell. (All right, it’s three words, but who’s counting?)

You’re already using primary sources in your classroom, and a slight shift in the way you use them can introduce your students to the skills they’re going to need to, one day, analyze the Declaration of Independence.

To begin with, we recommend that you forget about text documents altogether for the time being and focus on images and artifacts. Like this:

Photo by USAID (United States Agency of International Development)

This is a photograph we got from Flickr. It was taken in Afghanistan on Global Handwashing Day. It’s full of information that a kindergartener can figure out. Here are a few questions you could ask:

  • Are these girls indoors or outdoors? How can you tell?
  • Is it day or night? How can you tell?
  • Is it warm or cold? How can you tell?
  • What are they wearing?
  • What colors do you see in the picture?
  • What are the girls doing?
  • Is this the way you wash your hands? How is it alike and different?

Showing your students this photograph, asking questions like these, and encouraging them to ask their own questions fulfills the following Common Core Standards: 

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.1  Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about kindergarten topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.2  Confirm understanding of a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media by asking and answering questions about key details and requesting clarification if something is not understood.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.3  Ask and answer questions in order to seek help, get information, or clarify something that is not understood.

This activity also fits the inquiry design model suggested by the C3 framework for social studies.

You can also help your students practice their inquiry skills on artifacts and objects from nature you–or they–bring into the classroom.