Replies

My daughter was an advanced reader at a young age, yet because they did no history until 4th grade, she had no context for the historical novels she was reading for fun. I bought an American history book and taught her history after school in 2nd grade so she'd have a sense of the timeline of U.S. History and understand what was going on if she read a book set during the Revolution, the Civil War, or the Westward Movement.

I am now homeschooling my younger children and using a wonderful curriculum which starts history and geography in K. Yesterday my 3rd grader was so taken with her lesson on Elizabeth I and Sir Francis Drake that she wrote a little play for her and her younger brother to perform. Love it :). It's a crime that most of America's children aren't exposed to the wonders of history from their earliest years.

"Cultural Literacy" is another biggie to me -- children understanding not only history but being exposed to the finest in literature, movies, music. So many children, even when I was in school in the '70s, are exposed to only a very narrow spectrum of the popular culture. Elementary school readers, for example, are often meaningless dreck these days rather than selections from books and poetry which have stood the test of time.