My son is 9 years old and he is dyslexic and has a significant auditory processing disorder. He really struggles with the social studies this year, very bookie and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on some good visual material I could use to teach him. Thanks for any information!!! Liz
Re: I need some good visual mateials for social studies
Doris Kinderley publishes a very visual series called “Eyewitness Books.” There are many titles covering history and geography topics (as well as science). You should be able to find them at your library, as well as Borders or Barnes and Noble. If the trouble is civics, though, you won’t find it in this series.
Re: I need some good visual mateials for social studies
You’ve got my favorite ideas suggested already — maps & Eyewitness books — and otehr good nonfiction from teh library too. The quality of pictures & stuff in kids’ fiction is just ‘way different from Back In The Old Days ;)
What topics are being covered? The one advantage to a teacher just plowing through a book is that at least you know what’s coming up!
This is a great time to learn the main terms & important ideas… and to heck with grades.
Re: I need some good visual mateials for social studies
For your information, when you get into history, Lindamood-Bell is publishing a visual history timeline book. Sounds great…sort of like it goes with their visualizing and verbalizing technique. The last time I talked to them, volume 1 was at the printer, so it may be ready now.
Janis
Re: I need some good visual mateials for social studies
Here are the basic questions I address in social studies units. Maps are great tools, as are timelines. There are lots of great non-fiction books, and don’t dismiss “picture books”- some of these are very informative. Teacher’s stores carry lots of posters- the walls around the kitchen table are decorated with posters of current study topics and the kids pick up a lot just looking at the posters and talking about them. Dover publishes lots of historical coloring books, so you can color pyramids, knights, airplanes of WW II, etc., and discuss the pertinent topics while creating your work of art. Of course, don’t overlook videos from the library or programs on Discovery Channel or TLC- I usually like to watch a video after we have studied a topic, because then we can pause and refer back to stories we’ve read or to a map we’ve colored in.
1)Who are we studying? (i.e. the Ancient Egyptians, Famous Explorers, George Washington)
2)When did these events occur? (timeline; emphasize sequential relation to other events)
3)Where did these events occur? (globe, maps)
4)What are the distinguishing features of the culture or time period?
a)What are the origins of this culture?
b)What type of government did this civilization have?
c)What was daily life like? What were their social customs?
d)What was the predominant religion of this culture?
e)What was their language? What were the significant works of literature?
f)What type of art/music did they produce? What was their architecture like?
g)What fields of science did they study? How did they use mathematics?
h)What type of technology did they use?
i)What type of trade and commerce did they have?
j)What kind of transportation did they have? Where did they go?
k)What happened to this civilization?
5) What impact or influence did this culture (or individual) have on others? How was this culture (or individual) influenced by others?
Jean
Two things that work:
(a) Play with maps. Read maps, find routes by land and water, draw maps, colour maps, look at equator and poles and climate zones; hit the used book stores or amazon.com or half.com; I have a couple of treasures, a historical atlas of Canada showing how maps changed over time, ie a visual presentation of history; and an Oxford school world atlas with all sorts of illustrations of homes and people and lifestyles and an old school atlas with maps of everywhere; these two have topography and climate and rainfall and population and energy use and temperature and ocean currents and… and of course scale on a map and math . . . Also the much-loved Rand-McNally which presently lives in the car (amazingly cheap, around $10.95 American for all of North America) but which comes out when needed. You could make a couple of years of school curriculum out of just these books. Some of this will apply directly to this year’s work, and some will be indirect but worth doing anyway.
(b) Read historical novels. I am a firm believer in getting kids to read independently — if the book is worth doing the kid can usually plow through it — but age 9 is a bit young so for another year or two you may have to read to him. Get a good exciting thud-and-blunder historical novel that he *wants* to read, and when he sees the historical facts in the text he will say “Oh, yeah, we read about Paul Revere”, and it will stick in the memory.