Supporting Middle School Students With Learning Disabilities in the Social Studies Classroom

Social studies combines the social sciences and the humanities to build civic competence, covering subjects such as history, geography, and economics (National Council for the Social Studies [NCSS], 2013). Successful understanding of social studies content requires critical reading and contextual analysis, which supports higher-order thinking (Swanson et al., 2017). Students with learning disabilities (LD), particularly at the secondary level, often encounter significant challenges in mastering social studies content compared to their peers without disabilities. These difficulties can largely be attributed to limited background knowledge and deficits in reading comprehension skills, which are essential for understanding complex historical texts and primary sources (Swanson et al., 2017). Reading challenges are exacerbated by social studies text materials (Amendum et al., 2018). Secondary social studies textbooks present advanced sentence structures, dense information, and unfamiliar vocabulary and often exceed students’ reading levels (Berkeley et al., 2014). Furthermore, these texts typically lack progress-monitoring supports, such as comprehension checks and scaffolding strategies, which are essential for students with LD. Primary sources, although valuable for historical inquiry, also present difficulties with syntax and require analysis, which can frustrate students with LD (Amendum et al., 2018). Given its reliance on reading and writing, social studies remains a challenging area for students with LD, who face decoding, fluency, and comprehension difficulties (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022; Smith et al., 2021). To improve reading comprehension and content acquisition for students with LD in social studies, source materials and instructional strategies should be carefully considered.