Where it all Started
Twenty-five years ago this fall, Paul Thompson was assigned to teach fourth grade after 12 years service as a fifth grade teacher. In those days, the fourth grade course work included state history and civics, but there was no fourth grade state history textbook available.
One day, as he thought about how to make state history and civics interesting for his students, he picked up a copy of the Weekly Reader. The idea hit him — “What we need,” he thought, “is a ‘Weekly Reader’ that’s all about our state.” And that’s how Studies Weekly began in 1984.
Today, There are more than 70 Studies Weekly K-6 classroom magazines and newspapers for social studies and science. They are in use in 26 percent of schools nationwide and have been state adopted by a growing number of state departments of education with authorization to be used as "textbooks."