Reginald Wright
But as any teacher knows, there are many challenges. Wright’s biggest struggle and passion is to get his students to see the potential they have. He can see it, but they cannot.
“A large portion of our students have not been inspired to dream, to imagine they can do great things in the future,” Wright said.
At the start of the school year, some of the students he serves do not read on the middle school grade level, which makes it difficult for them to understand the middle school social studies curriculum. To get them to this deeper level of learning, Wright and his fellow teachers heavily utilize scaffolding techniques.
“Before you can teach them how to analyze a political cartoon, you have to tell them what ‘analyze’ even means,” he explained.
To help his students understand these deeper concepts, at a reading level they can comprehend, he uses elementary-level Studies Weekly Social Studies publications. The students learn, analyze and process the historical information while also gaining valuable reading, literacy and vocabulary skills. Wright has been using Studies Weekly for about five years, and loves that it is aligned to Texas’ state standards.
“When I first saw Studies Weekly, I thought, ‘This is awesome.’ It’s not a huge textbook, so it’s not intimidating at all. My students can read it and highlight it, circle it and write on it. Then they can fold it, put it in their backpack, and take it home with them. It’s just the best product ever,” he added.
Aldine Middle School’s ESL students also use the Spanish versions so they can understand the concepts as they learn English.
“Online, they are able to read it in Spanish, and then as they go along, we can graduate them from Spanish to English,” he said.
Wright is a passionate educator, an awesome example of the many teachers out there making a significant difference for America’s children.
To learn how you can use Studies Weekly Social Studies in your classroom visit studiesweekly.com.