Why Consumable Materials Matter for Student Learning

Studies Weekly is uniquely suited to be your students’ passport to lifelong success because we’re unlike any other standards-based curriculum out there today.

Our print publications are fully consumable and easy to integrate into daily instruction, while Studies Weekly Online platform brings lessons to life through engaging multimedia and learning tools.

When we say “consumable,” we don’t mean your students will enjoy snacking on the curriculum at lunch.

Consumable means that every weekly publication includes learning activities your students can do right on the publication — vocabulary crosswords, writing prompts, and language arts lessons.

We design our print products to be very hands-on. When we say consumable, we mean cutting out our images for a 3D Graphic Organizer or an interactive notebook. Or highlighting facts versus opinions, directly on an article. Or circling the main idea or point of view in our informational texts. Or using our Primary Source Analysis Tool to observe, reflect, and question the source right there on the paper.

“Consumable is not a dirty word in education,” said Barbara Lane, a curriculum coordinator in California. “As a matter of fact, a consumable allows students to ‘own’ the text. It allows students to do what the name suggests: consume the text and own its content.”

Studies Weekly’s consumable newspapers and magazines work well with inquiry learning strategies and project-based learning. Students can use the print and online editions for primary source research and data gathering. Then they turn around and cut up the print edition and incorporate Studies Weekly’s videos into their presentations, or into a student artifact.

“When students make artifacts, they own their learning, articulate their thinking, and tap into creativity and organizational thinking skills,” explained Debbie Bagley, a veteran teacher and teacher advocate for Studies Weekly.

Artifacts also help students understand what they are working on and encourage them to connect old and new knowledge. As students physically create artifacts, they visibly represent their thinking, understanding, and skills. These artifacts can come in many formats.

“Consumables allow students to annotate, highlight, question, talk, and even Sketchnote or Booksnap the text, without penalty of having to turn the text in at the end of the year and losing the thoughts that came to mind as students closely read and tried to make meaning of the text,” Lane added. “Students literally have the opportunity to experience what teachers ask of their higher education students — learning techniques that help students remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. In other words, consumables are one way to help support students attain college and career readiness.”

“My team and I love the Studies Weekly resource because it’s current informational text,” said Mechelle C., a 4th grade teacher from Kansas. “I also love that the students get their own consumables that they can, as we read, mark the text. We use AVID strategies, and we also love all the text features that this resource has, that allow for deeper understanding. And the students get to take these resources home, and they get to discuss with their families what we’re learning, and all the additional information that they are learning.”

Additionally, when students have a consumable print copy to work with and make their own, it helps them feel like they are in charge of their own learning. Students can make the print publications their own by highlighting weekly vocabulary words, underlining sight words, writing notes next in the margins, or circling things about which they want to share or ask.

This increases their self-confidence and their investment in the classroom. In fact, teachers can set students up for confidence, inquiry, and purposeful learning by allowing students to engage with and draw on their publications before reading the text together. Giving students this trust creates a partnership of learning and growth between students and the teacher.

When you have a consumable product, the possibilities are endless.