[Edling] Why restoring the liberal arts to elementary school can help us raise better readers

[Francis Hult]

US News & World Report



Why restoring the liberal arts to elementary school can help us raise better readers.



If this bedrock principle – knowledge is literacy – were widely understood and embraced, American elementary education would likely look quite different than it does at present. The broad thrust of K-5 schooling would be to expose children to as much science, art, music and history as possible. Field trips, assemblies, school plays, music lessons and chess clubs would be regarded as essential, not extracurricular.



"Sadly the available evidence indicates that curricula in American schools are narrow," Willingham recently wrote in

The Washington Post. "Most study time in elementary grades is devoted to English Language Arts and math, with other subjects (science, civics, geography et al.) accounting for perhaps ten or fifteen percent of instructional time."



Full story:
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-bank/2015/05/18/why-the-liberal-arts-belong-in-elementary-school?google_editors_picks=true
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