Using written sources to answer historical questions involves far more than literal comprehension, but learning to draw valid inferences and to interpret sources in their historical context obviously depends on students’ capacity actually to read and engage with different kinds of written material.  The resources in this section illustrate the range of approaches that teachers have used successfully to capture students’ interest in texts, giving them incentives to read and techniques to help make sense of what they are reading by processing and responding to it in various ways. The articles and plans presented here also demonstrate the value of explicit teaching about reading strategies, helping students to recognise the difference between skimming and scanning, for example, so that they can work out what to do when.

Reading a variety of different types of historical literature, going beyond sources and school textbooks to engage with historians’ carefully constructed arguments, evocative descriptions or exciting narratives, also provides young people with inspiring models for their own writing. The materials here illustrate a variety of ways in which teachers have successfully introduced students (from Year 7 upwards) to inspirational and provocative works of historical fiction and historical scholarship.

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You can find an introduction to key articles by history teachers about  the use of historical scholarship in the classroom here...