New Readers Teach Civics to Elementary Schoolers

New Readers Teach Civics to Elementary Schoolers

iCivics is expanding its offering of elementary-level resources with a robust collection of readers for K-5 students. These resources were made in partnership with leading U.S. publisher Teacher Created Materials (TCM) and give educators high-quality and engaging content that prepares elementary school students for critical thinking, thoughtful discussions, and civic responsibilities.

Each iCivics Reader is standards-aligned and includes lesson plans, student activity pages, assessment, and game cards, as well as links to digital resources like ebooks and a multimedia library. Topic-driven books help students explore social issues, understand government, make logic-based arguments, and consider different options. These books are included as part of a kit that helps students gain civic knowledge, practice civic skills, and develop a civic mindset. They also aim to promote civic discourse and critical thinking through easy-to-use lessons. All six grade levels, kindergarten through fifth grade, have a kit. Kindergarten through third grade are available now, and the fourth and fifth grade kits will be available later this year.

The kits include:

  • A management guide that features research, pacing plans, and best practices
  • Lesson plans that integrate literacy and civic education
  • 10 high-interest, nonfiction books (6 copies each)
  • Civics Game Cards that reinforce lessons in fun, collaborative ways (6 decks)
  • Digital and Multimedia Resources, including Professional Development videos by iCivics, read-along ebooks, videos, songs, and audio recordings

The kits merge TCM’s publishing expertise and content created by iCivics, which over the past decade has developed a wide range of games and hundreds of digital lesson plans that teach the fundamentals of civic education. Founded by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in 2009, iCivics materials have become the gold standard in civic education as they are used by more than 9 million students every year and trusted by more than 140,000 teachers in every state.

Prepare students for civic engagement as community leaders and build literacy skills with the exciting iCivics Readers.

Explore more from the educator blog

Amanda weaves the Constitution throughout her class to help students make real connections

The Constitution is the foundation for nearly everything I do in my class, even if my students don’t always realize it. That’s by design: I weave it into lessons, discussions, projects, and more. It’s like a civics sneak attack! The goal is to make sure students understand the Constitution itself,

Beth engages her students with the Declaration by making it relevant to their lives

I recently broke up with Culver’s. Let me explain. In my classroom, civic literacy isn’t about memorizing documents. It’s about learning how those ideas live, travel, and show up in students’ real lives. As part of the Civic Star Challenge, we took a close look at the Declaration of Independence.

We Can Teach Hard Things Like Immigration

I began my career as a social studies teacher in September 2001. By my second week in the classroom, the attacks of September 11th had reshaped not only the nation, but also my understanding of what it meant to teach history. I became acutely aware of the students in my