ISSUES IN THE

TEACHING OF
CHRONOLOGY

PREPARED BY:
AIRA E. NAOE
MED-SOCIAL STUDIES
 Why chronology is an issue in
history teaching?
methods of
 Chronology has a controversial place in debates
over history teaching.The
controversy predates the introduction of the
National Curriculum for history.A much
lambasted feature of history teaching in the past
was the extent to which the memorization of
dates was regarded as a prerequisite to historical
understanding. Yet it was also argued that
without knowledge of a framework of dates,
history would become a meaningless discipline,
and that the balance of emphasis in history
teaching was beginning to swing too far away
from chronology.
 The importance of chronology in the
teaching of history
The concept of chronology has a central place

in the development of a child’s historical
understanding. It is the distinctive marker of
history, setting it apart from other disciplines
based on the interpretation of evidence. For
historical evidence itself derives its meaning
from the time-frame in which it is set. As
Lomas states: ‘Without a grasp of the concept
of time, there can be no real understanding of
change, development, continuity,
progression and regression’(1993:20).
 How can children’s understanding of
time be developed?

There are various indicators, both in
investigative research and in
publications on classroom practice,
towards effective ways of developing
children’s understanding of chronology
through teaching.
 Friedman’s three models of children’s
cognitive processing
of time

verbal lists, whereby children may
recite (mentally or aloud) lists of
members of a time set—this could
include days of the week, months of the
year and numbers of days in months.
associative networks, used for storing
characteristic features of units of time—
examples could include weather associated

with years of a child’s life, or characteristics
of costume, architecture or artifacts
associated with particular periods;
image coding: a child might use a circle or a
line as a representation of a series of units of
time or events

What for history teachers are the key
implications of these issues?

a rigid, age-related scale of the
development of children’s understanding
of time in history is inappropriate:
children progress along this scale at
different ages and pace
systematic teaching about chronology
level does influence the rate of
development of children’s
understanding;
to understand chronological systems
children need to be familiar with a

range of terms, and to develop
confidence in using these through
modeling,instruction and discussion;
visual evidence (including artifacts and
buildings) is a powerful way of
developing children’s associative
networks in relation to period or age;
all children have some familiarity with
images of the past, which can be built

on and widened through teaching. It
can be helpful to draw on and try to
engage with the ideas about time that
they bring with them to the classroom;
children’s understanding of chronology
can be most effectively developed
through a range of methods.
given the variety of experience of
history that children encounter in the
primary school, it can be helpful to do

an audit of where pupils are in their
understanding of chronology when
they start secondary history;
teaching children about time needs to
be sustained as well as systematic—
there is a need to go back to aspects of
time to check that understanding has
been retained.
teachers need to keep in mind the various
strands of pupils’ progress in time;


 ASSESSMENT

As a teacher, how important is it to
incorporate chronological order into the
presentation of new ideas to students?