EVALUATING CURRICULUM MATERIALS - DO GREEK CHILDREN UNDERSTAND THEIR HISTORY TEXTBOOKS

This paper assesses the level of language difficulty of two Greek prim ary history textbooks. Data was gathered by means of doze tests admini stered to nine and ten year old students. The findings were correlated with pupil ability and background and suggest that the two textbooks differ significantly in terms of pupil comprehension. The level of com prehension of the pupils is closely related to their prior level of ac hievement. Low achievers in both year groups demonstrate considerable difficulty in comprehending the textbook. The implications of the find ings for primary teaching in Greek schools are discussed.