This study investigated fourth grade students' comprehension of eight distinct and recurring history themes (rebellion, invention, migration, discovery of the unknown, taxation, trade, representative government, compromise). One hundred and two students, from high poverty schools, were randomly assigned to one of three theme comprehension tasks (multiple-choice, sorting, and generating stories). In addition, all students defined each theme.

Findings indicated that comprehension of stories containing the themes of trade and compromise was significantly higher than the other six themes. Students experienced the most difficulty providing accurate responses after reading stories containing the themes of taxation and invention. Furthermore, students' performance on the multiple-choice task was higher than their performance on the sorting task and the generating stories task. In defining these eight history themes, students' performance was higher with the themes of representative government, trade, and migration. They displayed moderate performance defining compromise, invention, and rebellion. Students had difficulty defining the themes of discovery of the unknown and taxation.

Understanding the impact of theme is critical when introducing history content in the early grades. Students understand some themes and this understanding will allow teachers to make connections between those known themes and the history content they are encountering. In addition, if teachers are aware of which themes students struggle with, they can pre-teach these themes using familiar content.