Mapping selected Filipino historical children’s books in the elementary social studies curriculum

Abstract

Narrative-based learning has been widely recognized for enhancing students’ engagement, historical understanding, and meaning making in history education. However, empirical evidence regarding the extent to which historical children’s literature aligns with formal curriculum requirements remains limited, particularly in elementary social studies education in the Philippines. This study investigates the curricular alignment of Filipino-authored historical children’s books with the Philippine elementary social studies curriculum, focusing on Grades 5 and 6, where Philippine history constitutes the core content. Using a qualitative content analysis design, eighteen Filipino historical children’s books were purposively selected and systematically analyzed through a curriculum alignment framework based on prescribed content and performance standards. Alignment was evaluated using a six-level rating scale and subsequently visualized through curriculum heat maps to reveal patterns of coverage across curriculum competencies.  The findings indicate that curriculum alignment varies considerably across books. For Grade 5, two books demonstrated complete alignment, three showed high alignment, eight exhibited moderate alignment, and five lacked meaningful alignment. In contrast, no book achieved complete alignment with the Grade 6 curriculum; one showed high alignment, eight demonstrated moderate alignment, and nine exhibited no alignment. These findings suggest that although Filipino historical children’s books offer valuable narrative resources for enriching history instruction, their curricular applicability remains inconsistent, particularly for upper elementary history topics. Methodologically, this study demonstrates the usefulness of curriculum heat mapping as an analytical approach for evaluating narrative-based instructional materials. The findings provide evidence to support curriculum developers, teacher educators, and classroom teachers in selecting historical literature that is both pedagogically engaging and curriculumresponsive, while contributing a transferable framework for curriculum-material alignment studies in history education.