Class 9 ICSE History and Civics is mostly dates and articles. How do your kids get through it?

linen_notebook_490513 Oct 2026

Maths and science my older son manages on his own. History and Civics in class 9 is a different story. It's pages of dates, acts and articles of the constitution. He's 14, reads the chapter three times and remembers the first paragraph. He isn't lazy about it, he just has no method beyond reading again. I did a state syllabus a long time ago and mostly crammed the night before, so I'm no model. What has worked for your kids with this kind of subject?

2 comments

ochre_kettle_62313 Oct 2026
Different board for us, my daughter's CBSE, but it was the same problem in class 9 social. What finally helped was making her own timeline on one long sheet and sticking it on the cupboard. Dates stopped being separate facts and became a sequence. Flashcards for the rest.
- linen_notebook_490514 Oct 2026
  the timeline might work, he likes drawing things out. flashcards we tried in class 8. he used them as bookmarks
indigo_kite_271714 Oct 2026
Not my subject, I teach maths, but I see the same pattern in students who reread. Rereading feels like work and doesn't stay. Have him close the book after a section and say out loud, or write, what he remembers, then check what he missed. It's slower at first and it's the only method I've seen work for most children. The second thing is old question papers: once he sees what kind of question gets asked, he'll know which dates matter and which ones are just in the chapter.