National Archives – WISE Score & Parent Review | Screenwise

National Archives

Name: Screenwise
Author: Screenwise

Website

82%

WISE Score

The ultimate 'receipts' for American history—dry, deep, and completely free of the algorithm's nonsense.

National Archives

Website

82%

WISE Score

The ultimate 'receipts' for American history—dry, deep, and completely free of the algorithm's nonsense.

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Screenwise Verdict

The National Archives website is the antidote to brain rot. It’s not 'fun' in the way a game is fun, but it is deeply satisfying for a kid who wants the real story. It’s essentially the basement of the U.S. government, and while the UX is a bit clunky, the payoff for school projects or personal curiosity is huge.

Don't just hand them the URL and walk away—they’ll get lost in the 1990s-era menus. Instead, head straight to DocsTeach for the interactive stuff. It’s the best way to build 'reading rope' comprehension by letting them grapple with actual history instead of just memorizing dates.

Age Fit

Best for ages 8 and up. Younger kids can enjoy the photos and maps with a parent, but the reading level and navigation require the stamina of a third-grader or older.

WISE Breakdown

Wholesome

It's the literal history of the United States—raw, honest, and entirely devoid of the manipulative emotional hooks found in commercial media. While the history itself can be dark, the presentation is respectful and intellectually grounded.

Imaginative

It turns kids into historical detectives. While the site doesn't have fancy sandbox tools, the act of piecing together a story from a 200-year-old map or a handwritten letter requires massive creative heavy lifting.

Safe

100

It's a .gov site. There are no ads, no trackers, no algorithmic feeds, and no stranger-danger chat rooms. It’s the safest corner of the internet for a kid to fall down a rabbit hole.

Enriching

This is the gold standard for building background knowledge and vocabulary—the 'language comprehension' strands of literacy. Analyzing primary sources is a high-level skill that textbooks just can't replicate.

Parent Info

✓

Why It Might Be Great

Primary source access allows kids to see the actual handwriting of people who shaped the world, bypassing the 'telephone game' of textbooks.
DocsTeach provides interactive activities that make historical inquiry feel more like a puzzle and less like a lecture.
Public domain materials mean kids can download, remix, and use high-res photos and maps for their own projects without copyright headaches.
Civics for All of Us is a specific initiative launching in 2026 that streamlines distance learning and virtual field trips for K-12 students.

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What to Watch For

The user interface is pure government-issue; it’s not intuitive and can feel like trying to navigate a digital filing cabinet.
The search bar is notoriously finicky—kids will likely need a parent or teacher to help them find specific documents without getting frustrated.
The content is unvarnished, so a kid looking for 'Civil War' info might stumble onto graphic historical photos that aren't censored.

Conversation Starters

"If you could ask the person who wrote this letter one question, what would it be?"
"Why do you think the government keeps a record of every single treaty and map ever made?"
"Does seeing the actual document change how you feel about what happened in the story?"
"If you had to pick one thing from our house to put in a national archive for people to find in 200 years, what would it be?"

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