Knowledge-building English

1 Where it came from

The Core Knowledge Foundation, built on E. D. Hirsch's Core Knowledge Sequence, developed Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) from 2010 and completed it in 2014, for preschool to grade 8; Amplify publishes its own edition. EL Education's K-8 Language Arts and Great Minds' Wit & Wisdom followed the same idea of organizing English around sustained topics. In research terms, these programs aim squarely at the language comprehension half of Gough and Tunmer's Simple View of Reading (1986).

2 The big ideas

• Knowledge drives comprehension. Understanding what you read depends heavily on the background knowledge and vocabulary you bring to it, the language half of the Simple View of Reading.
• Stay on a topic. Weeks on one subject let new words come back again and again, which is how vocabulary sticks.
• Read-alouds carry the knowledge early. Young children can understand much harder ideas by ear than they can read, so listening builds knowledge while decoding catches up.
• Two strands, side by side. In CKLA, a Skills strand teaches phonics, spelling and fluency daily, and a Knowledge strand teaches literature, history, geography and science through read-alouds.
• Writing about what you learned. Children write and discuss to show and deepen what they know about the topic.

3 What a lesson looks like

A 2nd-grade class is three weeks into a unit on the human body. In the morning Skills block they work on vowel teams and read a decodable story. In the Knowledge block, the teacher reads aloud a passage about how the heart pumps blood, far above what the children could read alone. She stops at artery and vein, writes them on the topic word wall, and has the children put a hand on their chest to feel their heartbeat. Pairs talk about where blood goes after it leaves the heart. To finish, each child draws and labels the path of blood and writes two sentences using artery and vein. Tomorrow's read-aloud, about the lungs, will use both words again.

4 Reading and math

A reading and writing approach whose topics come from science, history, geography and the arts, so English time doubles as content time. The strongest programs keep a separate daily phonics block.

5 The adult's job

The adult reads aloud a lot, teaches topic vocabulary directly, leads discussion that asks children to explain what they learned, and connects each day's reading to what came before. In scripted programs like CKLA, lessons are written out in order.

6 How progress is checked

Checks usually come at the end of each topic unit: questions on what children understood and learned from the read-alouds and texts, plus writing about the topic. Phonics and fluency are checked separately in the skills strand.

7 Strengths and criticisms

8 What the research says

The case for knowledge building rests on the Simple View of Reading: comprehension is decoding times language comprehension, and the language half includes vocabulary and background knowledge. The National Reading Panel found that vocabulary instruction improves comprehension, especially with repeated exposure, which topic units supply. The What Works Clearinghouse rates explicit vocabulary teaching as strong evidence for adolescents and for English learners, and rates intensive academic vocabulary taught over several days as strong. On the programs themselves, EdReports rated CKLA (2015 edition) as meeting expectations, Amplify CKLA Skills earned all-green ratings, Wit & Wisdom grades 3-5 and 6-8 fully met expectations under an older review tool, and an early round listed EL Education grades 6-8 as meeting expectations. Those reviews check design, not results, so the honest summary is: well-supported idea, well-rated materials, limited independent outcome studies in our sources.

9 How to try it

1. Pick one topic your child is curious about, such as oceans, weather or the planets, and stay on it for three or four weeks.
2. Read aloud from true books on the topic every day, choosing some that are harder than your child could read alone.
3. Keep a topic word list on the fridge; use each word in talk that week, and ask your child to use it too.
4. End each week with a short write or drawing: "Tell me three things you learned about whales."
5. Keep a separate 15-minute phonics lesson each day if your child is still learning to decode.

10 Using Peabody with it

• The libraryTrue books and stories grouped by interest, from animals to space, at levels 0 to 18, so a child can read several books on one topic.
• Read-alouds for the big screenLibrary books shown large with a voice that lights each word, for read-aloud time on a topic.
• Reading passagesOriginal passages for K to 8, many on science and social studies, each with questions and vocabulary.
• KWL chartA simple sheet for what a child knows, wants to know and learned about the topic.
• Vocabulary gamesGames that make children use topic words, so they come back again and again; Peabody has no full knowledge-building curriculum of its own.

Peabody is free and has no ads. Pages on peabody.kids are for children; pages here are for the adults teaching them.

11 Programs that follow it

Programs and materials often named with this approach: Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA), Amplify CKLA, EL Education K-8 Language Arts, Wit & Wisdom.