Understanding knowledge-building curriculum
To help students make sense of what they’re reading, knowledge-building ELA curricula are intentionally designed to build a deep and wide knowledge base in the various fields of science, history, literature, and the arts, starting in kindergarten.
They are also designed around the essentials of sound reading instruction. Students must be powerful readers to become self-reliant knowledge-seekers throughout their lives!
Building knowledge of the world—even building knowledge of a topic—is a cumulative endeavor, with ever more sophisticated understanding growing over time as the result of multiple exposures to the content. Building knowledge is entirely different from activating knowledge; it starts where little is—and it must begin in the earliest grades.
US elementary schools spend very little time on science and social studies (between 1–2 hours per week each, according to multiple studies), so time spent in English language arts/literacy (between 10–15 hours per week) should coherently build knowledge while reading, writing, speaking, and listening are being mastered. Here, we explore K–8 programs that meet these objectives.
Characteristics of effective ELA instruction
Research tells us that the following ingredients are crucial in students’ ability and intrinsic desire to read well:
- Coherently building knowledge of words and the world.
- Teaching students to read through systematic foundational skills instruction until word recognition is automatic and students are fully fluent.
- Affording every student access to focused, close communal reading of content-rich complex texts.
The curricula spotlighted here meet all three crucial elements and empower students to become capable, effective, and motivated readers and writers.
Importantly, these curricula look and feel very different from traditional basal readers and popular “balanced literacy” programs, which encourage many practices that have largely been discredited by research. In addition to taking a haphazard approach to building content knowledge, such programs generally focus lessons on single skills (like “find the main idea” or “draw inferences”) or isolated standards. They typically embrace a leveled reader approach that denies many students access to rigorous texts. Finally, the sheer bulk and bloat (“kitchen sink” approach) of every basal program examined dilutes any individual strengths it may contain.
Read more about the issues with commonly-used ELA curricula.
ELA programs that excel in building knowledge
In our estimation, six English language arts curricula currently meet the criteria for knowledge-building detailed here. (We know of at least one more on the horizon.)
While these curricula share common virtues and are all solidly grounded in what matters most for literacy, each has a unique and compelling identity. They present students with substantive, rich content and lack “fluff.” They support access for all students. They motivate and engage students through their content and design. They help all students achieve at high levels. And teachers get ever better at their craft by using them.
Learn what characterizes each curriculum – and gives all of these materials an advantage over programs that are organized around strategies and skills.
We have also visited districts using Guidebooks, a curriculum designed by the state of Louisiana. It is currently being revised, and we expect to share details about it following the revision. We will continue to feature other knowledge-building ELA curricula as they are developed.