What makes an effective English language arts curriculum? Is it the books and other readings that it includes? The skills that it imparts to students? Something else? This perennial question has taken on renewed interest lately, as the learning loss caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and schools’ reaction to it, becomes clear. Students are behind in many subjects, and chief among them is reading. This is cause for concern because students who cannot read at grade level are likely to struggle in other subjects.
A consensus is building that the development of content knowledge is a key component of a quality ELA curriculum. Reading is always reading about something, be it the Civil War, the water cycle, or Elizabethan poetry. Students who possess deep background knowledge can more easily comprehend texts and draw important connections. The scholar E.D. Hirsch has promoted this view since the publication of Cultural Literacy in 1987. More recently, a Fordham study found a correlation between increased instructional time in social studies and improved reading ability. Writers like Robert Pondiscio and Natalie Wexler have shown that the “knowledge gap” between affluent children and their less-advantaged peers contributes to the larger achievement gap, especially when it comes to reading.
But how can school leaders know which of the myriad ELA curricula on the market deliver the most comprehensive content knowledge? Thankfully, there’s a new tool to assist them.
The Knowledge Map Project, an initiative of the Institute of Education Policy at Johns Hopkins University and Chiefs for Change, evaluates twelve ELA curricula and rates how well they deliver content knowledge.[1] The project team, led by David Steiner, has performed the challenging task of reading each text in each grade level and analyzing them in terms of the knowledge they offer students about the world and the human condition. How topics are sequenced across grade levels is also evaluated to determine how well students have the opportunity to build on prior knowledge in a systematic way.
Using these data, the team then “maps” the domains of knowledge onto color-coded charts. This creates a clear visual representation of the strengths and gaps in each curriculum. Here is the knowledge map for Open Court Reading, for example, published by McGraw Hill. The curriculum is rich in material about animals; each grade from kindergarten to fifth grade has five or more texts on the subject. However, there are no texts about astronomy in kindergarten, second grade, and fourth grade. There are no materials about chemistry until fifth grade.
The Knowledge Map project also represents the quality and coherence of materials using “proximity analysis.” These starburst-like designs show how well supporting materials connect with the anchor text of a unit. Ideally, the various materials should be tightly aligned to foster connections. Here, for instance, is the coherence map for unit 11 in first grade of Open Court Reading. Each box at the end of a spoke represents a supporting text in the unit. The number in each box represents the percentage of topics that the text shares with the unit’s other materials. A greater percentage means a stronger thematic connection.
Each curriculum receives its own report. As for how they did, the project awarded Wit & Wisdom (published by Great Minds) high marks, saying it contains “high-quality texts with extensive topical coverage,” and “makes especially good use of the visual arts.” Core Knowledge Language Arts, which is associated with Hirsch, also scored highly, although the analysts suggested several improvements. It offers “intentional reinforcement of knowledge across grades and units.”
Not every curriculum received positive remarks. For Units of Study, the popular reading and writing program headed by Lucy Calkins, “knowledge reinforcement is generally light, as is the coherence within units.” While many of the texts are high quality, “it should be noted that at times the texts fall below grade level, creating a lack of rigor in the curriculum.”
In the “Knowledge Map Findings Brief,” the team notes that students in the early grades “must be taught to read through the science of reading” using phonemic awareness and the skills of decoding. “But,” it continues, “children also need simultaneously to learn about the world: its history, geography, science, myths, stories, and cultures.” This is an elaboration on the adage that “children first learn to read and then read to learn.” The Knowledge Map project is a valuable tool for school leaders who need to choose the best ELA curriculum to teach students to read to learn.
SOURCE: “Knowledge Map for English Language Arts,” Institute of Education Policy at Johns Hopkins University and Chiefs for Change, retrieved March 2022.
[1] The evaluated curricula are Abeka, BJU Press, Calvert Curriculum, Core Knowledge Language Arts, EL Education, HMH Into Reading, Journeys, Living Books, My Father’s World, Open Court Reading, Units of Study for Teaching Reading, and Wit & Wisdom.
