IES Grant Awarded to Study CKLA
Read-Alouds

In a first of its kind study, researcher Sonia Cabell (Florida State University) received a 3.3 million dollar grant from the Institute of Education Sciences. The grant was awarded to test the fully-developed and widely-implemented Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA): Knowledge read‐aloud program. Researchers followed children from kindergarten entry to 1st grade investigating the effects of CKLA on vocabulary skills, listening comprehension, and domain knowledge. They found statistically significant effect sizes for both students’ expressive vocabulary and science knowledge.

  • Read more about this study’s findings here.
  • Listen to our Building Knowledge podcast interview with Dr. Cabell here.

Impact of Core Knowledge on Third Grade Reading, Writing, English, and Math Achievement

David Grissmer, and his research team at the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) at the University of Virginia, conducted IES-funded, longitudinal research regarding the impact of Core Knowledge in Colorado charter schools. To learn more, read a study summary as well as an interview with Dr. Grissmer where he discusses the results.

Social Studies Instruction and Reading Comprehension: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study

Research data from a new study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute confirms what Core Knowledge teachers have known for years! Educators looking for ways to improve students’ reading comprehension would do well to allocate 30 minutes each day to teaching social studies. Fordham’s associate director of research Adam Tyner and early childhood researcher Sarah Kabourek examined data from the federal Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010–11 (ECLS-K: 2011), which follows thousands of students in their kindergarten year through fifth grade. They specifically compared how much instructional time was devoted to each subject area relative to students’ reading comprehension. The researchers found that increased instructional time in social studies is associated with improved reading comprehension.

  • Read more about this study’s findings here.

Core Knowledge Language Arts Pilot Study

The Core Knowledge Language Arts™ (CKLA) program was piloted in 10 public schools in New York City and an additional 7 schools throughout the country, including rural and suburban schools. These diverse schools comprised 172 classrooms, 200 teachers and 4,466 students. Across these schools, the percentage of students receiving free and reduced lunch ranged from 30 to 99%, and the percentage of students for whom English is a second language ranged from 15 to 60%.

Pilot teachers participated in extensive professional development prior to implementing the program. This training ensured that teachers had a clear understanding of the synthetic phonics at the heart of CKLA’s Skills strand. The training also provided teachers techniques for building students’ background knowledge and vocabulary during read-alouds, which are at the heart of the CKLA Listening & Learning (Knowledge) strand.

Results from the three-year pilot of CKLA in kindergarten through second grade in 10 New York City public schools show that students in the schools using CKLA outperformed their peers in 10 comparison schools on measures of reading, science, and social studies.

Early Research on Core Knowledge