Language Arts Program Strands

Skill and Listening and Learning

 The Skills Strand

The Skills Strand of Core Knowledge Language Arts teaches decoding using synthetic phonics. Similar to the approach described by reading researcher Diane McGuinness in her book Why Our Children Can’t Read, this kind of phonics instruction is widely used in the United Kingdom and has produced impressive results in several published studies. However, it is still relatively rare in the United States. The major difference between synthetic phonics and phonics as it is usually taught in the United States is that synthetic phonics lessons begin with a sound like /m/, instead of a letter like ‘m’. The students hear and speak the sound, both in isolation and in words. The teacher then shows children how to make a “picture” of the sound. Students practice writing the sound picture, which may be a letter like ‘m’ or letter team like ‘sh’.

Reading and writing are taught in tandem in the Skills Strand, reinforcing each other. Children practice blending (reading) and segmenting (spelling) using the sound pictures they have learned. They are not asked to read words that go beyond their code knowledge. Decodable stories are introduced in the fifth of the ten units for kindergarten. There is generally a new story for each new lesson, and the stories are 100% decodable—made up entirely of words and sound pictures the students have been taught, or "tricky words" that have also been explicitly taught. Designed to be fully in accord with the findings of the National Reading Panel Report, the Skills Strand also includes extensive phonemic awareness activities as well as repeated oral reading to build fluency.

Skills Strand Curriculum Maps

View the Skills Strand Curriculum Maps which demonstrate how Core Knowledge Language Arts can be used to address the Common Core State Standards.

The Listening and Learning Strand

The Listening and Learning strand draws upon twenty years of research conducted by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., into the foundations of reading and comprehension. Dr. Hirsch’s central insight—detailed in his books Cultural Literacy, The Knowledge Deficit, and, most recently, The Making of Americans—is that, beyond the necessary mastery of basic decoding skills, the ability to comprehend what is read is very much dependent upon both language and content knowledge. General language competence along with domain-specific knowledge and vocabulary are essential if students are to understand the words and sentences they are decoding—and this strand is designed to teach them. For a more thorough discussion of the importance of the Listening and Learning Strand, see Why Listening and Learning is Critical to Reading Comprehension and Language: A Key Component of Knowledge and Vice Versa, by E. D. Hirsch, Jr.

The Listening and Learning Strand lessons, comprised of read-alouds and oral language exercises, build on the fact that students’ listening comprehension abilities outpace their reading comprehension abilities throughout elementary school. At each grade level, approximately 150 lessons are divided into 12 domains. Each domain is dedicated to a particular topic or theme and consists of read-alouds that the teacher shares with students in a large group setting over the course of 10-15 days of instruction. The topics addressed in these domains go well beyond standard kindergarten language arts fare and include important historical and scientific content. While contemporary reading programs have begun to increasingly include nonfiction in the reading selections offered during the language arts block, the Listening and Learning Strand of the Core Knowledge Language Arts program is unique in presenting grade appropriate nonfiction topics, selected from the tried and true grade specific content guidelines of the Core Knowledge Sequence, in a coherent and systematic way; see the Sequence of Listening and Learning Domains for a complete list of the domains addressed in grades K-2.

Unlike other reading programs in which a potpourri of unrelated nonfiction texts are presented, the Listening and Learning read-alouds allow students to build cumulative knowledge and vocabulary about a specific domain both within and across grade levels. Content Specific Objectives and Language Arts Objectives are identified for every domain and every lesson. While most of the read-alouds have been written and illustrated specifically for the Core Knowledge Language Arts program, topic-specific trade book titles are also an integral part of each domain. For a more complete description of the specific components of each lesson, see the Overview to the Listening and Learning Strand.

Listening and Learning Curriculum Maps

View the Listening and Learning Strand Curriculum Maps which demonstrate how Core Knowledge Language Arts can be used to address the Common Core State Standards.

Listening and Learning Strand Samples

Sample Kindergarten Lesson & Domain Assessment: Presidents and American Symbols

• Read-Aloud
• Flip Book
• Domain Assessment

Sample First Grade Lesson & Domain Assessment: The Birth of Our Nation

• Read-Aloud
• Flip Book
• Domain Assessment

Sample Second Grade Lesson & Domain Assessment: The U.S. Civil War

• Read-Aloud
• Flip Book
• Domain Assessment

Acknowledgments