Core Knowledge Language Arts is a comprehensive language arts curriculum program for students in preschool through grade 5.
While teaching skills in reading, writing, listening, and speaking, Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) also builds students’ knowledge and vocabulary in literature, history, geography, and science. The curriculum covers concepts specified in the Core Knowledge Sequence.
CKLA Curriculum Components
The program includes a range of titles to cover for each grade level, and each year builds upon the knowledge learned in the previous year. CKLA includes everything you’ll need to implement the curriculum in school or at home.
Along with student readers and teacher guides for each domain of study, you’ll find resources such as Listening and Learning student books, skills books, and additional teacher support materials.
See the Domains of StudyImplementation Resources
The Core Knowledge Language Arts program provides the tools and resources you’ll need to implement Core Knowledge in your school, including an implementation guide with professional development opportunities, presentations and other useful resources.
Through your implementation process, you may also find it helpful to explore the research on teaching and learning that informed the development of CKLA, along with a range of articles and presentations on the program.
Download Free CKLA Materials
All Core Knowledge Language Arts curriculum materials for preschool through grade 3 are free to download, except for certain trade book titles. For grades 4 and 5, several CKLA units are available for free download, while others are not due to copyright restrictions. Please review the Terms of Use for free materials.
Featured Title: Nursery Rhymes and Fables
In this Kindergarten Core Knowledge Language Arts domain, students are introduced to nursery rhymes and fables, such as Mother Goose poems and Aesop’s fables.
Download the Domain
Purchase Printed Materials
In addition to free downloads, professionally printed and packaged CKLA classroom kits are available for purchase. Please note that CKLA materials available for free download are first editions, while CKLA materials available for purchase through Amplify are revised editions.
Purchase Classroom Kits
Enriching CKLA with History and Geography Curriculum
Enrich your CKLA lessons with resources from our Core Knowledge History and Geography (CKHG) program. The objectives correlate with the Common Core English Language Arts standards, which call for an increase in nonfiction informational texts. With CKHG in addition to CKLA, you can take an interdisciplinary approach to reading that provides informational texts in a coherent sequence.
Core Classics® Series
In our Core Classics® series, we present stories loved for generations in abridged versions for young readers, faithful to the style, plot, and themes of the originals. The texts support and reinforce knowledge from the CKLA curriculum. 13 Core Classics titles are also available as interactive student e-books.
Core Classics are suitable for reading aloud in the upper elementary grades. For middle school students and older, the texts are appropriate for independent reading.
Free Downloadable Teacher Guides
You may download free Teacher Guides to support classroom use of these Core Classics:
- Don Quixote
- Gulliver’s Travels
- King Arthur and the Round Table
- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Robin Hood
- Robinson Crusoe
- Sherlock Holmes
- Treasure Island
Frequently Asked Questions
Still have questions about CKLA? Browse the Frequently Asked Questions specifically related to Core Knowledge Language Arts in Preschool and K-5.
Terms of Use
The CKLA materials made available for download are freely available for anyone to use, adapt, and share (with attribution). No one is permitted to extract any images included in our PDF materials for use in any other way; to do so would be a violation of the agreements under which the images were licensed. No one is permitted to sell either the original program, an adaptation of it, or lesson plans that reproduce any part of it. For more information, see the Guidelines to Core Knowledge and the Creative Commons License.