Educators and researchers have been fighting the reading wars for the past century, and reading and writing instruction in American schools has been in a dizzying battle, moving from phonics to whole language and, more recently, back to phonics. After more than a quarter-century of declining reading comprehension in the United States, policymakers have entered the fray. Over the past decade, 32 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new “Science of Reading” laws that require schools to use curriculum and instructional techniques that are considered “evidence-based.”
Such reading comprehension programs include direct instruction in reading comprehension skills such as phonics and finding the main idea of a paragraph, and efforts to accelerate learning tend to double down on those same skill-building exercises. . However, research increasingly points to the role of another important aspect of literacy: student knowledge. For example, previous research by both of us has found that young children's knowledge of the social and physical world strongly predicts their academic success in elementary school. Additionally, proponents of knowledge-based education often cite so-called “baseball research,” which shows that students who read texts about baseball and know about baseball, regardless of how much they read in general, They are much better at understanding and summarizing stories than other students. skill.
The Reading for Knowledge Building curriculum is rooted in these insights and uses materials and activities based on integrated science and social studies topics, texts, and vocabulary sequences. However, the potential value of this approach is often an afterthought in state and district efforts to strengthen reading instruction, with systematic approaches to building evidence-based curriculum and student knowledge. The benefits to students of combining efforts have not yet been rigorously documented.
We conducted the first experimental study on this topic based on a randomized kindergarten admissions lottery in nine Colorado charter schools that use an interdisciplinary knowledge-based curriculum called Core Knowledge. To assess the long-term impact that experiencing a knowledge-building curriculum has on student learning, we compared kindergarten lottery winners who attended Core Knowledge Charter School with lottery losers who did not enroll. We compared 3rd to 6th grade statewide test scores between students.
Those who are selected in the admissions lottery and admitted to Core Knowledge Charter School are at the 16th percentile for long-term reading achievement in grades 3 through 6 compared to comparable applicants who were not selected in the admissions lottery. I found that my points improved. The size of the improvement is roughly equivalent to the difference between the mediocre performance of 13-year-olds in the United States and the performance of top-scoring countries such as Singapore and Finland in the 2016 International Reading Comprehension Survey. Our results are also noteworthy in contrast to other studies of reading interventions, which typically find small, short-term effects.
In many public elementary schools, students and teachers spend up to two hours each day teaching reading. Although literacy component skills are important for student development and learning, our findings demonstrate a missed opportunity to accelerate literacy by simultaneously building knowledge. Skill building and knowledge accumulation are separate but complementary cognitive processes, and while the adage “skill begets skill” may be true, a more complete explanation of cognitive development is “skill begets skill.” knowledge begets knowledge, and the combination of skills and knowledge begets both.” ”
Kindergarten lottery for the “core knowledge” charter
The Core Knowledge Curriculum was created in the 1980s by ED Hirsch Jr., a researcher and advocate of knowledge-building education. Its content and activities follow a planned sequence of knowledge and skills that students should accumulate and master in all academic subjects and arts from kindergarten through eighth grade. This “knowledge-based schooling'' approach is based on the belief that a common foundation of shared knowledge is the basis not only for individual students' ability to read, but also for our ability as a society to communicate and promote equal opportunity. I am. An estimated 1,700 schools across the country currently use this curriculum, including more than 50 of her schools in Colorado.
To assess the impact of the Core Knowledge curriculum on student achievement, we investigated nine over-capacity charter schools in Colorado. All of these charter schools used this curriculum, had been open for at least four years, and held random admission lots to enroll kindergarten students in one or both. Academic years 2009-2010 and 2010-2011. Our study included 14 separate lotteries involving 2,310 students, almost all of whom were from high- or middle-income households.
These families typically have a wide range of schooling options based on Colorado's open enrollment system, including private schools, other charter schools, and out-of-district public schools. Approximately 1 in 5 students in our sample applied to more than one charter lottery (typically 2 instead of 1). Approximately 41 percent won at least one lottery ticket, and 47 percent of the winners were admitted to that school. A total of 475 lottery winners attended Core Knowledge Charter, while 1,356 students did not win the lottery and attended other schools. When analyzing the effects of participation in the Core Knowledge Charter, we take into account the fact that not all lottery winners actually registered.
Population decline and family choices
We track lottery applicants' performance on the Partnership for College and Career Readiness Assessment (PARRC) 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade reading and math tests, and the 5th grade science PARRC test. The analysis is based on. By looking at these scores, we can compare the performance of students who have and have not experienced a knowledge-building curriculum over up to seven years of schooling.
However, approximately 36 percent of students in the sample did not complete all scheduled PARCC tests by sixth grade, and the attrition rate for students who did not win the admissions lottery was 5% higher than for students who did. It's a percentage point higher. Detailed student data reveals three key factors. First, some students stop participating in Colorado's PARCC tests because they move out of state, transfer to another school, or homeschool. The second group of students do not have test score data because they are exempt as language learners or special education students. Third, other students fall out of their intended kindergarten cohort later in life because they enter kindergarten late (“redshirting”) or skip or repeat a grade.
To ensure that this attrition does not skew the results, we looked at the four lotteries with the highest declines in lottery winners and losers, and the youngest applicants with or without parents who were most likely to be redshirted. Both were excluded from the analysis. Lottery results. We also adjust results for students' gender, race, ethnicity, and eligibility for free or reduced-price school meals to ensure that demographic differences between lottery winners and losers do not introduce bias.