This article is a primer on how knowledge indispensably supports reading comprehension and critical thinking, write Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, and E. D. Hirsch Jr., founder and chair of the Core Knowledge Foundation, in an Education Next essay. The essay is edited for length.
If a school switches from a curriculum that ignores the importance of knowledge building to one that prizes it, how will reading instruction advance?
We can draw some reasonable predictions from the role knowledge plays in reading.
If the goal is better performance on a standardized reading test (that is, one that is not tied to curriculum topics) we would not predict an immediate improvement. Our guess is that this progress will take three years or more.
Here’s why: Shared content knowledge contributes to reading because writers omit information they assume the reader already knows. If we’re hoping to see improvement on state tests that were not written to align with a curriculum, educators can’t know which knowledge students need to acquire to do well on the tests.
The goal we’re setting for knowledge building is really that students will know much of what is expected of a competent reader of their age in their culture. That’s great preparation for life after school, but it’s an ambitious goal. We expect that such broad knowledge accretes over years, not months.
We also suggest that knowledge building will improve oral language comprehension as well as reading. It may well improve the learning of other subjects because shared background knowledge in the classroom enables the teacher to use an ever-larger thesaurus of comprehensible analogies and metaphors understood by all children in the class.
Will a knowledge-rich curriculum solve all reading problems?
No. Knowledge is a key driver of comprehension, but students still need to learn to decode fluently. And even students who make good progress in early grades sometimes face obstacles as texts become more complex. Some students who can decode short words have a particular problem with multisyllabic words. Other students stumble as syntax becomes more complex. And in high school, students learn that different disciplines have different conventions of communication.
Are all knowledge-rich curricula equally good?
To provide the student with the ideal text, the teacher must have awareness of what the student already knows. That means that knowledge must be taught in a sequence, where knowledge builds slowly and systematically. Also, knowledge builds on knowledge when it comes to reading. A curriculum should be not only knowledge rich, but also carefully sequenced. The knowledge required to read each new text should be made available to students through prior lessons and within the assignment itself. All students thus enabled are potential lively participants in the discussion of each new text.
How will this curriculum affect disadvantaged students?
We have heard (many times) that a knowledge-rich curriculum might work well for children of wealthy parents but not for children growing up in need; they don’t have the support at home to master the content. We predict the opposite, that a knowledge-rich curriculum will bring an outsized advantage to children experiencing poverty.
Here’s the logic: Data show that as early as kindergarten entry, children from wealthier homes have more knowledge about the world than children experiencing poverty. Thus, for children from low-income homes, school may be the best source of content knowledge. When this source of knowledge becomes richer, it has an even greater effect.
Determining the selection of a school’s reading curriculum is a responsibility that rests with adults. But can adults come to an agreement on content?
When we argue for the benefits of a knowledge-rich curriculum, the question “Whose knowledge?” is inevitably raised. This is a matter that requires adult discussion and debate, and we expect that the result won’t please anyone entirely.
Policymakers are glad to avoid such difficult choices. That’s why our 50 states have abandoned their obligation to institute serious grade-by-grade core topics—without which universal high literacy is not possible. Parents and everyone else who cares about effective education should take note and demand that state legislators act on what scientists know about knowledge and reading.
Not making a choice about curriculum is still a choice. It is choosing haphazard content coverage and the resulting mediocre reading ability for our children. It is also choosing to tolerate appalling gaps between children who grow up in wealth and children who grow up in need.
Opposing a common curriculum because it seems to privilege some knowledge over other knowledge is damming the trickle while neglecting the torrent. Our lack of a systematic, sequential, and shared curriculum induces low literacy and low wisdom. That poses a deep danger to civic competence and thus to democracy itself.
Education Next
