Scottsdale Unified begins first year of K–5 CKLA rollout, district staff describe supports and early observations

Scottsdale — Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) this school year began implementing Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) as its adopted K–5 language-arts curriculum, district elementary language-arts curriculum specialist Diane Murphy said on the districtpodcast "SUSD Spotlight." "CKLA stands for Core Knowledge Language Arts, and it's our adopted program for grades K–5. It's through a company called Amplify, and it's our new — we just started implementing this school year and [are] pretty excited about it," Murphy said.

The district's rollout is accompanied by professional development, a network of school-based "CKLA ambassadors," and classroom strategies that teachers say aim to combine phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency and comprehension. "CKLA does a really great job of incorporating all the pieces, the phonemic awareness, the phonics, the fluency, the comprehension," said Sheena Byerly, a first-grade teacher at Sequoia Elementary School.

Why it matters: Early reading instruction lays a foundation for later learning. District staff argued that the programintentionally builds background knowledge alongside decoding skills so students can "read to learn" after initial grades. "There's something called the simple view of reading, which is decoding times…