This information will help you get organized and prepared to homeschool your child using the Core Knowledge Kindergarten Language Arts Skills curriculum.
Important Notes
CK Language Arts Listening & Learning vs. CK Language Arts Skills: The Core Knowledge Language Arts curriculum is split into two strands: Listening & Learning and Skills. Each strand has its own set of curriculum. Both strands are required for a full language arts curriculum. The organization information below is for the Skills strand. All Core Knowledge Kindergarten curriculum can be downloaded here.
1st vs. 2nd Edition: Please note, the support materials available here are specific to the 1st edition Core Knowledge Language Arts curriculum and Core Knowledge Skills curriculum which are available to download for free on the Core Knowledge website. Core Knowledge’s partner Amplify offers 2nd edition materials and homeschooling families can purchase hard copies of those 2nd edition materials from the Amplify website (there is no “free” option for the 2nd edition materials). If you choose to use the 2nd edition materials, you may need to make significant changes to the schedule and prep information provided here. There is no advantage to using the 2nd edition materials beyond the option to purchase preprinted copies online. We recommend using the 1st edition materials. We recommend using the 1st edition curriculum so you can take full advantage of these support materials.
Free Resources
How-to Videos: Watch the videos to learn to use the CKLA Skills curriculum to homeschool.
Unit-Specific Prep Document: Review and download the Kindergarten CKLA Skills Unit-Specific Prep document. Includes notes for each unit of the curriculum including which supplemental pages to print, library books that may be needed, required advanced preparation broken out by lesson, as well as a list of additional unit-specific supplies.
Daily Schedule: Review and download a free daily schedule for homeschooling Kindergarten using the Core Knowledge and MEP Math curriculums.
Placement
You student should ideally have the following skills prior to starting this curriculum. If your student lacks any of these skills, you may need to provide extra support to them before or during the lessons:
- Sing the “Alphabet Song”
- Write their first name
- Recognize the written first names of family members
- Point to words as distinct units on a page of print
- Segment a spoken sentence into separate, distinct words
- Blend multiple syllables together to say a whole word (spoken, not written)
- Given a sound and a choice between two words, identify which word begins with the given sound
- Give the beginning sound for a spoken word
- Identify the number of syllables in a word
- Identify at least 10 letters of the alphabet and give the sounds of at least 3 letters
- Given a word, provide a rhyming word
- Be able to hold a pencil properly
- Trace and then draw independently basic geometric figures
Primary Materials
Units: There are 10 units in the Kindergarten CKLA Skills curriculum. All students start with Unit 1 and progress through the units in order. All 10 units, including the daily lesson assigned, are listed on the Kindergarten daily schedule. You will download each unit separately from the CK website. Each unit will be downloaded as a file folder containing multiple files: The Teacher’s Guide, a Workbook, and a Student Reader (Units 6-10 only).
Teacher’s Guide: This will be primary resource you use each school day. When you are ready to start a lesson with your student, you will simply open the PDF file for the Teacher’s Guide on your tablet or laptop and navigate to the lesson indicated on the daily schedule and work through the instructions in the Teacher’s Guide for that lesson.
Student Reader: The student reader is a file included in the folder of files you downloaded from CK for the unit. When you reach the point in a lesson that calls for using the student reader, simply open the PDF file on your child’s tablet or laptop and navigate to the story scheduled for that day. Please note, Units 1-5 do not have a student reader.
Student Workbook: The student workbook file is included in the folder of files you downloaded from CK for the unit. Whenever possible, please print the whole student workbook prior to beginning the unit. This will save you time each school day. The workbook can be printed as a double-sided document. Once printed you can choose to:
- Keep the loose workbook pages in a file folder or other safe place so you can access the appropriate work page each day.
- Three-hole punch the worksheets and store them in a three-ring binder.
- Have your local office supply store coil-bind or comb-bind the pages into a bound book (typically about $4-$5). Please note, you may be able to print several workbooks and bind them together to save money on binding cost.
The workbook answer key is always located in the back of the Teacher’s Guide.
Big Book: This file is included in the Units 4-8 folders. You will only be using it for Units 4 and 5. Once you reach Unit 6, you will use the Student Reader instead.
Assessment and Remediation Guide (ASG): This guide is designed to assist teachers and families with teaching children whose reading and spelling skills are significantly behind grade level or who have a learning challenge which would benefit from a different type of instruction and more reinforcement of concepts. The lessons in this file are not scheduled as part of the daily workplans. You can find this file in folder of files you downloaded for each unit from the CK website.
Ancillary Components: You will need to download the CKLA Kindergarten Ancillary Components from the CK website. These resources are downloaded as a single file folder containing multiple files. These files will be used throughout the school year (not unit specific):
- Small Letter Cards and Large Letter Cards: These are two separate files. The teacher guide will let you know when to use these cards. Please note, these cards can be accessed as a PDF file on your child’s tablet when needed. Or you may wish to print the files and bind them into a booklet that can be easily accessed and flipped through as needed.
- Sounds Cards: The teacher guide will let you know when to use these cards. Please note, these cards can be accessed as a PDF file on your child’s tablet when needed. While you can print this file, it is not necessary to do so.
- Sound Poster: The teacher guide will let you know when to use these posters. While it is possible to use these cards by opening the PDF file on your child’s tablet, ideally you would print this file and hang the sound posters on the walls around your school area.
- Blending Picture Cards: The teacher guide will let you know when to use these cards. Please note, these cards can be accessed as a PDF file on your child’s tablet when needed. While you can print this file, it is not necessary to do so.
- Chaining Folder: The teacher’s guide will let you know when to use this file.
Getting Organized
Pausing Point: Each unit ends with a Pausing Point and they are included in the schedule. The Pausing Point section in the Teacher’s Guide will list additional exercises you can use to further practice or reinforce a particularly spelling skill or concept. Pausing Point activities can also be used throughout the unit (there are notes in the side column of the Teacher’s Guide when an activity might be useful). Keep in mind though that if you use a PP activity prior to the end of the unit, you may need to help your child with any words in the activity that they haven’t yet learned to decode.
Tracking Documents: There are a number of documents in the Teacher’s Guides for tracking the academic progress of a classroom of students. As a homeschooling parent, you can ignore these.
Important Tips
Phonics vs. Whole Language: If you are new to Core Knowledge, please read pg. 78-87 in the Unit 1 Skills Teacher’s Guide for an important overview of how phonics instruction differs from a whole language approach (typically used by public schools) and how the Skills curriculum is set up.
Kindergarten CKLA: Skills Strand Unit-Specific Prep Checklist
This checklist will help you prepare for each new unit of the Core Knowledge Kindergarten Language Arts Skills curriculum. Please refer to the specific unit list prior to starting a new unit. It will guide you through what what documents to print, when a library book is needed, unit-specific supplies that should be gathered, and special notes for lessons in that unit.
Unit 1
- Read the Unit Introduction: Teacher’s Guide pg. 1-8
- Review the Unit-Specific Notes:
- See the list of additional materials needed for Unit 1 on TG pg. 3-4. It is important to gather these materials in advance.
- It is very helpful to carefully read each lesson the night before it is given.
- This unit includes a variety of documents to track the progress of a large group of students. As a homeschooler, you can disregard these documents.
- Lesson 1: For the vertical drawing surface, you can tape a piece of paper to the wall.
- Lesson 3: Requires advance preparation.
- Lesson 4: Includes a “Blending Pretest”. Students start Kindergarten from a wide variety of backgrounds (ex. some kids have attended academically focused preschools, etc.) The pretest will help you understand what your student may already know. If your student has been home and no formal reading instruction has been given, you can skip this pretest if desired.
- Pausing Point information and activity ideas can be found starting on TG pg. 68.
- Appendices (TG pg. 77) contains important information on how this curriculum works as well as what your student will be learning during Kindergarten.
Unit 2
- Read the Unit Introduction: Teacher’s Guide pg. 1-6
- Review the Unit-Specific Notes:
- See the list of additional materials needed on TG pg. 5. It is important to gather these materials in advance.
- Lesson 5: Requires advance preparation.
- Lesson 6: The Blending Picture Cards are located in the Kindergarten Ancillary Components folder you downloaded from the CK website.
- Pausing Point information and activity ideas can be found starting on TG pg. 61.
- Appendix A (TG pg. 70) has further information on sounds and blending.
- The Letter-Sound Correspondence Pretest is located in Appendix B, TG pg. 90.
- The Letter Name Pretest is located in Appendix C, TG pg. 94.
Unit 3
- Read the Unit Introduction: Teacher’s Guide pg. 1-10
- Review the Unit-Specific Notes:
- See the list of additional materials needed on TG pg. 8. It is important to gather these materials in advance.
- Read TG pg. 6-7 to learn to use the pocket chart for chaining exercises.
- Read TG pg. 7 to learn how to use the Sound Posters. The Sound Poster file is located in the Kindergarten Ancillary Components folder you downloaded from the CK website.
- The Large Letter Cards are located in the Kindergarten Ancillary Components folder you downloaded from the CK website.
- The Sound Posters are located in the Kindergarten Ancillary Components folder you downloaded from the CK website.
- The Sound Cards are located in the Kindergarten Ancillary Components folder you downloaded from the CK website.
- Lessons 3-13: Require advance preparation.
- Pausing Point information and activity ideas can be found starting on TG pg. 82.
- It is highly recommended that you set aside some time to read carefully through the Appendix (TG pg. 95) to better understand the CKLA approach to phonics.
Unit 4
- Read the Unit Introduction: Teacher’s Guide pg. 1-5
- Review the Unit-Specific Notes:
- See the list of additional materials needed on TG pg. 4. It is important to gather these materials in advance.
- The Big Book file is used for this unit and Unit 5. Starting in Unit 6, you will use the Student Reader instead of the Big Book file. The Big Book file is located in the unit folder you downloaded from the CK website. This will be the student’s first introduction to a decodable book.
- Lesson 1-10, 12, and 14-15: Require advance preparation.
- Lesson 5: Print TG pg. 47-50 (one set).
- Lesson 11: Print TG pg. 77
- Pausing Point information and activity ideas can be found starting on TG pg. 95.
- The Appendix (TG pg. 106) contains useful information on Decodable Text and Natural Text.
Unit 5
- Read the Unit Introduction: Teacher’s Guide pg. 1-5
- Review the Unit-Specific Notes:
- See the list of additional materials needed on TG pg. 4. It is important to gather these materials in advance.
- The Big Book file is used for this unit. Starting in the next unit, you will use the Student Reader instead of the Big Book file. The Big Book file is located in the unit folder you downloaded from the CK website.
- Lesson 1, 4-6, 10-11, and 16: Require advance preparation.
- Pausing Point information and activity ideas can be found starting on TG pg. 94.
- The Appendix (TG pg. 110) contains useful information on Teaching Spelling Alternatives.
Unit 6
- Read the Unit Introduction: Teacher’s Guide pg. 1-9
- Review the Unit-Specific Notes:
- See the list of additional materials needed on TG pg. 8. It is important to gather these materials in advance. For the “display-size lower case alphabet letter strip”, you can make your own by typing out the lower case letters and increasing the font size to 40. This is used to introduce all the letters together.
- In this unit, there is a Student Reader for the first time. Once the lessons start using the reader, you can use the reader instead of the Big Book going forward. The Student Reader is located in the folder of unit files you downloaded from the CK website.
- Lesson 1-3, 6, 8, and 10-13: Require advance preparation.
- Pausing Point information and activity ideas can be found starting on TG pg. 96.
Note: For the Lesson 2 in the next unit (Unit 7), you should have a copy of the book “One Fish, Two Fish” by Dr. Seuss. If you do not own this book, please request a copy from your local library.
Unit 7
- Read the Unit Introduction: Teacher’s Guide pg. 1-6
- Review the Unit-Specific Notes:
- See the list of additional materials needed on TG pg. 5. It is important to gather these materials in advance.
- Lesson 2-3, 5-8, 10-11, 13-14, and 17: Require advance preparation.
- Lesson 2: Suggests using the book One Fish, Two Fish by Dr. Seuss.
- Lesson 17: Print TG pg. 104-107 (one set).
- Pausing Point information and activity ideas can be found starting on TG pg. 109.
Unit 8
- Read the Unit Introduction: Teacher’s Guide pg. 1-9
- Review the Unit-Specific Notes:
- See the list of additional materials needed on TG pg. 6. It is important to gather these materials in advance.
- Lesson 1-6, 8-9, 12-17, and 19: Require advance preparation.
- Lessons 15-20: Please read the assessment information on TG pg. 84-87 before starting Lesson 15.
- Pausing Point information and activity ideas can be found starting on TG pg. 126.
- The Appendix (TG pg. 141) contains useful information on tricky words and sight words.
Unit 9
- Read the Unit Introduction: Teacher’s Guide pg. 1-5
- Review the Unit-Specific Notes:
- Lesson 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 14-15, and 19: Require advance preparation.
- Pausing Point information and activity ideas can be found starting on TG pg. 108.
Unit 10
- Read the Unit Introduction: Teacher’s Guide pg. 1-8
- Review the Unit-Specific Notes:
- Lesson 1, 3, 5-7, 9-11, 13, 15, 17, 19-20, 22, 24-28: Require advance preparation.
- Lessons 11 and 17: Suggests using different colors of chalk (optional).
- Pausing Point information and activity ideas can be found starting on TG pg. 158.
Note: The Pausing Point activities also make excellent activities to use with your student over the summer break to keep their reading and spelling skills up during the break.
The Core Knowledge Foundation is a non-profit organization and has generously made their curriculum free to download. If you are able to, please consider making a donation to support their ongoing curriculum development efforts.
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