Amplify CKLA Review for Alabama
CKLA – Knowledge Research Units for K–5
Introducing new units for Amplify CKLA and Amplify Caminos K–5
As part of our commitment to creating even richer and more wide-ranging curricula, we are excited to release six new units for both Amplify CKLA and Amplify Caminos!
About these units
Our brand-new Knowledge Research units carry forward the powerful and proven instructional approach of both Amplify CKLA and Amplify Caminos while also:
- Adding more variety to engage students from many walks of life. The rich topics and highly visual components featured in these units provide students with even more “windows and mirrors” and perspectives as they work to build knowledge.
- Adding more authentic literature. Each new research unit revolves around a collection of high-interest authentic trade books that will spark more curiosity and inspire more inquiry.
- Adding more flexibility. Units can be implemented for extended core instruction during flex periods, district-designated Pausing Points, or enrichment periods.
Units cover a variety of rich and relevant topics:
With these new units, students will soar to new heights with Dr. Ellen Ochoa, Amelia Earhart, and the Tuskegee Airmen. They’ll feel the rhythm as they learn about Jazz legends Miles Davis, Tito Puente, and Duke Ellington. And they’ll explore the far reaches of the world with Jacques Cousteau, Matthew Henson, and Eugenie Clark.
- Grade K: Art and the World Around Us/El arte y el mundo que nos rodea
- Grade 1: Adventure Stories: Tales from the Edge of the World/Cuentos de aventuras: relatos desde los confines de la Tierra
- Grade 2: Up, Up, and Away: The Age of Aviation/¡A volar! La era de la aviación
- Grade 3: All That Jazz/Jazz y más
- Grade 4: Energy: Past, Present, and Future/Energía: pasado, presente y futuro
- Grade 5: Beyond Juneteenth: 1865 to present/Más allá de Juneteenth: de 1865 al presente
Units are available in English and Spanish, and will include the following components:
- Teacher Guide
- Student Activity Books
- Image Cards
- Trade Book Collection
- Digital Components (grades K–3 and 5)
Grade K: Art and the World Around Us/El arte y el mundo que nos rodea
“Every child is an artist,” said Picasso, meaning that every child uses art to explore and understand the world around them. Art and the World Around Us honors that truth by introducing Kindergarten students to some of the ways in which artists have explored and understood the worlds around them, too.
This domain introduces students to artists from different time periods, countries, and cultures. Throughout the unit, students learn about different kinds of art and how artists use the world around them as they make art. They also connect this to what they have already learned about the earth, plants, and animals in other Amplify CKLA and Amplify Caminos domains: Farms/Granjas, Plants/Plantas, and Taking Care of the Earth/Cuidar el planeta Tierra. In addition, students connect this to what they have learned about sculptors in the Presidents and American Symbols/Presidentes y símbolos de los Estados Unidos domain. As they explore different artists and artistic traditions, they develop their ideas about how humans are connected to each other and to the world around them.
As you read the texts in this unit, students may observe ways in which the characters or subjects are both similar to and different from students. This is a good opportunity to teach students awareness and sensitivity, building on the idea that all people share some things in common, and have other things that make them unique. This unit also offers an excellent opportunity to collaborate with your school’s art teacher, as many lessons have suggested activities to help students understand the kind of art they are studying.
Within this unit, students have opportunities to:
- Use details to describe art.
- Identify three ways to create art.
- Identify characteristics of cave art.
- Sequence the steps of making pottery.
- Describe how artists can create work connected to the world around them.
- Describe what makes Kehinde Wiley’s portraits unique.
- Explain how the texture of a surface can affect artwork created on it.
- Explain what a sculpture is.
- Describe what makes James Turrell’s artwork about the sky unique.
- Explain what a museum is and what kinds of things you can see or do there.
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- The First Drawing by Mordicai Gerstein
- Van Gogh and the Sunflowers by Laurence Anholt
- My Name is Georgia by Jeanette Winter
- A Life Made by Hand by Andrea D’Aquino
- Rainbow Weaver by Linda Elovitz Marshall
- Luna Loves Art by Joseph Coelho
Grade 1: Adventure Stories: Tales from the Edge of the World/Cuentos de aventuras: relatos desde los confines de la Tierra
This domain introduces students to adventure stories set around the world and challenges students to dig into the adventures through research. By listening to the Read-Alouds and trade books, students increase their vocabulary and reading comprehension skills, learn valuable lessons about perseverance and teamwork, and become familiar with gathering information for research.
In this unit, students study the careers of real-world explorers Dr. Eugenie Clark and Sophia Danenberg, marvel at the inventions of Jacques Cousteau, think critically about how teamwork and collaboration can make greater adventures possible, learn about the science and technology that enable adventures, and research some of the ways humans have confronted challenges at the edges of the world, from the oceans below to space above.
Each lesson in the domain builds students’ research skills as they ask questions, gather information, and write a paragraph about their findings. Students share what they have learned about adventures in an Adventure Gallery Walkthrough. By taking on the persona of one of the adventurers they meet in the Read-Alouds and trade books, students deliver their final paragraphs as if they are a “speaking portrait” of that person. Students are invited to dress up as that adventurer if they desire.
In addition, teachers can set aside time outside of the instructional block to create the picture frames students will hold as they present to the Adventure Gallery Walk guests. Frames can be made from shirt boxes, cardboard, construction paper, or any art supplies that are on hand. This might be an opportunity to collaborate with the school’s art department if resources are available. Another option is to ask students to make their frames at home with their caregivers. On the day of the Adventure Gallery Walk, students will be the hosts and take on specific jobs, such as welcoming the guests, describing their work throughout the unit, and pointing out the areas of study on the domain bulletin board. You can find a complete list of student jobs in Lesson 13.
This unit builds upon the following Amplify CKLA and Amplify Caminos units that students will have encountered in the previous grade.
- Nursery Rhymes and Fables/Rimas y fábulas infantiles (Kindergarten)
- Stories/Cuentos (Kindergarten)
The specific core content targeted in these domains is particularly relevant to the Read-Alouds students will hear in Adventure Stories: Tales from the Edge of the World. The background knowledge students bring to this unit will greatly enhance their understanding of the trade books used in this unit.
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- My Name is Gabito/Me llamo Gabito by Monica Brown
- Tomas and the Galápagos Adventure by Carolyn Lunn
- The Astronaut with a Song for the Stars: The Story of Dr. Ellen Ochoa by Julia Finley Mosca
- Mae Among the Stars by Roda Ahmed
- Shark Lady: The True Story of How Eugenie Clark Became the Ocean’s Most Fearless Scientist by Jess Keating
- Manfish by Jennifer Berne
- Keep On! The Story of Matthew Henson, Co-Discoverer of the North Pole by Deborah Hopkinson
- The Top of the World: Climbing Mount Everest by Steve Jenkins
Grade 2: Up, Up, and Away: The Age of Aviation/¡A volar! La era de la aviación
With this domain, students head up, up, and away with an introduction to the soaring history of aviation. Students learn the stories of early aviators, such as the Montgolfier brothers, the Wright brothers, Aída de Acosta, and Amelia Earhart.
During the unit, students study the science of flight, including the physics concept of lift, and research the social impacts of the world of flight. Finally, students let their research skills take flight as they explore key figures from the world of aviation.
The lessons in this domain build on earlier Grade 2 CKLA and Amplify Caminos domains about the westward expansion, early Greek civilizations, and Greek myths, and lay the foundation for learning about other periods of world history in future grades.
This unit builds upon the following Amplify CKLA and Amplify Caminos units that students will have encountered earlier in the year.
- The Ancient Greek Civilization/La civilización griega antigua (Grade 2)
- Greek Myths/Mitos griegos (Grade 2)
- Westward Expansion/La expansión hacia el oeste (Grade 2)
The specific core content targeted in these domains is particularly relevant to the Read-Alouds students will hear in Up, Up, and Away: The Age of Aviation. The background knowledge students bring to this unit will greatly enhance their understanding of the trade books used in this unit.
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- Up and Away!: How Two Brothers Invented the Hot-Air Balloon by Jason Henry
- The Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Blériot by Alice and Martin Provensen
- The Flying Girl: How Aída de Acosta Learned to Soar by Margarita Engle
- Wood, Wire, Wings: Emma Lilian Todd Invents an Airplane by Kirsten Larson
- Helicopter Man: Igor Sikorsky and His Amazing Invention by Edwin Brit Wyckoff
- The Tuskegee Airmen Story by Lynn Homan and Thomas Reilly
- Skyward: The Story of Female Pilots in WWII by Sally Deng
- Aim for the Skies: Jerrie Mock and Joan Merriam Smith’s Race to Complete Amelia Earhart’s Quest by Aimee Bissonette
Grade 3: All That Jazz/Jazz y más
This domain teaches students about the vibrant music, poetry, and culture of the Jazz Age in the United States. Students learn about famous writers and musicians like Langston Hughes, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Melba Liston, Tito Puente, and Miles Davis. They study how the jazz art form took root in the South, then spread to the North to become the sound of the Harlem Renaissance, eventually connecting people around the world in musical expression.
During this unit, students perform guided research to further explore both the history of jazz and what jazz is today. They develop research skills and then use those skills to find deeper connections between the stories and music of the Jazz Age and music today. As students learn about the world of jazz, they collaborate and share ideas with their classmates. They also practice sharing feedback focused on their written work, and, at the end of the unit, students present their research to the group.
The lessons give students opportunities to dive into the rhythms and stories of jazz, utilizing the knowledge sequence in this unit to:
- Collaboratively generate research questions about jazz, jazz musicians, contemporary musicians from the state where they live or have lived, and the evolution of jazz music.
- Utilize Read-Alouds, independent reading, and partner reading to learn about the Jazz Age, the Harlem Renaissance, jazz music, and biographies of celebrated jazz musicians and writers.
- Research the answers to their generated questions, gather information, write a short research essay about a famous jazz musician, write a short essay about a contemporary musician from the state where they live or have lived, and give a presentation about their research.
Within this unit, students have opportunities to:
- Ask relevant questions and make pertinent comments
- Identify details in texts
- Determine key ideas of texts by evaluating details
- Make text-based inferences
- Generate questions based on prior knowledge and gathered information
- Synthesize details across texts to demonstrate comprehension
- Discuss and explain an author’s purpose
- Identify and cite reliable primary and secondary sources of information
- Compose a well-organized and focused informative essay
- Make connections between topics
- Present information using appropriate media
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- Birth of the Cool: How Jazz Great Miles Davis Found His Sound by Kathleen Cornell Berman
- Little Melba and Her Big Trombone by Kathryn Russell-Brown
- Benny Goodman and Teddy Wilson: Taking the Stage as the First Black and White Jazz Band in History by Lesa Cline-Ransome
- Tito Puente, Mambo King by Monica Brown
- Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl’s Courage Changed Music by Margarita Engle
- Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra by Andrea Pinkney
In this unit, students also read the poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes. (Available for free through the Academy of American Poets website and the Poetry Foundation website, with recorded audio available through the website for John Hancock College Preparatory High School.)
Grade 4: Energy: Past, Present, and Future/Energía: pasado, presente y futuro
With this domain, students become tomorrow’s problem solvers in this study of energy in the United States. Analytical reading skills are developed by examining the challenges of early energy innovators. Students then read about current energy practices and young energy change-makers across the world.
Throughout the unit, students conduct research into different sources of energy and present a proposal, putting them in the shoes of future energy innovators. They also use the knowledge sequence in this unit to:
- Collaboratively analyze texts to identify cause-effect and problem-solution relationships.
- Generate questions and conduct research about energy.
- Write an opinion essay making their case for a fuel of the future.
- Create energy proposals using primary and secondary resources.
This unit builds upon the following Amplify CKLA units that students will have encountered in previous grades as well as earlier in the year.
- Plants/Plantas (Grade K)
- The History of the Earth/La historia de la Tierra (Grade 1)
- Eureka! Student Inventor/¡Eureka! El arte de la invención (Grade 4)
The specific core content targeted in these domains is particularly relevant to the Read-Alouds students will hear in Energy: Past, Present, and Future. The background knowledge students bring to this unit will greatly enhance their understanding of the trade books used in this unit.
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- Buried Sunlight: How Fossil Fuels Have Changed the Earth by Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm
- Energy Island: How One Community Harnessed the Wind and Changed their World by Allan Drummond
- The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Picture Book Edition by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
Grade 5: Beyond Juneteenth: 1865 to present/Más allá de Juneteenth: de 1865 al presente
Within this domain, Students learn about General Granger’s announcement in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, a day marked in history as Juneteenth. Texts and multimedia sources will support foundational knowledge-building about the end of slavery in the United States. A review of the first freedom announcement, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, provides students with background knowledge to further emphasize the significance of Juneteenth in American history.
This unit also takes students on a journey beyond Juneteenth, as they study specific contributions of African Americans from 1865 to the present day. Students participate in a virtual field trip to Emancipation Park in Houston, Texas and use the knowledge sequence in this unit to:
- Collaboratively generate research questions about Juneteenth, The Great Migration, innovators and inventors, education, the humanities, activists, and allies.
- Use Read-Alouds, independent, and partner reading to learn about African American contributions from 1865 to the present.
- Research to find answers to their generated questions, gather information, and write a four-chapter Beyond Juneteenth book.
This unit builds upon the following Amplify CKLA units that students will have encountered in previous grades.
- Native Americans/Los nativos americanos (Grade K)
- A New Nation: American Independence/Una nueva nación: la independencia de los Estados Unidos
(Grade 1) - The U.S. Civil War/La Guerra Civil de los Estados Unidos (Grade 2)
- Immigration/La inmigración (Grade 2)
- Native Americans/Los nativos americanos (Grade 5)
The specific core content targeted in these domains is particularly relevant to the Read-Alouds students will hear in Beyond Juneteenth: 1865 to present. The background knowledge students bring to this unit will greatly enhance their understanding of the trade books used in this unit.
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- All Different Now: Juneteenth, the First Day of Freedom by Angela Johnson
- The Great Migration: An American Story by Jacob Lawrence
- Sing a Song: How “Lift Every Voice and Sing” Inspired Generations by Kelly Starling Lyons
- Side by Side/ Lado a lado: The Story of Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez/ La Historia de Dolores Huerta y Cesar Chavez by Monica Brown
- Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters by Barack Obama
Amplify and SFUSD Partnership
We recognize and respect the unique differences of each of our partnering districts—and that includes San Francisco USD.
Out of the box, Amplify Caminos offers districts a rich, comprehensive, research-based SELA experience. That said, no two districts are exactly alike. To that end, we are committed to working with San Francisco USD to ensure that Amplify Caminos addresses the needs of your community. This includes providing implementation guidance and support, as well as collaborating with your staff to determine which domains need to be modified or exchanged.
What is Amplify Caminos?
Amplify Caminos is a core Spanish language arts program for grades TK–5 that delivers:
- Authentic instruction built from the ground up for the Spanish language.
- A unique research-based approach truly built on the Science of Reading.
- A combination of explicit foundational skills with meaningful knowledge-building.
- Embedded support and differentiation that gets all students reading grade-level texts together.
- Opportunities for students to see the strengths and experiences that all people share while also celebrating each others’ unique identities and experiences.
Watch the video below to learn more about Amplify Caminos for Grades K–2.
Watch the video below to learn more about Amplify Caminos for Grades 3–5.
How does Amplify Caminos work?
Amplify Caminos is built on the science of how kids learn to read—in Spanish.
Amplify Caminos is all about helping you teach students how to read, all while giving them authentic and engaging reasons to read. That’s why Amplify Caminos develops foundational skills and builds knowledge in tandem.
- Knowledge: Through complex and authentic Spanish read-alouds with an emphasis on classroom interactivity, oral comprehension, and contextual vocabulary, students start to build their awareness of the world around them—and the way the reading skills they’re building give them access to it.
- Skills: Starting with the sounds at the core of the Spanish
language, students practice their phonemic awareness, handwriting skills, vocabulary, spelling, and grammar. Through daily practice, students become aware of the connection between reading and writing, building confidence as they go.
Respecting the development differences between grade ranges, Amplify Caminos teaches foundational skills and background knowledge as two distinct strands in grades K–2, and combines them into one integrated strand in grades 3–5.
Grades K–2:
Every day, students in grades K–2 complete one full lesson that explicitly and systematically builds foundational reading skills in the Amplify Caminos Lectoescritura strand, as well as one full lesson that builds robust background knowledge to access complex text in the Amplify Caminos Conocimiento strand. Through learning in each of these strands, students develop the early literacy skills necessary to help them become confident readers and build the context to understand what they’re reading.
Grades 3–5:
In grades 3–5, the Amplify Caminos Lectoescritura and Conocimiento strands are integrated in one set of instructional materials. Lessons begin to combine skills and knowledge with increasingly complex texts, close reading, and a greater writing emphasis. Students can then use their skills to go on their own independent reading adventures.
What do Amplify Caminos students explore?
Amplify Caminos builds students’ knowledge about the world.
In addition to teaching all students to crack the written code (which is vital for equity), the Amplify Caminos program helps students see the strengths and experiences we all share while celebrating their own unique identities and experiences.
This is accomplished through the exploration of topics and text that feature people who resemble students and familiar situations or experiences while also exposing them to people whose appearances, lives, beliefs, and backgrounds differ from their own.
Engaging domains
Amplify Caminos builds knowledge coherently across subjects and grades.
Throughout the program, students use their skills to explore domains that relate to storytelling, science, and the history of our world as seen through the eyes of many different groups.
Carefully selected to build from year-to-year, our grade-appropriate topics help students make and deepen connections while also reading, writing, and thinking creatively and for themselves.
New Knowledge Research Units for Grades K–5
Our brand-new Knowledge Research units carry forward Amplify Caminos’ powerful and proven instructional approach while also:
- Adding more diversity. The rich topics and highly visual components featured in these units provide students with even more “windows and mirrors” and perspectives as they work to build knowledge.
- Adding more authentic literature. Each new research unit revolves around a collection of high-interest authentic trade books that will spark more curiosity and inspire more inquiry.
- Adding more flexibility. Units can be implemented for extended core instruction during flex periods, district-designated Pausing Points, or enrichment periods.
Units cover a variety of rich and relevant topics:
With these new units, students will soar to new heights with Dr. Ellen Ochoa, Amelia Earhart, and the Tuskegee Airmen. They’ll feel the rhythm as they learn about Jazz legends Miles Davis, Tito Puente, and Duke Ellington. And they’ll explore the far reaches of the world with Jacques Cousteau, Matthew Henson, and Eugenie Clark.
- Grade K: El arte y el mundo que nos rodea
- Grade 1: Cuentos de aventuras: relatos desde los confines de la Tierra
- Grade 2: ¡A volar! La era de la aviación
- Grade 3: Jazz y más
- Grade 4: Energía: pasado, presente y futuro
- Grade 5: Más allá de Juneteenth: de 1865 al presente
Units will be made available in English and Spanish, and will include the following components:
Why we added this unit:
“Every child is an artist,” said Picasso, meaning that every child uses art to explore and understand the world around them. El arte y el mundo que nos rodea honors that truth by introducing Kindergarten students to some of the ways in which artists have explored and understood the world around them.
This domain introduces students to artists from different time periods, countries, and cultures. Throughout the unit, students learn about different kinds of art and how artists use the world around them as they make art. They also connect this to what they have already learned about the earth, plants, and animals in other Caminos domains: Granjas, Plantas, and Cuidar el planeta Tierra. In addition, students connect this to what they have learned about sculptors in the Presidentes y símbolos de los Estados Unidos domain. As they explore different artists and artistic traditions, they develop their ideas about how humans are connected to each other and to the world around them.
As you read the texts in this unit, students may observe ways in which the characters or subjects are both similar to and different from students. This is a good opportunity to teach students awareness and sensitivity, building on the idea that all people share some things in common, even as they have other things that make them unique. This unit also offers an excellent opportunity to collaborate with your school’s art teacher, as many lessons have suggested activities to help students understand the kind of art they are studying.
Within this unit, students have opportunities to:
- Use details to describe art.
- Identify three ways to create art.
- Identify characteristics of cave art.
- Sequence the steps of making pottery.
- Describe how artists can create work connected to the world around them.
- Describe what makes Kehinde Wiley’s portraits unique.
- Explain how the texture of a surface can affect artwork created on it.
- Explain what a sculpture is.
- Describe what makes James Turrell’s artwork about the sky unique.
- Explain what a museum is and what kinds of things you can see or do there.
Trade books in this unit:
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- Georgia O’Keeffe por Erica Salcedo
- Yayoi Kusama: De aquí al infinito por Sarah Suzuki
- Tejedora del arcoíris por Linda Elovitz Marshall
- Las tijeras de Matisse por Jeanette Winter
- El museo por Susan Verde
- Quizás algo hermoso: Cómo el arte transformó un barrio por F. Isabel Campoy
Sample materials:
Take a sneak peek at the rich instruction and engaging activities for this unit by viewing the PDFs below.
Why we added this unit:
This domain introduces students to adventure stories set around the world and challenges students to dig into the adventures through research. By listening to the Read-Alouds and trade books, students increase their vocabulary and reading comprehension skills, learn valuable lessons about perseverance and teamwork, and become familiar with gathering information for research.
In this unit, students study the careers of real-world explorers Dr. Eugenie Clark and Sophia Danenberg, marvel at the inventions of Jacques Cousteau, think critically about how teamwork and collaboration can make greater adventures possible, learn about the science and technology that enable adventures, and research some of the ways humans have confronted challenges at the edges of the world, from the oceans below to space above.
Each lesson in the domain builds students’ research skills as they ask questions, gather information, and write a paragraph about their findings. Students share what they have learned about adventures in an Adventure Gallery Walkthrough. By taking on the persona of one of the adventurers they meet in the Read-Alouds and trade books, students deliver their final paragraphs as if they are a “speaking portrait” of that person. Students are invited to dress up as that adventurer if they desire.
In addition, teachers can set aside time outside the instructional block to create the picture frames students will hold as they present to the Adventure Gallery Walk guests. Frames can be made from shirt boxes, cardboard, construction paper, or any art supplies that are on hand. This might be an opportunity to collaborate with the school’s art department if resources are available. Another option is to ask students to make their frames at home with their caregivers. On the day of the Adventure Gallery Walk, students will be the hosts and take on specific jobs, such as welcoming the guests, describing their work throughout the unit, and pointing out the areas of study on the domain bulletin board. You can find a complete list of student jobs in Lesson 13.
How this unit builds knowledge:
This unit builds upon the following Caminos units that students will have encountered in the previous grade.
- Rimas y fábulas infantiles (Kindergarten)
- Cuentos (Kindergarten)
The specific core content targeted in these domains is particularly relevant to the Read-Alouds students will hear in Cuentos de aventuras: relatos desde los confines de la Tierra. The background knowledge students bring to this unit will greatly enhance their understanding of the trade books used in this unit.
Trade books in this unit:
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- My Name Is Gabito/Me llamo Gabito por Monica Brown
- Galápagos Girl/Galapagueña por Marsha Diane Arnold
- My Name Is Gabriela/Me llamo Gabriela por Monica Brown
- El viaje de Kalak por María Quintana Silva y Marie-Noëlle Hébert
- Señorita Mariposa por Ben Gundersheimer
- Sharuko, el arqueólogo peruano/Peruvian Archaeologist Julio C. Tello por Monica Brown
- Abuelita fue al mercado por Stella Blackstone
Sample materials:
Take a sneak peek at the rich instruction and engaging activities for this unit by viewing the PDFs below.
- Guía del maestro: Cuentos de aventuras: relatos desde los confines de la Tierra
- Cuaderno de actividades: Cuentos de aventuras: relatos desde los confines de la Tierra
- Tarjetas de imágenes: Cuentos de aventuras: relatos desde los confines de la Tierra
- Componentes digitales: Cuentos de aventuras: relatos desde los confines de la Tierra
Why we added this unit:
With this domain, students head up, up, and away with an introduction to the soaring history of aviation. Students learn the stories of early aviators, such as the Montgolfier brothers, the Wright brothers, Aida de Acosta, and Amelia Earhart.
During the unit, students study the science of flight, including the physics concept of lift, and research the social impacts of the world of flight. Finally, students let their research skills take flight as they explore key figures from the world of aviation.
The lessons in this domain build on earlier Grade 2 Caminos domains about the westward expansion, early Greek civilizations, and Greek myths, and lay the foundation for learning about other periods of world history in future grades.
How this unit builds knowledge:
This unit builds upon the following Caminos units that students will have encountered earlier in the year.
- La civilización griega antigua (Grade 2)
- Mitos griegos (Grade 2)
- La expansión hacia el oeste (Grade 2)
The specific core content targeted in these domains is particularly relevant to the Read-Alouds students will hear in ¡A volar! La era de la aviación. The background knowledge students bring to this unit will greatly enhance their understanding of the trade books used in this unit.
Trade books in this unit:
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- ¡A volar! Todo sobre aviones por Jennifer Prior
- Amelia sabe volar por Mara dal Corso
- Héroes de la aviación que cambiaron el mundo por Dan Green
- El niño que alcanzó las estrellas por José M. Hernández
- La niña que aprendió a volar por Sylvia Acevedo
- Buenas Noches Capitán Mamá por Graciela Tiscareño-Sato
Sample materials:
Take a sneak peek at the rich instruction and engaging activities for this unit by viewing the PDFs below.
Why we added this unit:
This domain teaches students about the vibrant music, poetry, and culture of the Jazz Age in the United States. Students learn about famous writers and musicians like Langston Hughes, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Melba Liston, Tito Puente, and Miles Davis. They study how the jazz art form took root in the South, then spread to the North to become the sound of the Harlem Renaissance, eventually connecting people around the world in musical expression.
During this unit, students perform guided research to further explore both the history of jazz and what jazz is today. They develop research skills and then use those skills to find deeper connections between the stories and music of the Jazz Age and music today. As students learn about the world of jazz, they collaborate and share ideas with their classmates. They also practice sharing feedback focused on their written work, and, at the end of the unit, students present their research to the group.
The lessons give students opportunities to dive into the rhythms and stories of jazz, utilizing the knowledge sequence in this unit to:
- Collaboratively generate research questions about jazz, jazz musicians, contemporary musicians from the state where they live or have lived, and the evolution of jazz music.
- Utilize Read-Alouds, independent reading, and partner reading to learn about the Jazz Age, the Harlem Renaissance, jazz music, and biographies of celebrated jazz musicians and writers.
- Research the answers to their generated questions, gather information, write a short research essay about a famous jazz musician, write a short essay about a contemporary musician from the state where they live or have lived, and give a presentation about their research.
How this unit builds knowledge:
Within this unit, students have opportunities to:
- Ask relevant questions and make pertinent comments
- Identify details in texts
- Determine key ideas of texts by evaluating details
- Make text-based inferences
- Generate questions based on prior knowledge and gathered information
- Synthesize details across texts to demonstrate comprehension
- Discuss and explain an author’s purpose
- Identify and cite reliable primary and secondary sources of information
- Compose a well-organized and focused informative essay
- Make connections between topics
- Present information using appropriate media
Trade books in this unit:
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- ¡Esquivel! Un artista del sonido de la era espacial por Susan Wood
- Ray Charles por Sharon Bell Mathis
- Tito Puente, el Rey del Mambo por Monica Brown
- Me llamo Celia, la vida de Celia Cruz por Monica Brown
- ¡Azúcar! por Ivar Da Coll
In this unit, students also read the poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes. (Available for free through the Academy of American Poets website and the Poetry Foundation website, with recorded audio available through the website for John Hancock College Preparatory High School.)
Sample materials:
Take a sneak peek at the rich instruction and engaging activities for this unit by viewing the PDFs below.
Why we added this unit:
With this domain, students become tomorrow’s problem solvers in this study of energy in the United States. Analytical reading skills are developed by examining the challenges of early energy innovators. Students then read about current energy practices and young energy change-makers across the world.
Throughout the unit, students conduct research into different sources of energy and present a proposal, putting them in the shoes of future energy innovators. They also use the knowledge sequence in this unit to:
- Collaboratively analyze texts to identify cause-effect and problem-solution relationships.
- Generate questions and conduct research about energy.
- Write an opinion essay making their case for a fuel of the future.
- Create energy proposals using primary and secondary resources.
How this unit builds knowledge:
This unit builds upon the following Caminos units that students will have encountered in previous grades as well as earlier in the year.
- Plantas (Grade K)
- La historia de la Tierra (Grade 1)
- ¡Eureka! Estudiante inventor (Grade 4)
The specific core content targeted in these domains is particularly relevant to the Read-Alouds students will hear in Energía: pasado, presente y futuro. The background knowledge students bring to this unit will greatly enhance their understanding of the trade books used in this unit.
Trade books in this unit:
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- La historia de los combustibles fósiles por William B. Rice
- El niño que domó el viento por William Kamkwamba y Bryan Mealer
Sample materials:
Take a sneak peek at the rich instruction and engaging activities for this unit by viewing the PDFs below.
Why we added this unit:
Within this domain, Students learn about General Granger’s announcement in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, a day marked in history as Juneteenth. Texts and multimedia sources will support foundational knowledge-building about the end of slavery in the United States. A review of the first freedom announcement, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, provides students with background knowledge to further emphasize the significance of Juneteenth in American history.
This unit also takes students on a journey beyond Juneteenth, as they study specific contributions of African Americans from 1865 to the present day. Students participate in a virtual field trip to Emancipation Park in Houston, Texas and use the knowledge sequence in this unit to:
- Collaboratively generate research questions about Juneteenth, The Great Migration, innovators and inventors, education, the humanities, activists, and allies.
- Use Read-Alouds, independent, and partner reading to learn about African American contributions from 1865 to the present.
- Research to find answers to their generated questions, gather information, and write a four-chapter Beyond Juneteenth book.
How this unit builds knowledge:
This unit builds upon the following Caminos units that students will have encountered in previous grades.
- Los nativos americanos (Grade K)
- Una nueva nación: la independencia de los Estados Unidos (Grade 1)
- La Guerra Civil de los Estaods Unidos (Grade 2)
- La inmigración (Grade 2)
- Los nativos americanos (Grade 5)
The specific core content targeted in these domains is particularly relevant to the Read-Alouds students will hear in Más allá de Juneteenth: de 1865 al presente
. The background knowledge students bring to this unit will greatly enhance their understanding of the trade books used in this unit.
Trade books in this unit:
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- Martí’s Song for Freedom/Martí y sus versos por la libertad escrito por Emma Otheguy
- ¡Celebremos Juneteenth! escrito por Carole Boston Weatherford
- Side by Side/Lado a Lado: The Story of Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez/La Historia de Dolores Huerta y César Chávez escrito por Monica Brown
- Canto de alabanza para el día: Poema para la ceremonia inaugural del mandato de Barack Obama escrito por Elizabeth Alexander, traducido por Rodrigo Rojas
Sample materials:
Take a sneak peek at the rich instruction and engaging activities for this unit by viewing the PDFs below.
Diverse texts
Amplify Caminos puts a variety of texts in the hands of students every day.
Amplify Caminos includes both transadaptations and authentic texts written by Latin American and Spanish authors. In addition to featuring a diverse range of authors and topics, our texts represent individuals and characters with a broad range of identity factors, including socioeconomic status, age, ability, race, ethnicity, country of origin, religion, and more.
Amplify Caminos texts include:
- Authentic literature: Authentic literature exposes students to a variety of text types and perspectives to deepen their knowledge of fascinating topics in social studies, science, literature, and the arts. Authentic texts support text-to-self, text-to-world, and text-to-text connections for readers.
- Decodable Student Readers: Amplify Caminos is built on the conviction that equitable instruction is vital to an effective program. Decodable Student Readers at grades K–2 are newly re-designed to celebrate students’ diverse experiences and feature individuals with a broad range of identity factors, including socioeconomic status, age, ability, race, ethnicity, country of origin, religion, and more.
- ReadWorks® texts: Amplify and ReadWorks have partnered to deliver high-quality texts curated to support the Amplify Caminos Knowledge Sequence and to extend student learning. Texts include high-interest nonfiction articles in topics in social studies, science, literature, and the arts. These texts are accompanied by vocabulary supports and standards-aligned formative assessment opportunities. Teachers can monitor their students’ progress using the ReadWorks reporting features.
Amplify Caminos Trade Book Collection Guide
Each book in our authentic literature collection was selected specifically to support and enhance the content of the K-2 Conocimiento Strand. These anchor texts are intended for use as an introduction to each domain—engaging students, piquing their curiosity, and building initial background knowledge—before diving into the deeper content of the domain Read-Alouds.
Every trade book has an instructional guide that includes the following:
- Author and illustrator
- Book summary
- The Essential Question of the Knowledge domain, connecting the book to the domain
- Key Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary words found in the book
- A group activity to reinforce and extend students’ knowledge and understanding
- A performance task to help gauge students’ comprehension of concepts in the text
- Writing prompts to expand understanding and critical thinking
- Text complexity ratings and descriptors for quantitative, qualitative, and reader/task categories
Download the Amplify Caminos Trade Book Collection Guide for Grades K–2.
Detailed information about text complexity ratings and descriptors; additional uses for the books before, during, and after domain instruction; and the complete list of domains and books for each grade level can be found in the More About the Books section of this guide.
What makes Amplify Caminos different?
Built on the Science of Reading
Built out of the latest research in the Science of Reading, Amplify Caminos delivers explicit instruction in both foundational literacy skills (systematic phonics, decoding, and fluency) and background knowledge in grades K–2 with an integrated approach to explicit instruction in grades 3–5.
Explicit systematic skills instruction
The skills instruction in Amplify Caminos was distinctly developed with the Spanish language in mind. Its foundational lessons are specific to the language, rather than a direct translation from Amplify CKLA’s English skills instruction.
Reading instruction begins with the vowels first, then the most common consonants, and finally the least common consonants. Students will blend and segment sounds to form syllables, and syllables to form words.
Although Spanish has a highly predictable orthography, there are a few silent letters (h is always silent, u is silent after g or q), as well as letters that can make different sounds, depending on the letters that follow them. For that reason, syllables with these letters are taught somewhat later in the progression. The same is true for syllables with infrequently occurring consonants, such as z, k, x, and w.
Coherent knowledge instruction
While students are learning how to read, the Conocimiento strand gives them authentic and engaging reasons to read.
Amplify Caminos uses spiral learning to reinforce every student’s ability to develop skills like reading, writing, speaking, and listening in Spanish that can be transferred to English. As students engage with their lessons, they explore the similarities and differences in grammar, vocabulary, writing, and language use between Spanish and English. This bridge helps students learning two languages to strengthen their knowledge in both.
Through cross-curricular content, students explore units that relate to storytelling, science, and the history of our world in a holistic and thoughtful way. With these units, you’ll bring the world to your students, showing them how reading can become an exciting, rewarding, and useful part of their lives.
Embedded differentiation for all learners
Amplify Caminos provides built-in differentiation strategies and supports in every lesson.
- Apoyo a la enseñanza y desafío: Support and Challenge suggestions in every lesson provide assistance or opportunities for more advanced work toward the goal of the lesson.
- Notas culturales: These point-of-use notes provide additional information about the traditions, foods, holidays, word variations, and more from across the Spanish-speaking world.
- Apoyo adicional: Every lesson in the Lectoescritura (Skills) Strand provides additional support activities suggested to reinforce foundational skills instruction. These activities can be given to any student who requires extra help, including students with special needs.
Systematic and cohesive writing instruction
Writing instruction in Amplify Caminos builds systematically and cohesively within and across grades.
In Grades K-2, writing mechanics—including handwriting and spelling—are taught in the Amplify Caminos Lectoescritura strand. Starting in Grade 1, instruction includes four steps in the writing process: planning, drafting, editing, and publishing and features lessons that have modeling, collaboration, and sharing. As students gain skills and confidence, they are able to take on more of these steps independently. Students learn to use planning techniques, including brainstorming and graphic organizers.
Beginning in Grade 4, the Amplify Caminos writing process expands to also include sharing and evaluating. In Grades 4 and 5, the writing process is no longer conceptualized as a series of scaffolded, linear steps (an important change from the Grade 3 writing process). Rather, students move between components of the writing process in a flexible manner, similar to the process mature and experienced writers follow naturally.
Amplify Caminos’ writing instruction provides a clear progression through the text types in each grade.
Because Amplify Caminos has two strands of lessons in Grades K-2, Lectoescritura and Conocimiento, students are exposed to both narrative and informational texts throughout the year. In Grades 3-5, the integrated units feature study in literary, informational, or a mix of both types of texts, depending on the content of the unit.
- Grades K–2 introduce and establish the key elements of each text type, allowing students to gain comfort and confidence writing narratives, opinions, and informative texts. This enables students to practice thinking about content in different ways, offering more depth and breadth to their understanding of core content and of the writing text types.
- By Grade 3, students will have gained significant practice in narrative, opinion/argumentative, and informational/explanatory forms of writing and will continue to apply those skills through Grade 5.
How does Amplify Caminos integrate with the other parts of the literacy system?
Amplify Caminos + mCLASS® Lectura
Achieve complete parity between English and Spanish assessments with mCLASS Lectura for K–6. mCLASS Lectura allows teachers to connect with their Spanish-speaking students face-to-face, one-on-one, and in the language most comfortable to them. The result? Valid and reliable student data reports
available in both English and Spanish, enabling teachers to pinpoint where their Spanish-speaking or emergent bilingual students really are in their skill development and what instruction to prioritize.
Amplify Caminos + Amplify Reading
Amplify Reading is an engaging, adaptive digital program that extends the learning in Amplify Caminos. Amplify Reading offers support to a large sub-group of English learners (ELs) through Spanish voice-over. Spanish voiceover instructions are available in vocabulary and sentence-level comprehension games so ELs can build their vocabulary, language, and critical comprehension skills before moving into analyzing complex texts
Demo access and sample materials
Ready to explore on your own? First, watch the videos below to learn about the program’s components and how to navigate the digital platform.
Physical materials walkthrough video
Digital navigation video
Demo access
Next, follow the instructions below to access your demo account.
- Click the CKLA and Caminos Demo button below.
- Select Log in with Amplify.
- To explore as a teacher, enter this username: t1.sfusdreviewer@demo.tryamplify.net
- To explore as a student, enter this username: s1.sfusdreviewer@demo.tryamplify.net
- Enter the password: Amplify1-sfusdreviewer
- Click the Programs and apps menu
- Select CKLA Teacher Resource Site
- Select the desire grade level
- Use the toggle to switch between English (CKLA) and Spanish (Caminos) resources.
Sample materials
Finally, click on the grade levels below to explore your requested sample units.
Each book in our authentic literature collection was selected specifically to support and enhance the content of the K-2 Conocimiento Strand. These anchor texts are intended for use as an introduction to each domain—engaging students, piquing their curiosity, and building initial background knowledge—before diving into the deeper content of the domain Read-Alouds.
Every trade book has an instructional guide that includes the following:
- Author and illustrator
- Book summary
- The Essential Question of the Knowledge domain, connecting the book to the domain
- Key Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary words found in the book
- A group activity to reinforce and extend students’ knowledge and understanding
- A performance task to help gauge students’ comprehension of concepts in the text
- Writing prompts to expand understanding and critical thinking
- Text complexity ratings and descriptors for quantitative, qualitative, and reader/task categories
Download the Amplify Caminos Trade Book Collection Guide for Grades K–2.
Detailed information about text complexity ratings and descriptors; additional uses for the books before, during, and after domain instruction; and the complete list of domains and books for each grade level can be found in the More About the Books section of this guide.
Conocimiento Strand:
- Guía del maestro, Conocimiento 12: Luchar por una causa
- Cuaderno de actividades, Conocimientos 7–12
- Rotafolio de imágenes, Conocimiento 12
- Tarjetas de imágenes, Conocimiento 12
Lectoescritura Strand:
Additional resources
- Caminos Program Guide
- Biliteracy and Science of Reading Principles
- Amplify Caminos Conocimiento Scopes and Sequences
- Grade K Knowledge Strand
- Grade 1 Knowledge Strand
- Grade 2 Knowledge Strand
- Grade 3 Integrated Strand
- Grade 4 Integrated Strand
- Grade 5 Intgrated Strand
Amplify Caminos for SFUSD
Amplify Caminos is an authentic elementary Spanish language arts program. Like its English language counterpart, Amplify CKLA, Amplify Caminos provides explicit, systematic foundational skills instruction sequenced with deep knowledge-building content to foster comprehension. When used with Amplify CKLA, Amplify Caminos provides full parity across English and Spanish that’s suitable for any dual language implementation model.
Amplify and SFUSD Partnership
We recognize and respect the unique differences of each of our partnering districts—and that includes San Francisco USD.
Out of the box, Amplify Caminos offers districts a rich, comprehensive, research-based SELA experience. That said, no two districts are exactly alike. To that end, we are committed to working with San Francisco USD to ensure that Amplify Caminos addresses the needs of your community. This includes providing implementation guidance and support, as well as collaborating with your staff to determine which domains need to be modified or exchanged.
What is Amplify Caminos?
Amplify Caminos is a core Spanish language arts program for grades TK–5 that delivers:
- Authentic instruction built from the ground up for the Spanish language.
- A unique research-based approach truly built on the Science of Reading.
- A combination of explicit foundational skills with meaningful knowledge-building.
- Embedded support and differentiation that gets all students reading grade-level texts together.
- Opportunities for students to see the strengths and experiences that all people share while also celebrating each others’ unique identities and experiences.
Watch the video below to learn more about Amplify Caminos for Grades K–2.
Watch the video below to learn more about Amplify Caminos for Grades 3–5.
How does Amplify Caminos work?
Amplify Caminos is built on the science of how kids learn to read—in Spanish.
Amplify Caminos is all about helping you teach students how to read, all while giving them authentic and engaging reasons to read. That’s why Amplify Caminos develops foundational skills and builds knowledge in tandem.
- Knowledge: Through complex and authentic Spanish read-alouds with an emphasis on classroom interactivity, oral comprehension, and contextual vocabulary, students start to build their awareness of the world around them—and the way the reading skills they’re building give them access to it.
- Skills: Starting with the sounds at the core of the Spanish
language, students practice their phonemic awareness, handwriting skills, vocabulary, spelling, and grammar. Through daily practice, students become aware of the connection between reading and writing, building confidence as they go.
Respecting the development differences between grade ranges, Amplify Caminos teaches foundational skills and background knowledge as two distinct strands in grades K–2, and combines them into one integrated strand in grades 3–5.
Grades K–2:
Every day, students in grades K–2 complete one full lesson that explicitly and systematically builds foundational reading skills in the Amplify Caminos Lectoescritura strand, as well as one full lesson that builds robust background knowledge to access complex text in the Amplify Caminos Conocimiento strand. Through learning in each of these strands, students develop the early literacy skills necessary to help them become confident readers and build the context to understand what they’re reading.
Grades 3–5:
In grades 3–5, the Amplify Caminos Lectoescritura and Conocimiento strands are integrated in one set of instructional materials. Lessons begin to combine skills and knowledge with increasingly complex texts, close reading, and a greater writing emphasis. Students can then use their skills to go on their own independent reading adventures.
What do Amplify Caminos students explore?
Amplify Caminos builds students’ knowledge about the world.
In addition to teaching all students to crack the written code (which is vital for fairness), the Amplify Caminos program helps students see the strengths and experiences we all share while celebrating their own unique identities and experiences.
This is accomplished through the exploration of topics and text that feature people who resemble students and familiar situations or experiences while also exposing them to people whose appearances, lives, beliefs, and backgrounds differ from their own.
Engaging domains
Amplify Caminos builds knowledge coherently across subjects and grades.
Throughout the program, students use their skills to explore domains that relate to storytelling, science, and the history of our world as seen through the eyes of many different groups.
Carefully selected to build from year-to-year, our grade-appropriate topics help students make and deepen connections while also reading, writing, and thinking creatively and for themselves.
New Knowledge Research Units for Grades K–5
Our brand-new Knowledge Research units carry forward Amplify Caminos’ powerful and proven instructional approach while also:
- Adding more content for students from all walks of life. The rich topics and highly visual components featured in these units provide students with even more “windows and mirrors” and perspectives as they work to build knowledge.
- Adding more authentic literature. Each new research unit revolves around a collection of high-interest authentic trade books that will spark more curiosity and inspire more inquiry.
- Adding more flexibility. Units can be implemented for extended core instruction during flex periods, district-designated Pausing Points, or enrichment periods.
Units cover a variety of rich and relevant topics:
With these new units, students will soar to new heights with Dr. Ellen Ochoa, Amelia Earhart, and the Tuskegee Airmen. They’ll feel the rhythm as they learn about Jazz legends Miles Davis, Tito Puente, and Duke Ellington. And they’ll explore the far reaches of the world with Jacques Cousteau, Matthew Henson, and Eugenie Clark.
- Grade K: El arte y el mundo que nos rodea
- Grade 1: Cuentos de aventuras: relatos desde los confines de la Tierra
- Grade 2: ¡A volar! La era de la aviación
- Grade 3: Jazz y más
- Grade 4: Energía: pasado, presente y futuro
- Grade 5: Más allá de Juneteenth: de 1865 al presente
Units will be made available in English and Spanish, and will include the following components:
- Teacher Guide
- Student Activity Books
- Image Cards
- Trade Book Collection
- Digital Components (for Grades K–3 and Grade 5 only)
Why we added this unit:
“Every child is an artist,” said Picasso, meaning that every child uses art to explore and understand the world around them. El arte y el mundo que nos rodea honors that truth by introducing Kindergarten students to some of the ways in which artists have explored and understood the world around them.
This domain introduces students to artists from different time periods, countries, and cultures. Throughout the unit, students learn about different kinds of art and how artists use the world around them as they make art. They also connect this to what they have already learned about the earth, plants, and animals in other Caminos domains: Granjas, Plantas, and Cuidar el planeta Tierra. In addition, students connect this to what they have learned about sculptors in the Presidentes y símbolos de los Estados Unidos domain. As they explore different artists and artistic traditions, they develop their ideas about how humans are connected to each other and to the world around them.
As you read the texts in this unit, students may observe ways in which the characters or subjects are both similar to and different from students. This is a good opportunity to teach students awareness and sensitivity, building on the idea that all people share some things in common, even as they have other things that make them unique. This unit also offers an excellent opportunity to collaborate with your school’s art teacher, as many lessons have suggested activities to help students understand the kind of art they are studying.
Within this unit, students have opportunities to:
- Use details to describe art.
- Identify three ways to create art.
- Identify characteristics of cave art.
- Sequence the steps of making pottery.
- Describe how artists can create work connected to the world around them.
- Describe what makes Kehinde Wiley’s portraits unique.
- Explain how the texture of a surface can affect artwork created on it.
- Explain what a sculpture is.
- Describe what makes James Turrell’s artwork about the sky unique.
- Explain what a museum is and what kinds of things you can see or do there.
Trade books in this unit:
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- Georgia O’Keeffe por Erica Salcedo
- Yayoi Kusama: De aquí al infinito por Sarah Suzuki
- Tejedora del arcoíris por Linda Elovitz Marshall
- Las tijeras de Matisse por Jeanette Winter
- El museo por Susan Verde
- Quizás algo hermoso: Cómo el arte transformó un barrio por F. Isabel Campoy
Sample materials:
Take a sneak peek at the rich instruction and engaging activities for this unit by viewing the PDFs below.
- Guía del maestro: Cuentos de aventuras: relatos desde los confines de la Tierra
- Cuaderno de actividades: Cuentos de aventuras: relatos desde los confines de la Tierra
- Tarjetas de imágenes: Cuentos de aventuras: relatos desde los confines de la Tierra
- Componentes digitales: Cuentos de aventuras: relatos desde los confines de la Tierra
Why we added this unit:
This domain introduces students to adventure stories set around the world and challenges students to dig into the adventures through research. By listening to the Read-Alouds and trade books, students increase their vocabulary and reading comprehension skills, learn valuable lessons about perseverance and teamwork, and become familiar with gathering information for research.
In this unit, students study the careers of real-world explorers Dr. Eugenie Clark and Sophia Danenberg, marvel at the inventions of Jacques Cousteau, think critically about how teamwork and collaboration can make greater adventures possible, learn about the science and technology that enable adventures, and research some of the ways humans have confronted challenges at the edges of the world, from the oceans below to space above.
Each lesson in the domain builds students’ research skills as they ask questions, gather information, and write a paragraph about their findings. Students share what they have learned about adventures in an Adventure Gallery Walkthrough. By taking on the persona of one of the adventurers they meet in the Read-Alouds and trade books, students deliver their final paragraphs as if they are a “speaking portrait” of that person. Students are invited to dress up as that adventurer if they desire.
In addition, teachers can set aside time outside the instructional block to create the picture frames students will hold as they present to the Adventure Gallery Walk guests. Frames can be made from shirt boxes, cardboard, construction paper, or any art supplies that are on hand. This might be an opportunity to collaborate with the school’s art department if resources are available. Another option is to ask students to make their frames at home with their caregivers. On the day of the Adventure Gallery Walk, students will be the hosts and take on specific jobs, such as welcoming the guests, describing their work throughout the unit, and pointing out the areas of study on the domain bulletin board. You can find a complete list of student jobs in Lesson 13.
How this unit builds knowledge:
This unit builds upon the following Caminos units that students will have encountered in the previous grade.
- Rimas y fábulas infantiles (Kindergarten)
- Cuentos (Kindergarten)
The specific core content targeted in these domains is particularly relevant to the Read-Alouds students will hear in Cuentos de aventuras: relatos desde los confines de la Tierra. The background knowledge students bring to this unit will greatly enhance their understanding of the trade books used in this unit.
Trade books in this unit:
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- My Name Is Gabito/Me llamo Gabito por Monica Brown
- Galápagos Girl/Galapagueña por Marsha Diane Arnold
- My Name Is Gabriela/Me llamo Gabriela por Monica Brown
- El viaje de Kalak por María Quintana Silva y Marie-Noëlle Hébert
- Señorita Mariposa por Ben Gundersheimer
- Sharuko, el arqueólogo peruano/Peruvian Archaeologist Julio C. Tello por Monica Brown
- Abuelita fue al mercado por Stella Blackstone
Sample materials:
Take a sneak peek at the rich instruction and engaging activities for this unit by viewing the PDFs below.
Why we added this unit:
With this domain, students head up, up, and away with an introduction to the soaring history of aviation. Students learn the stories of early aviators, such as the Montgolfier brothers, the Wright brothers, Aida de Acosta, and Amelia Earhart.
During the unit, students study the science of flight, including the physics concept of lift, and research the social impacts of the world of flight. Finally, students let their research skills take flight as they explore key figures from the world of aviation.
The lessons in this domain build on earlier Grade 2 Caminos domains about the westward expansion, early Greek civilizations, and Greek myths, and lay the foundation for learning about other periods of world history in future grades.
How this unit builds knowledge:
This unit builds upon the following Caminos units that students will have encountered earlier in the year.
- La civilización griega antigua (Grade 2)
- Mitos griegos (Grade 2)
- La expansión hacia el oeste (Grade 2)
The specific core content targeted in these domains is particularly relevant to the Read-Alouds students will hear in ¡A volar! La era de la aviación. The background knowledge students bring to this unit will greatly enhance their understanding of the trade books used in this unit.
Trade books in this unit:
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- ¡A volar! Todo sobre aviones por Jennifer Prior
- Amelia sabe volar por Mara dal Corso
- Héroes de la aviación que cambiaron el mundo por Dan Green
- El niño que alcanzó las estrellas por José M. Hernández
- La niña que aprendió a volar por Sylvia Acevedo
- Buenas Noches Capitán Mamá por Graciela Tiscareño-Sato
Sample materials:
Take a sneak peek at the rich instruction and engaging activities for this unit by viewing the PDFs below.
Why we added this unit:
This domain teaches students about the vibrant music, poetry, and culture of the Jazz Age in the United States. Students learn about famous writers and musicians like Langston Hughes, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Melba Liston, Tito Puente, and Miles Davis. They study how the jazz art form took root in the South, then spread to the North to become the sound of the Harlem Renaissance, eventually connecting people around the world in musical expression.
During this unit, students perform guided research to further explore both the history of jazz and what jazz is today. They develop research skills and then use those skills to find deeper connections between the stories and music of the Jazz Age and music today. As students learn about the world of jazz, they collaborate and share ideas with their classmates. They also practice sharing feedback focused on their written work, and, at the end of the unit, students present their research to the group.
The lessons give students opportunities to dive into the rhythms and stories of jazz, utilizing the knowledge sequence in this unit to:
- Collaboratively generate research questions about jazz, jazz musicians, contemporary musicians from the state where they live or have lived, and the evolution of jazz music.
- Utilize Read-Alouds, independent reading, and partner reading to learn about the Jazz Age, the Harlem Renaissance, jazz music, and biographies of celebrated jazz musicians and writers.
- Research the answers to their generated questions, gather information, write a short research essay about a famous jazz musician, write a short essay about a contemporary musician from the state where they live or have lived, and give a presentation about their research.
How this unit builds knowledge:
Within this unit, students have opportunities to:
- Ask relevant questions and make pertinent comments
- Identify details in texts
- Determine key ideas of texts by evaluating details
- Make text-based inferences
- Generate questions based on prior knowledge and gathered information
- Synthesize details across texts to demonstrate comprehension
- Discuss and explain an author’s purpose
- Identify and cite reliable primary and secondary sources of information
- Compose a well-organized and focused informative essay
- Make connections between topics
- Present information using appropriate media
Trade books in this unit:
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- ¡Esquivel! Un artista del sonido de la era espacial por Susan Wood
- Ray Charles por Sharon Bell Mathis
- Tito Puente, el Rey del Mambo por Monica Brown
- Me llamo Celia, la vida de Celia Cruz por Monica Brown
- ¡Azúcar! por Ivar Da Coll
In this unit, students also read the poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes. (Available for free through the Academy of American Poets website and the Poetry Foundation website, with recorded audio available through the website for John Hancock College Preparatory High School.)
Sample materials:
Take a sneak peek at the rich instruction and engaging activities for this unit by viewing the PDFs below.
Why we added this unit:
With this domain, students become tomorrow’s problem solvers in this study of energy in the United States. Analytical reading skills are developed by examining the challenges of early energy innovators. Students then read about current energy practices and young energy change-makers across the world.
Throughout the unit, students conduct research into different sources of energy and present a proposal, putting them in the shoes of future energy innovators. They also use the knowledge sequence in this unit to:
- Collaboratively analyze texts to identify cause-effect and problem-solution relationships.
- Generate questions and conduct research about energy.
- Write an opinion essay making their case for a fuel of the future.
- Create energy proposals using primary and secondary resources.
How this unit builds knowledge:
This unit builds upon the following Caminos units that students will have encountered in previous grades as well as earlier in the year.
- Plantas (Grade K)
- La historia de la Tierra (Grade 1)
- ¡Eureka! Estudiante inventor (Grade 4)
The specific core content targeted in these domains is particularly relevant to the Read-Alouds students will hear in Energía: pasado, presente y futuro. The background knowledge students bring to this unit will greatly enhance their understanding of the trade books used in this unit.
Trade books in this unit:
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- La historia de los combustibles fósiles por William B. Rice
- El niño que domó el viento por William Kamkwamba y Bryan Mealer
Sample materials:
Take a sneak peek at the rich instruction and engaging activities for this unit by viewing the PDFs below.
Why we added this unit:
Within this domain, Students learn about General Granger’s announcement in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, a day marked in history as Juneteenth. Texts and multimedia sources will support foundational knowledge-building about the end of slavery in the United States. A review of the first freedom announcement, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, provides students with background knowledge to further emphasize the significance of Juneteenth in American history.
This unit also takes students on a journey beyond Juneteenth, as they study specific contributions of African Americans from 1865 to the present day. Students participate in a virtual field trip to Emancipation Park in Houston, Texas and use the knowledge sequence in this unit to:
- Collaboratively generate research questions about Juneteenth, The Great Migration, innovators and inventors, education, the humanities, activists, and allies.
- Use Read-Alouds, independent, and partner reading to learn about African American contributions from 1865 to the present.
- Research to find answers to their generated questions, gather information, and write a four-chapter Beyond Juneteenth book.
How this unit builds knowledge:
This unit builds upon the following Caminos units that students will have encountered in previous grades.
- Los nativos americanos (Grade K)
- Una nueva nación: la independencia de los Estados Unidos (Grade 1)
- La Guerra Civil de los Estaods Unidos (Grade 2)
- La inmigración (Grade 2)
- Los nativos americanos (Grade 5)
The specific core content targeted in these domains is particularly relevant to the Read-Alouds students will hear in Más allá de Juneteenth: de 1865 al presente
. The background knowledge students bring to this unit will greatly enhance their understanding of the trade books used in this unit.
Trade books in this unit:
Instruction in this unit revolves around the following collection of high-interest authentic trade books. One copy of each trade book is included with the unit materials.
- Martí’s Song for Freedom/Martí y sus versos por la libertad escrito por Emma Otheguy
- ¡Celebremos Juneteenth! escrito por Carole Boston Weatherford
- Side by Side/Lado a Lado: The Story of Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez/La Historia de Dolores Huerta y César Chávez escrito por Monica Brown
- Canto de alabanza para el día: Poema para la ceremonia inaugural del mandato de Barack Obama escrito por Elizabeth Alexander, traducido por Rodrigo Rojas
Sample materials:
Take a sneak peek at the rich instruction and engaging activities for this unit by viewing the PDFs below.
Wide-ranging texts
Amplify Caminos puts a variety of texts in the hands of students every day.
Amplify Caminos includes both transadaptations and authentic texts written by Latin American and Spanish authors. Our texts feature a wide variety of authors, topics, individuals and characters representing many different socioeconomic statuses, ages, abilities, races, ethnicities, countries of origin, religions, and more.
Amplify Caminos texts include:
- Authentic literature: Authentic literature exposes students to a variety of text types and perspectives to deepen their knowledge of fascinating topics in social studies, science, literature, and the arts. Authentic texts support text-to-self, text-to-world, and text-to-text connections for readers.
- Decodable Student Readers: Decodable Student Readers at grades K–2 are newly redesigned to include students from all walks of life and educational backgrounds. They feature characters with a broad range of backgrounds, experiences, ages, races, religions, and more.
- ReadWorks® texts: Amplify and ReadWorks have partnered to deliver high-quality texts curated to support the Amplify Caminos Knowledge Sequence and to extend student learning. Texts include high-interest nonfiction articles in topics in social studies, science, literature, and the arts. These texts are accompanied by vocabulary supports and standards-aligned formative assessment opportunities. Teachers can monitor their students’ progress using the ReadWorks reporting features.
Amplify Caminos Trade Book Collection Guide
Each book in our authentic literature collection was selected specifically to support and enhance the content of the K-2 Conocimiento Strand. These anchor texts are intended for use as an introduction to each domain—engaging students, piquing their curiosity, and building initial background knowledge—before diving into the deeper content of the domain Read-Alouds.
Every trade book has an instructional guide that includes the following:
- Author and illustrator
- Book summary
- The Essential Question of the Knowledge domain, connecting the book to the domain
- Key Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary words found in the book
- A group activity to reinforce and extend students’ knowledge and understanding
- A performance task to help gauge students’ comprehension of concepts in the text
- Writing prompts to expand understanding and critical thinking
- Text complexity ratings and descriptors for quantitative, qualitative, and reader/task categories
Download the Amplify Caminos Trade Book Collection Guide for Grades K–2.
Detailed information about text complexity ratings and descriptors; additional uses for the books before, during, and after domain instruction; and the complete list of domains and books for each grade level can be found in the More About the Books section of this guide.
What makes Amplify Caminos different?
Built on the Science of Reading
Built out of the latest research in the Science of Reading, Amplify Caminos delivers explicit instruction in both foundational literacy skills (systematic phonics, decoding, and fluency) and background knowledge in grades K–2 with an integrated approach to explicit instruction in grades 3–5.
Explicit systematic skills instruction
The skills instruction in Amplify Caminos was distinctly developed with the Spanish language in mind. Its foundational lessons are specific to the language, rather than a direct translation from Amplify CKLA’s English skills instruction.
Reading instruction begins with the vowels first, then the most common consonants, and finally the least common consonants. Students will blend and segment sounds to form syllables, and syllables to form words.
Although Spanish has a highly predictable orthography, there are a few silent letters (h is always silent, u is silent after g or q), as well as letters that can make different sounds, depending on the letters that follow them. For that reason, syllables with these letters are taught somewhat later in the progression. The same is true for syllables with infrequently occurring consonants, such as z, k, x, and w.
Coherent knowledge instruction
While students are learning how to read, the Conocimiento strand gives them authentic and engaging reasons to read.
Amplify Caminos uses spiral learning to reinforce every student’s ability to develop skills like reading, writing, speaking, and listening in Spanish that can be transferred to English. As students engage with their lessons, they explore the similarities and differences in grammar, vocabulary, writing, and language use between Spanish and English. This bridge helps students learning two languages to strengthen their knowledge in both.
Through cross-curricular content, students explore units that relate to storytelling, science, and the history of our world in a holistic and thoughtful way. With these units, you’ll bring the world to your students, showing them how reading can become an exciting, rewarding, and useful part of their lives.
Embedded differentiation for all learners
Amplify Caminos provides built-in differentiation strategies and supports in every lesson.
- Apoyo a la enseñanza y desafío: Support and Challenge suggestions in every lesson provide assistance or opportunities for more advanced work toward the goal of the lesson.
- Notas culturales: These point-of-use notes provide additional information about the traditions, foods, holidays, word variations, and more from across the Spanish-speaking world.
- Apoyo adicional: Every lesson in the Lectoescritura (Skills) Strand provides additional support activities suggested to reinforce foundational skills instruction. These activities can be given to any student who requires extra help, including students with special needs.
Systematic and cohesive writing instruction
Writing instruction in Amplify Caminos builds systematically and cohesively within and across grades.
In Grades K-2, writing mechanics—including handwriting and spelling—are taught in the Amplify Caminos Lectoescritura strand. Starting in Grade 1, instruction includes four steps in the writing process: planning, drafting, editing, and publishing and features lessons that have modeling, collaboration, and sharing. As students gain skills and confidence, they are able to take on more of these steps independently. Students learn to use planning techniques, including brainstorming and graphic organizers.
Beginning in Grade 4, the Amplify Caminos writing process expands to also include sharing and evaluating. In Grades 4 and 5, the writing process is no longer conceptualized as a series of scaffolded, linear steps (an important change from the Grade 3 writing process). Rather, students move between components of the writing process in a flexible manner, similar to the process mature and experienced writers follow naturally.
Amplify Caminos’ writing instruction provides a clear progression through the text types in each grade.
Because Amplify Caminos has two strands of lessons in Grades K-2, Lectoescritura and Conocimiento, students are exposed to both narrative and informational texts throughout the year. In Grades 3-5, the integrated units feature study in literary, informational, or a mix of both types of texts, depending on the content of the unit.
- Grades K–2 introduce and establish the key elements of each text type, allowing students to gain comfort and confidence writing narratives, opinions, and informative texts. This enables students to practice thinking about content in different ways, offering more depth and breadth to their understanding of core content and of the writing text types.
- By Grade 3, students will have gained significant practice in narrative, opinion/argumentative, and informational/explanatory forms of writing and will continue to apply those skills through Grade 5.
How does Amplify Caminos integrate with the other parts of the literacy system?
Amplify Caminos + mCLASS® Lectura
Achieve complete parity between English and Spanish assessments with mCLASS Lectura for K–6. mCLASS Lectura allows teachers to connect with their Spanish-speaking students face-to-face, one-on-one, and in the language most comfortable to them. The result? Valid and reliable student data reports
available in both English and Spanish, enabling teachers to pinpoint where their Spanish-speaking or emergent bilingual students really are in their skill development and what instruction to prioritize.
Amplify Caminos + Amplify Reading
Amplify Reading is an engaging, adaptive digital program that extends the learning in Amplify Caminos. Amplify Reading offers support to a large sub-group of English learners (ELs) through Spanish voice-over. Spanish voiceover instructions are available in vocabulary and sentence-level comprehension games so ELs can build their vocabulary, language, and critical comprehension skills before moving into analyzing complex texts
Demo access and sample materials
Ready to explore on your own? First, watch the videos below to learn about the program’s components and how to navigate the digital platform.
Physical materials walkthrough video
Digital navigation video
Demo access
Next, follow the instructions below to access your demo account.
- Click the CKLA and Caminos Demo button below.
- Select Log in with Amplify.
- To explore as a teacher, enter this username: t1.sfusdreviewer@demo.tryamplify.net
- To explore as a student, enter this username: s1.sfusdreviewer@demo.tryamplify.net
- Enter the password: Amplify1-sfusdreviewer
- Click the Programs and apps menu
- Select CKLA Teacher Resource Site
- Select the desire grade level
- Use the toggle to switch between English (CKLA) and Spanish (Caminos) resources.
Sample materials
Finally, click on the grade levels below to explore your requested sample units.
Conocimiento Strand:
- Guía del maestro, Conocimiento 12: Luchar por una causa
- Cuaderno de actividades, Conocimientos 7–12
- Rotafolio de imágenes, Conocimiento 12
- Tarjetas de imágenes, Conocimiento 12
Lectoescritura Strand:
Additional resources
- Caminos Program Guide
- Biliteracy and Science of Reading Principles
- Amplify Caminos Conocimiento Scopes and Sequences
- Grade K Knowledge Strand
- Grade 1 Knowledge Strand
- Grade 2 Knowledge Strand
- Grade 3 Integrated Strand
- Grade 4 Integrated Strand
- Grade 5 Intgrated Strand
Committed to reading equity
We believe that all students have the right to read complex texts and engage in rich classroom discussions. They should also see themselves reflected and experience new worlds through reading.
This commitment guides our text selection, unique artwork, and dedication to reaching every student where they are.
Text selection
Texts in the Amplify ELA curriculum cover a wide range of topics, themes, and genres, with differentiated supports that ensure that all students can work through each reading and lesson. Taken as a whole, the texts show students a diverse picture of the world, while fostering a lifelong love of reading.
In the Liberty & Equality unit, students reflect on the harrowing journeys and avenues to freedom that enslaved African-Americans were forced to forge.
Students read A Raisin in the Sun, a play that focuses on the impact of poverty and racial tensions on family relationships and identity within an African-American family.
In the Summer of the Mariposas unit, students dive into a retelling of the Odyssey through a contemporary Hispanic lens as they explore sibling and extended-family relationships.
In the Perspectives and Narrative unit, students explore a coming of age moment for an adolescent daughter of immigrant parents.
In the Red Scarf Girl and Narrative unit, students learn about a key historic moment in Asian and world history, while making connections to relatable themes like authority figures imposing rules on children, and family and peer loyalties standing at odds.
In the Mysteries & Investigations unit, many of the texts present an ethnically and culturally diverse group of characters, including many pre-teen or teen protagonists rebelling against authority, navigating their relationships with their peers and families, and figuring out their unique identities.
Created with diverse perspectives
With our new illustrations, time spent in our classrooms will feel relevant and relatable to every student. We’ve brought together an art team with unique perspectives and visual styles so that their diversity can shine along with the
complex texts in our curriculum, and illuminate their relationship with our literature. Everyone deserves to see themselves as the hero of a story. It is our hope that our students will find themselves within our program, and will be ever more curious in their learning, and engaged in their reading.
Paige Womack
Dive into the world of Mysteries &
Investigations with Dr. Womack,
the illustrator who may have once
become a scientist…
Tre McClendon
Meet Tre, a seeker and traveller that became homies Fredrick Douglass through illustrating his narrative for our program…
Jackie Pierson
There’s no one way to be a maker, and Jackie certainly has made a lot of things. Check out the weird and mysterious world of her miniatures…
Elizabeth Dantzler
She’s been drawing characters and comics ever since middle school. Now see the drama of Edel’s work in the mythos of the Greeks…
Caroline Hadilaksono
Travel through countries and narratives with Caroline, as she shares her delicate watercolors for illustrating the hero’s journey…
Patrick Mahony
The haunting work that Patrick creates will leave you feeling a sense of melancholy and longing, but not without hope for the future…
Edel Ferri
She’s been drawing characters and comics ever since middle school. Now see the drama of Edel’s work in the mythos of the Greeks…
Eddie Pena
As a latino American, Eddie is an illustrator, a father, and a teacher. He is working in collaboration with Poetry in America to use his heritage as inspiration…
Tory Novikova
Listen to a word from Tory, the Art Director at Amplify, on how the vision
was set for the project and how she brought the team together that would get to illustrate ELA…
Fanart
Here is a library of all the inspiring art that our beloved fans have submitted for our program. Do you or your students have a favorite literary character from our program? Send us your fanart to be shared with our community here!
Oregon Math State Review for 9–12
Oregon Math State Review for 6–8
ELD Review for Denver Public Schools
Welcome, Denver Public Schools, to Amplify CKLA’s English Language Development (ELD) program, Language Studio! Language Studio works in tandem with Amplify CKLA, your core ELA program, to help English language learners build proficiency in English while ensuring that every ELD lesson is connected to the core to extend students’ knowledge.
Below you will find information on Language Studio and additional information on Amplify CKLA in case it is a useful refresher. In the “Access demo” section, you will find digital access credentials and directions. We hope you find this information helpful in your review. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. Thank you!
Language Studio
Amplify CKLA’s English Language Development (ELD) program—Language Studio— helps English language learners (ELLs) preview and revisit key content within core instruction, building a foundation of academic vocabulary and background knowledge. Core instruction lessons include point-of-use supports for ELLs, and Support and Challenge strategies for all learners. Click here for an overview of Language Studio and its components.
Supported by the latest ELD and WIDA Prime V2 standards, Language Studio follows the CKLA Knowledge domains, previewing and reinforcing skills and content from core instruction using instruction specifically built for students learning English. The program is also designed around frequent formative assessment, including assessment of language proficiency, giving you effective ways to guide and support your ELLs.
Language Studio supports teachers and English language learners through the following:
- 30 minutes of instruction with lesson segments are carefully designed around Content Knowledge, Meaning Making, Language Development, Effective Expression, and Foundational Skills.
- Every Language Studio lesson accompanies a core lesson, helping ELLs deepen domain and academic vocabulary that will help them access core content.
- Culminating tasks support core projects and target the same skills as primary instruction.
To access Language Studio grade-level program guides, please click the links below:
Recognized Quality
Amplify CKLA is one of only a few high-quality, knowledge-building literacy curricula recognized by the Knowledge Matters campaign. Our shared message: Background knowledge is essential to literacy and learning.
Independently and rigorously reviewed
Amplify CKLA not only received an all-green rating from the rigorous evaluators at EdReports, but it was also recently recognized by the Knowledge Matters Campaign as a literacy program that excels in building knowledge.
Intentional knowledge-building
Watching students learn to read: magic. Knowing how they get there: science. The Science of Reading reveals knowledge as an essential pillar of reading comprehension and lifelong literacy. Hear from author Natalie Wexler and CKLA customers on edWebinar about the importance of knowledge-building in reading instruction.
Program Overview
Amplify CKLA is a core ELA program for grades K–5 that delivers:
- A unique research-based approach truly built on the Science of Reading.
- A combination of explicit foundational skills with meaningful knowledge building.
- Embedded support and differentiation that gets all students reading grade-level texts together.
- Opportunities for students to see the strengths and experiences that all people share while also celebrating each others’ unique identities and experiences.
- Equitable and authentic Spanish language arts instruction with Amplify Caminos.
Amplify CKLA for Grades K–2
After watching the K–2 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.
Amplify CKLA for Grades 3–5
After watching the 3–5 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.
How it works
Amplify CKLA teaches both foundational skills and background knowledge in K–2 and combines them in 3–5, as required by the science of reading.
- In grades K–2, students complete one full lesson that builds foundational reading skills, as well as one full lesson that builds background knowledge.
- In grades 3–5, student complete one integrated lesson that combines skills and knowledge with increasingly complex texts, close reading, and a greater writing emphasis.
Rich topics
Amplify CKLA builds knowledge coherently across subjects and grades.
Students make connections from year-to-year by exploring grade-appropriate subject-area knowledge and vocabulary in history, science, literature, and the arts while learning to read, write, and think creatively and for themselves.
Diverse text
Amplify CKLA puts a variety of texts in the hands of students every day to build and strengthen background knowledge and vocabulary, listening and reading comprehension, and decoding and fluency skills.
More than that, we ensure the texts students read represent the world around them. With a diverse range of authors, topics, and characters, all students have ample access to both windows and mirrors. Our texts include:
- authentic books.
- authentic text passages.
- student readers.
- novel guides (grades 3–5).
Universal access
We believe we have a responsibility to provide literacy instruction that gives every student the same opportunity to succeed and excel.
We know that early reading affects achievement throughout school and beyond—well into college and career. Yet most literacy programs continue to fall short of supporting early literacy success. That’s why we’re so proud that CKLA is helping close the reading gap between students within diverse communities.
Complete curriculum
A strong literacy program is not just about a reading program or an assessment tool: it brings together curriculum, instruction, regular practice, intervention, and assessments.
Amplify has brought these components together in our early literacy suite of curriculum, ensure that you have what you need for multi-tiered support.
Helpful Links
Here are some helpful links for your Amplify CKLA implementation:
- CKLA Program Guide
- CKLA Teacher Central
- PD Library (must login using your CKLA credentials)
- CKLA Research Hub (Efficacy and Case Studies)
- Text complexity in CKLA
- Trade books in CKLA
- Assessments in CKLA
- Amplify Caminos (K-5 Spanish Language Arts Program)
- Amplify CKLA Video for Families and Caregivers
- Amplify CKLA Caregivers Hub
Access demo
Ready to explore on your own? Follow the instructions below to access your demo account.
Explore Language Studio
Language Studio resources are on the CKLA site, making it easy for teachers to find and utilize them. Here are the directions to access them:
- Click the CKLA Teacher Digital Site button
- Select Log in with Amplify.
- Enter this username: t1.dpseld@demo.tryamplify.net
- Enter this password: Amplify1-dpseld
- Once logged in, click CKLA on the left hand side
- In the “Program” drop down at the top of the page, select “Language Studio Resources” at the bottom of the drop down
- Choose your desired grade level
Contact Us
If you have any questions or need more information, please contact:
Monty Lammers
Senior Account Executive
719-964-4501
mlammers@amplify.com
Welcome, Ohio educators!
Thank you for taking the time to review Amplify’s CKLA resources for K–5.
Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts® (CKLA) is an effective core literacy resource for students in grades K–5 and is aligned to Ohio’s Rule for Phonics. CKLA was developed in partnership with the Core Knowledge Foundation and was specifically designed to help teachers implement proven evidence-based instructional practices.
Click here for correlations to the Ohio Learning Standards for English Language Arts.
Click here to view Amplify CKLA’s Alignment to Ohio’s “Shifting to the Science of Reading” Framework.
Recognized Quality
Amplify CKLA is one of only a few high-quality, knowledge-building literacy curricula recognized by the Knowledge Matters campaign. Our shared message: Background knowledge is essential to literacy and learning.
Independently and rigorously reviewed
Amplify CKLA not only received an all-green rating from the rigorous evaluators at EdReports, but it was also recently recognized by the Knowledge Matters Campaign as a literacy program that excels in building knowledge.
Intentional knowledge-building
The Science of Reading reveals knowledge as an essential pillar of reading comprehension and lifelong literacy. Hear from author Natalie Wexler and CKLA customers on edWebinar about the importance of knowledge-building in reading instruction.
Designed for Ohio
We know there are several different paths you can take when implementing a Science of Reading program in your district:
- Prekindergarten
- K-2 Core No Foundational Skills
- K-2 Supplemental Foundational Skills
- K-2 Core Comprehensive English Language Arts
- 3-5 English Language Arts
To learn how Amplify CKLA supports each one of these paths, click here.
How it works
Amplify CKLA teaches both foundational skills and background knowledge in K–2 and combines them in 3–5, as required by the science of reading.
- In grades K–2, students complete one full lesson that builds foundational reading skills, as well as one full lesson that builds background knowledge.
- In grades 3–5, student complete one integrated lesson that combines skills and knowledge with increasingly complex texts, close reading, and a greater writing emphasis.
Rich topics
Amplify CKLA builds knowledge coherently across subjects and grades.
Students make connections from year-to-year by exploring grade-appropriate subject-area knowledge and vocabulary in history, science, literature, and the arts while learning to read, write, and think creatively and for themselves.
Diverse text
Amplify CKLA puts a variety of texts in the hands of students every day to build and strengthen background knowledge and vocabulary, listening and reading comprehension, and decoding and fluency skills.
More than that, we ensure the texts students read represent the world around them. With a diverse range of authors, topics, and characters, all students have ample access to both windows and mirrors. Our texts include:
- authentic books.
- authentic text passages.
- student readers.
- novel guides (grades 3–5).
Aligned to LETRS and Orton Gillingham
Amplify CKLA aligns with the instructional principles recommended by Orton Gillingham and LETRS.
- Structured–Concepts are taught through consistent routines
- Sequential–Concepts are taught in a logical, well-planned sequence
- Systematic–Phonemes are taught from simplest to most complex
- Explicit–Decoding and encoding concepts are taught directly and explicitly
- Multi-sensory–Instruction is delivered through visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile pathways
- Cumulative–Concepts are applied in decodable, connected texts with constant review and reinforcement
Universal access
We believe we have a responsibility to provide literacy instruction that gives every student the same opportunity to succeed and excel.
We know that early reading affects achievement throughout school and beyond—well into college and career. Yet most literacy programs continue to fall short of supporting early literacy success. That’s why we’re so proud that CKLA is helping close the reading gap between students within diverse communities.
Complete curriculum
A strong literacy program is not just about a reading program or an assessment tool: it brings together curriculum, instruction, regular practice, intervention, and assessments.
Amplify has brought these components together in our early literacy suite of curriculum, ensure that you have what you need for multi-tiered support.
Science of Reading Resources
Watching students learn to read: magic. Knowing how they get there: science.
As you consider your next core ELA program, it’s critically important to understand what the Science of Reading really means and what it tells us about how to teach more effectively. Unlike other programs, Amplify CKLA was built upon these insights and practices, making it easier for teachers to implement this proven approach.
Welcome, Nebo SD, to Amplify CKLA!
Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts® (CKLA) is a state-approved core ELA curriculum designated as a primary core program that fully meets the Science of Reading requirements outlined in SB 127.
Truly built on the Science of Reading, Amplify CKLA helps all teachers implement the Utah Core Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy by translating the science of reading into manageable, engaging, and effective classroom practices.
Scroll down to learn how CKLA is uniquely designed to help all your students make learning leaps in literacy.
Recognized Quality
Amplify CKLA is one of only a few high-quality, knowledge-building literacy curricula recognized by the Knowledge Matters campaign. Our shared message: Background knowledge is essential to literacy and learning.
Science of Reading Approved by USBE
Amplify CKLA is a content-rich literacy curriculum that systematically braids knowledge-building with skills instruction. Click below to see our state submission rubric on how Amplify CKLA addresses the Science of Reading requirements outlined in SB 127.
Independently and rigorously reviewed
Amplify CKLA not only received an all-green rating from the rigorous evaluators at EdReports, but it was also recently recognized by the Knowledge Matters Campaign as a literacy program that excels in building knowledge.
Intentional knowledge-building
The Science of Reading reveals knowledge as an essential pillar of reading comprehension and lifelong literacy. Hear from author Natalie Wexler and CKLA customers on edWebinar about the importance of knowledge-building in reading instruction.
Program Overview
Amplify CKLA is a core ELA program for grades K–5 that delivers:
- A unique research-based approach truly built on the Science of Reading.
- A combination of explicit foundational skills with meaningful knowledge building.
- Embedded support and differentiation that gets all students reading grade-level texts together.
- Opportunities for students to see the strengths and experiences that all people share while also celebrating each others’ unique identities and experiences.
- Authentic Spanish language arts instruction with Amplify Caminos.
Amplify CKLA for Grades K–2
After watching the K–2 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.
Amplify CKLA for Grades 3–5
After watching the 3–5 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.
How it works
Amplify CKLA teaches both foundational skills and background knowledge in K–2 and combines them in 3–5, as required by the science of reading.
- In grades K–2, students complete one full lesson that builds foundational reading skills, as well as one full lesson that builds background knowledge.
- In grades 3–5, student complete one integrated lesson that combines skills and knowledge with increasingly complex texts, close reading, and a greater writing emphasis.
Rich topics
Amplify CKLA builds knowledge coherently across subjects and grades.
Students make connections from year-to-year by exploring grade-appropriate subject-area knowledge and vocabulary in history, science, literature, and the arts while learning to read, write, and think creatively and for themselves.
Diverse text
Amplify CKLA puts a variety of texts in the hands of students every day to build and strengthen background knowledge and vocabulary, listening and reading comprehension, and decoding and fluency skills.
More than that, we ensure the texts students read represent the world around them. With a diverse range of authors, topics, and characters, all students have ample access to both windows and mirrors. Our texts include:
- Authentic books.
- Authentic text passages.
- Student Readers.
- Novel Guides (grades 3–5).
Aligned to LETRS and Orton Gillingham
Amplify CKLA aligns with the instructional principles recommended by Orton Gillingham and LETRS.
- Structured–Concepts are taught through consistent routines
- Sequential–Concepts are taught in a logical, well-planned sequence
- Systematic–Phonemes are taught from simplest to most complex
- Explicit–Decoding and encoding concepts are taught directly and explicitly
- Multi-sensory–Instruction is delivered through visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile pathways
- Cumulative–Concepts are applied in decodable, connected texts with constant review and reinforcement
Universal access
We believe we have a responsibility to provide literacy instruction that gives every student the same opportunity to succeed and excel.
We know that early reading affects achievement throughout school and beyond—well into college and career. Yet most literacy programs continue to fall short of supporting early literacy success. That’s why we’re so proud that CKLA is helping close the reading gap between students within diverse communities.
Complete curriculum
A strong literacy program is not just about a reading program or an assessment tool: it brings together curriculum, instruction, regular practice, intervention, and assessments.
Amplify has brought these components together in our early literacy suite of curriculum, ensure that you have what you need for multi-tiered support.
Science of Reading Resources
Watching students learn to read: magic. Knowing how they get there: science.
As you consider your next core ELA program, it’s critically important to understand what the Science of Reading really means and what it tells us about how to teach more effectively. Unlike other programs, Amplify CKLA was built upon these insights and practices, making it easier for teachers to implement this proven approach.
Access demo
Ready to explore on your own? Follow the instructions below to access your demo account.
Explore the CKLA Teacher Digital Resources
First, watch the quick navigation video to the right. Then, follow the directions below.
- Go to: learning.amplify.com or click the Access CKLA Teacher Digital button below
- Select Log in with Amplify.
- Enter this username: t1.nebocklak5@demo.tryamplify.net
- Enter this password: Amplify1-nebocklak5
- Click the CKLA button
- Select your desired grade level from the Program drop down
Explore the CKLA Student Digital Resources
Follow the directions below to access the Student Resource Site:
- Go to: learning.amplify.com or click the Access CKLA Student Digital button below
- Select Log in with Amplify.
- Enter this username: s1.nebocklak5@demo.tryamplify.net
- Enter this password: Amplify1-nebocklak5
- From the main page, click the backpack in the top right corner.
- Click on the grade level to select your desired grade.
Welcome to Amplify CKLA!
Welcome to Amplify CKLA!
Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts® (CKLA) is a state-approved core ELA curriculum designated as a primary core program that fully meets the Science of Reading requirements outlined in SB 127.
Truly built on the Science of Reading, Amplify CKLA helps all teachers implement the Utah Core Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy by translating the science of reading into manageable, engaging, and effective classroom practices.
Scroll down to learn how CKLA is uniquely designed to help all your students make learning leaps in literacy.
Recognized Quality
Amplify CKLA is one of only a few high-quality, knowledge-building literacy curricula recognized by the Knowledge Matters campaign. Our shared message: Background knowledge is essential to literacy and learning.
Science of Reading Approved by USBE
Amplify CKLA is a content-rich literacy curriculum that systematically braids knowledge-building with skills instruction. Click below to see our state submission rubric on how Amplify CKLA addresses the Science of Reading requirements outlined in SB 127.
Independently and rigorously reviewed
Amplify CKLA not only received an all-green rating from the rigorous evaluators at EdReports, but it was also recently recognized by the Knowledge Matters Campaign as a literacy program that excels in building knowledge.
Intentional knowledge-building
The Science of Reading reveals knowledge as an essential pillar of reading comprehension and lifelong literacy. Hear from author Natalie Wexler and CKLA customers on edWebinar about the importance of knowledge-building in reading instruction.
Program Overview
Amplify CKLA is a core ELA program for grades K–5 that delivers:
- A unique research-based approach truly built on the Science of Reading.
- A combination of explicit foundational skills with meaningful knowledge building.
- Embedded support and differentiation that gets all students reading grade-level texts together.
- Opportunities for students to see the strengths and experiences that all people share while also celebrating each others’ unique identities and experiences.
- Authentic Spanish language arts instruction with Amplify Caminos.
Amplify CKLA for Grades K–2
After watching the K–2 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.
Amplify CKLA for Grades 3–5
After watching the 3–5 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.
How it works
Amplify CKLA teaches both foundational skills and background knowledge in K–2 and combines them in 3–5, as required by the science of reading.
- In grades K–2, students complete one full lesson that builds foundational reading skills, as well as one full lesson that builds background knowledge.
- In grades 3–5, student complete one integrated lesson that combines skills and knowledge with increasingly complex texts, close reading, and a greater writing emphasis.
Rich topics
Amplify CKLA builds knowledge coherently across subjects and grades.
Students make connections from year-to-year by exploring grade-appropriate subject-area knowledge and vocabulary in history, science, literature, and the arts while learning to read, write, and think creatively and for themselves.
Diverse text
Amplify CKLA puts a variety of texts in the hands of students every day to build and strengthen background knowledge and vocabulary, listening and reading comprehension, and decoding and fluency skills. Our texts include:
- Authentic books.
- Authentic text passages.
- Student Readers.
- Novel Guides (grades 3–5).
More than that, we ensure the texts students read represent the world around them. With a diverse range of authors, topics, and characters, all students have ample access to both windows and mirrors.
Aligned to LETRS and Orton-Gillingham
Amplify CKLA aligns with the instructional principles recommended by Orton Gillingham and LETRS.
- Structured–Concepts are taught through consistent routines
- Sequential–Concepts are taught in a logical, well-planned sequence
- Systematic–Phonemes are taught from simplest to most complex
- Explicit–Decoding and encoding concepts are taught directly and explicitly
- Multi-sensory–Instruction is delivered through visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile pathways
- Cumulative–Concepts are applied in decodable, connected texts with constant review and reinforcement
Universal access
We believe we have a responsibility to provide literacy instruction that gives every student the same opportunity to succeed and excel.
We know that early reading affects achievement throughout school and beyond—well into college and career. Yet most literacy programs continue to fall short of supporting early literacy success. That’s why we’re so proud that CKLA is helping close the reading gap between students within diverse communities.
Complete curriculum
A strong literacy program is not just about a reading program or an assessment tool: it brings together curriculum, instruction, regular practice, intervention, and assessments.
Amplify has brought these components together in our early literacy suite of curriculum, ensure that you have what you need for multi-tiered support.
Science of Reading Resources
Watching students learn to read: magic. Knowing how they get there: science.
As you consider your next core ELA program, it’s critically important to understand what the Science of Reading really means and what it tells us about how to teach more effectively. Unlike other programs, Amplify CKLA was built upon these insights and practices, making it easier for teachers to implement this proven approach.
Access demo
Ready to explore on your own? Follow the instructions below to access your demo account.
Explore the CKLA Teacher Digital Site
First, watch the quick navigation video to the right. Then, follow the directions below to access the CKLA Teacher Digital Site.
- Go to learning.amplify.com or click Access CKLA Teacher Digital below
- Select Log in with Amplify.
- Enter this username: t1.utahckla@demo.tryamplify.net
- Enter this password: Amplify1-utahckla
- Click the CKLA button on the left hand side
- Select your desired grade level from the Program drop down
Explore the CKLA Student Digital Site
Follow the directions below to access the CKLA Student Digital Site.
- Go to learning.amplify.com or click Access CKLA Student Digital below
- Select Log in with Amplify.
- Enter this username: s1.utahckla@demo.tryamplify.net
- Enter this password: Amplify1-utahckla
- Answer the question.
- Click “Go” to get to the Hub!
Welcome to Amplify CKLA!
Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts® (CKLA) is currently the only state-approved core ELA curriculum designated as a primary core program that fully meets the Science of Reading requirements outlined in SB 127.
Truly built on the Science of Reading, Amplify CKLA helps all teachers implement the Utah Core Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy by translating the science of reading into manageable, engaging, and effective classroom practices.
Scroll down to learn how CKLA is uniquely designed to help all your students make learning leaps in literacy.
Recognized Quality
Amplify CKLA is one of only a few high-quality, knowledge-building literacy curricula recognized by the Knowledge Matters campaign. Our shared message: Background knowledge is essential to literacy and learning.
Science of Reading Approved by USBE
Amplify CKLA is a content-rich literacy curriculum that systematically braids knowledge-building with skills instruction. In fact, according to the Utah SBE, Amplify CKLA fully meets the Science of Reading requirements outlined in SB 127.
Independently and rigorously reviewed
Amplify CKLA not only received an all-green rating from the rigorous evaluators at EdReports, but it was also recently recognized by the Knowledge Matters Campaign as a literacy program that excels in building knowledge.
Intentional knowledge-building
The Science of Reading reveals knowledge as an essential pillar of reading comprehension, and even lifelong literacy. That’s why leading scientists say knowledge-building must be incorporated into reading instruction from the beginning—and with Amplify CKLA, it is.
Program Overview
Amplify CKLA is a core ELA program for grades K–5 that delivers:
- A unique research-based approach truly built on the Science of Reading.
- A combination of explicit foundational skills with meaningful knowledge building.
- Embedded support and differentiation that gets all students reading grade-level texts together.
- Opportunities for students to see the strengths and experiences that all people share while also celebrating each others’ unique identities and experiences.
- Authentic Spanish language arts instruction with Amplify Caminos.
Amplify CKLA for Grades K–2
After watching the K–2 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.
Amplify CKLA for Grades 3–5
After watching the 3–5 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.
How it works
Amplify CKLA teaches both foundational skills and background knowledge in K–2 and combines them in 3–5, as required by the science of reading.
- In grades K–2, students complete one full lesson that builds foundational reading skills, as well as one full lesson that builds background knowledge.
- In grades 3–5, student complete one integrated lesson that combines skills and knowledge with increasingly complex texts, close reading, and a greater writing emphasis.
Rich topics
Amplify CKLA builds knowledge coherently across subjects and grades.
Students make connections from year-to-year by exploring grade-appropriate subject-area knowledge and vocabulary in history, science, literature, and the arts while learning to read, write, and think creatively and for themselves.
Diverse text
Amplify CKLA puts a variety of texts in the hands of students every day to build and strengthen background knowledge and vocabulary, listening and reading comprehension, and decoding and fluency skills.
More than that, we ensure the texts students read represent the world around them. With a diverse range of authors, topics, and characters, all students have ample access to both windows and mirrors. Our texts include:
- Authentic books.
- Authentic text passages.
- Student Readers.
- Novel Guides (grades 3–5).
Aligned to LETRS and Orton-Gillingham
Amplify CKLA aligns with the instructional principles recommended by Orton-Gillingham and LETRS.
- Structured–Concepts are taught through consistent routines
- Sequential–Concepts are taught in a logical, well-planned sequence
- Systematic–Phonemes are taught from simplest to most complex
- Explicit–Decoding and encoding concepts are taught directly and explicitly
- Multi-sensory–Instruction is delivered through visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile pathways
- Cumulative–Concepts are applied in decodable, connected texts with constant review and reinforcement
Equitable instruction
We believe we have a responsibility to provide literacy instruction that gives every student the same opportunity to succeed and excel.
We know that early reading affects achievement throughout school and beyond—well into college and career. Yet most literacy programs continue to fall short of supporting early literacy success. That’s why we’re so proud that CKLA is helping close the reading gap between students within diverse communities.
Complete curriculum
A strong literacy program is not just about a reading program or an assessment tool: it brings together curriculum, instruction, regular practice, intervention, and assessments.
Amplify has brought these components together in our early literacy suite of curriculum, ensure that you have what you need for multi-tiered support.
Science of Reading Resources
Watching students learn to read: magic. Knowing how they get there: science.
As you consider your next core ELA program, it’s critically important to understand what the Science of Reading really means and what it tells us about how to teach more effectively. Unlike other programs, Amplify CKLA was built upon these insights and practices, making it easier for teachers to implement this proven approach.
Access demo
Ready to explore on your own? Follow the instructions below to access your demo account.
Explore the CKLA Teacher Resource Site
First, watch the quick navigation video to the right. Then, click the “Access CKLA Teacher Resource Site” button to log in.
- Click the CKLA Teacher Resource Site button
- Select Log in with Amplify.
- Enter this username: t1.slcsd-ckla-1@demo.tryamplify.net
- Enter this password: Amplify1-slcsd-ckla-1
- Select the desired grade level
Welcome to Amplify CKLA!
Amplify CKLA is the only Oregon-approved elementary ELA curriculum truly built on the Science of Reading.
Not only that, it helps all teachers implement the Oregon English Language Arts and Literacy Standards by translating the science of reading into strong instructional resources. As a result, teachers can fully focus on their students and the kind of teaching they love.
Virtual Caravan Stop Ahead!
If this is your first stop on your virtual caravan, start with the video presentations below.
Watched them already? Click here to skip ahead.
Virtual Caravan Stop
Amplify CKLA for Grades K–2
After watching the K–2 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.
Amplify CKLA for Grades 3–5
After watching the 3–5 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.
What it is
Amplify CKLA is a core ELA program for grades K–5 that delivers:
- A unique research-based approach truly built on the Science of Reading.
- A combination of explicit foundational skills with meaningful knowledge building.
- Embedded support and differentiation that gets all students reading grade-level texts together.
- Opportunities for students to see the strengths and experiences that all people share while also celebrating each others’ unique identities and experiences.
- Equitable and authentic Spanish language arts instruction with Amplify Caminos.
How it works
Amplify CKLA teaches both foundational skills and background knowledge in K–2 and combines them in 3–5, as required by the science of reading.
- In grades K–2, students complete one full lesson that builds foundational reading skills, as well as one full lesson that builds background knowledge.
- In grades 3–5, student complete one integrated lesson that combines skills and knowledge with increasingly complex texts, close reading, and a greater writing emphasis.
See pages 30-65 of the CKLA Program Guide below to learn more.
What students explore
Amplify CKLA builds knowledge coherently across subjects and grades.
Students make connections from year-to-year by exploring grade-appropriate subject-area knowledge and vocabulary in history, science, literature, and the arts while learning to read, write, and think creatively and for themselves.
Download the at-a-glance resources below to learn more.
What students read
Amplify CKLA puts a variety of texts in the hands of students every day to build and strengthen background knowledge and vocabulary, listening and reading comprehension, and decoding and fluency skills.
More than that, we ensure the texts students read represent the world around them. With a diverse range of authors, topics, and characters, all students have ample access to both windows and mirrors. Our texts include:
- Authentic books.
- Authentic text passages.
- Student Readers.
- Novel Guides (grades 3–5).
Download the lists below to explore specific grade-level texts.
Access and equity
We believe we have a responsibility to provide literacy instruction that gives every student the same opportunity to succeed and excel.
We know that early reading affects achievement throughout school and beyond—well into college and career. Yet most literacy programs continue to fall short of supporting early literacy success. That’s why we’re so proud that CKLA is helping close the reading gap between students within diverse communities.
Explore how we make learning equitable for all learners with the resources below.
Built on the Science of Reading
Watching students learn to read: magic. Knowing how they get there: science.
As you consider your next core ELA program, it’s critically important to understand what the Science of Reading really means and what it tells us about how to teach more effectively. Unlike other programs, Amplify CKLA was built upon these insights and practices, making it easier for teachers to implement this proven approach.
Download the resources below to dive deeper into the Science of Reading.
Supports Orton-Gillingham and LETRS
Amplify CKLA aligns with the instructional principles recommended by Orton-Gillingham and LETRS.
- Structured–Concepts are taught through consistent routines
- Sequential–Concepts are taught in a logical, well-planned sequence
- Systematic–Phonemes are taught from simplest to most complex
- Explicit–Decoding and encoding concepts are taught directly and explicitly
- Multi-sensory–Instruction is delivered through visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile pathways
- Cumulative–Concepts are applied in decodable, connected texts with constant review and reinforcement
A comprehensive and cohesive solution
A strong literacy program is not just about a reading program or an assessment tool: it brings together curriculum, instruction, regular practice, intervention, and assessments.
Amplify has brought these components together in our early literacy suite of curriculum, ensure that you have what you need for multi-tiered support.
Access demo
Ready to explore on your own? Follow the instructions below to access your demo account.
Explore the CKLA Teacher Resource Site
First, watch the quick navigation video to the right. Then, click the “Access CKLA Teacher Resource Site” button to log in.
- Click the CKLA Teacher Resource Site button
- Select Log in with Amplify.
- Enter this username: t.orcklak5@tryamplify.net
- Enter this password: AmplifyNumber1
- Select the desired grade level
Contact us
Looking to speak directly with your Oregon representative? Get in touch with a team member by emailing hellooregon@amplify.com or by calling us directly.
Kristen Rockstroh
Oregon Account Executive
Districts under 4,500 students
(480) 639-8367
Welcome to Amplify CKLA!
Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts® (CKLA) is a state-approved core ELA curriculum designated as a primary core program that fully meets the Science of Reading requirements outlined in SB 127.
Truly built on the Science of Reading, Amplify CKLA helps all teachers implement the Utah Core Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy by translating the science of reading into manageable, engaging, and effective classroom practices.
Scroll down to learn how CKLA is uniquely designed to help all your students make learning leaps in literacy.
Recognized Quality
Amplify CKLA is one of only a few high-quality, knowledge-building literacy curricula recognized by the Knowledge Matters campaign. Our shared message: Background knowledge is essential to literacy and learning.
Science of Reading Approved by USBE
Amplify CKLA is a content-rich literacy curriculum that systematically braids knowledge-building with skills instruction. Click below to see our state submission rubric on how Amplify CKLA addresses the Science of Reading requirements outlined in SB 127.
Independently and rigorously reviewed
Amplify CKLA not only received an all-green rating from the rigorous evaluators at EdReports, but it was also recently recognized by the Knowledge Matters Campaign as a literacy program that excels in building knowledge.
Intentional knowledge-building
The Science of Reading reveals knowledge as an essential pillar of reading comprehension and lifelong literacy. Hear from author Natalie Wexler and CKLA customers on edWebinar about the importance of knowledge-building in reading instruction.
Program Overview
Amplify CKLA is a core ELA program for grades K–5 that delivers:
- A unique research-based approach truly built on the Science of Reading.
- A combination of explicit foundational skills with meaningful knowledge building.
- Embedded support and differentiation that gets all students reading grade-level texts together.
- Opportunities for students to see the strengths and experiences that all people share while also celebrating each others’ unique identities and experiences.
- Authentic Spanish language arts instruction with Amplify Caminos.
Amplify CKLA for Grades K–2
After watching the K–2 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.
Amplify CKLA for Grades 3–5
After watching the 3–5 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.
How it works
Amplify CKLA teaches both foundational skills and background knowledge in K–2 and combines them in 3–5, as required by the science of reading.
- In grades K–2, students complete one full lesson that builds foundational reading skills, as well as one full lesson that builds background knowledge.
- In grades 3–5, student complete one integrated lesson that combines skills and knowledge with increasingly complex texts, close reading, and a greater writing emphasis.
Rich topics
Amplify CKLA builds knowledge coherently across subjects and grades.
Students make connections from year-to-year by exploring grade-appropriate subject-area knowledge and vocabulary in history, science, literature, and the arts while learning to read, write, and think creatively and for themselves.
Diverse text
Amplify CKLA puts a variety of texts in the hands of students every day to build and strengthen background knowledge and vocabulary, listening and reading comprehension, and decoding and fluency skills.
More than that, we ensure the texts students read represent the world around them. With a diverse range of authors, topics, and characters, all students have ample access to both windows and mirrors. Our texts include:
- Authentic books.
- Authentic text passages.
- Student Readers.
- Novel Guides (grades 3–5).
Aligned to LETRS and Orton Gillingham
Amplify CKLA aligns with the instructional principles recommended by Orton Gillingham and LETRS.
- Structured–Concepts are taught through consistent routines
- Sequential–Concepts are taught in a logical, well-planned sequence
- Systematic–Phonemes are taught from simplest to most complex
- Explicit–Decoding and encoding concepts are taught directly and explicitly
- Multi-sensory–Instruction is delivered through visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile pathways
- Cumulative–Concepts are applied in decodable, connected texts with constant review and reinforcement
Universal access
We believe we have a responsibility to provide literacy instruction that gives every student the same opportunity to succeed and excel.
We know that early reading affects achievement throughout school and beyond—well into college and career. Yet most literacy programs continue to fall short of supporting early literacy success. That’s why we’re so proud that CKLA is helping close the reading gap between students within diverse communities.
Complete curriculum
A strong literacy program is not just about a reading program or an assessment tool: it brings together curriculum, instruction, regular practice, intervention, and assessments.
Amplify has brought these components together in our early literacy suite of curriculum, ensure that you have what you need for multi-tiered support.
Science of Reading Resources
Watching students learn to read: magic. Knowing how they get there: science.
As you consider your next core ELA program, it’s critically important to understand what the Science of Reading really means and what it tells us about how to teach more effectively. Unlike other programs, Amplify CKLA was built upon these insights and practices, making it easier for teachers to implement this proven approach.
Access demo
Ready to explore on your own? Follow the instructions below to access your demo account.
Explore the CKLA Teacher Digital Site
First, watch the quick navigation video to the right. Then follow the directions below:
- Go to learning.amplify.com or click Access CKLA Teacher Digital
- Select Log in with Amplify.
- Enter this username: t1.davislangarts@demo.tryamplify.net
- Enter this password: Amplify1-davislangarts
- Click the CKLA button on the left hand side
- Select your desired grade level from the Program drop down
Explore the CKLA Student Digital Site
To access the student digital site follow the directions below:
- Go to learning.amplify.com or click Access CKLA Student Digital
- Select Log in with Amplify.
- Enter this username: s1.davislangarts@demo.tryamplify.net
- Enter this password: Amplify1-davislangarts
- From the Home page, scroll down to the robot and “Click to go to the Hub“
- From the Hub, click the Grade button to select the grade.
Showing up as your full self, with Dr. Jasmine Rogers
Transcripts and additional resources:
Meet Our Guest(s):
Dr. Jasmine Rogers
Jasmine Rogers, Ed.D., is a manager and coach with the InSchools program at the DC Reading Clinic, serving the District of Columbia Public Schools. In this role, she manages professional development on structured literacy best practices. For nine years, she was an elementary teacher serving in kindergarten and special education as well as a reading specialist. She also mentored at the DC Reading Clinic in its 2019 inaugural cohort. She holds masters degrees in sports administration, elementary education, and special education. She is currently an adjunct professor and early literacy intervention lead at American University, where she recently completed her doctorate in education policy and leadership.
Meet our host, Susan Lambert
Susan Lambert is the Chief Academic Officer of Elementary Humanities at Amplify, and the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast. Her career has been focused on creating high-quality learning environments using evidence-based practices. Lambert is a mom of four, a grandma of four, a world traveler, and a collector of stories.
As the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Lambert explores the increasing body of scientific research around how reading is best taught. As a former classroom teacher, administrator, and curriculum developer, Lambert is dedicated to turning theory into best practices that educators can put right to use in the classroom, and to showcasing national models of reading instruction excellence.
Quotes
“The history of our country, the history of who we are as individuals in our families, absolutely impacts who we are as teachers and how we show up in the classroom.”
“I'm just thinking of all these beautiful teachers and trying not to cry. They are showing up fully as who they are for their students … by being themselves they end up creating an environment that just makes it a great place to learn and a place where students feel loved and a place where students can be themselves.”
“You address people as human beings because they're human and that's the right thing to do. And if you engage and see your kids as humans, then it's really helpful to get them engaged.”
“If I was able to make a change, you 110 percent can make a change. And a lot of that is just being open to feedback, being curious, and ensuring that whatever you are doing, you are not causing harm to students.”
Celebrating many meanings: Language comprehension and the importance of Black English, with Jasmine Rogers
Transcripts and additional resources:
Meet Our Guest(s):
Jasmine Rogers
Jasmine Rogers is a manager and coach with the In Schools program at the DC Reading Clinic, serving the District of Columbia Public Schools. In this role, she manages professional development on structured literacy best practices. For nine years, she was an elementary teacher serving in kindergarten and special education as well as a reading specialist. She also mentored at the DC Reading Clinic in its 2019 inaugural cohort. She holds masters degrees in sports administration, elementary education, and special education. She is currently an early literacy intervention lead at American University, pursuing her doctorate in education policy and leadership.
Meet our host, Susan Lambert
Susan Lambert is the Chief Academic Officer of Elementary Humanities at Amplify, and the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast. Her career has been focused on creating high-quality learning environments using evidence-based practices. Susan is a mom of four, a grandma of four, a world traveler, and a collector of stories.
As the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan explores the increasing body of scientific research around how reading is best taught. As a former classroom teacher, administrator, and curriculum developer, Susan is dedicated to turning theory into best practices that educators can put right to use in the classroom, and to showcasing national models of reading instruction excellence.
Quotes
“As a teacher, a Black woman, who speaks Black English, who knows the language, who is very well versed in structured literacy, if I overlooked this, if that caught me off guard a little bit, then that means that could potentially catch someone else off guard.”
“With language comprehension, and considering in your native language, there may be a word that doesn’t necessarily match up with a language that you are learning in the classroom. So you have to then use your incredible cognitive skills that speak two completely different codes, comprehend what is happening, and then tie that back into, of course, the Rope to become a fluent reader.”
“I consider Black English to be a very complex and complicated language…but I think typically in society it has been viewed very negatively. You can see in the media and in research where people have talked about it and used negative connotations. And I think those beliefs from society have seeped into the classroom.”
“A strength of children that are bidialectal is the similar strength to students that are bilingual—they have an ability to take language that is different from theirs and translate it. That right there is an asset.”
“The languages that we speak and bring from home also are not wrong. They’re simply different. And we’re gonna work together so that we take what we know differently and come together with a common language so that we’re communicating with one another.”
“We have got to give our students access to this code so that they can become literate and run our society one day.”
Featured Episodes
Aldine ISD adopts Amplify’s integrated early literacy suite; supports students in learning to read confidently by third grade
Amplify, a publisher of next-generation curriculum and assessment programs, announced today the adoption of its early literacy suite — including the Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) curriculum and the mCLASS® Texas Edition reading assessment and intervention program — by the Aldine Independent School District, a large urban district outside of Houston, TX. mCLASS Texas Edition, a full K–6 assessment solution, is one of the only two programs recently approved by the state of Texas as a kindergarten diagnostic and dyslexia screener.
“We are dealing with a dual pandemic,” stated Dr. LaTonya Goffney. “The pandemic of COVID-19 and the pandemic of racism. The way forward is through literacy, a basic human right. For this reason, we are taking a very focused, research-based approach to reading instruction. With Amplify’s integrated early literacy suite, we are ensuring all of our students get the support they need to become skilled and confident readers by third grade.”
Aldine ISD sought a new approach to literacy that included a systematic process for teaching phonics and a curriculum that would strengthen student comprehension through knowledge and vocabulary development. The district also wanted a connected assessment to measure literacy development and provide intervention for struggling readers reliably. Ultimately, they decided that Amplify’s early literacy suite was the best solution.
Amplify’s early literacy suite is built on the science of reading. Amplify CKLA is a top-rated core curriculum that combines rich, diverse content in history, science, literature, and the arts with systematic, research-based foundational skills instruction for PreK–5 ELA. mCLASS Texas Edition is a comprehensive assessment with DIBELS® 8th Edition, full parity between English and Spanish, dyslexia screening, and aligned Tier 2 and 3 intervention.
“We are proud to work with the Aldine ISD team that is all in and committed to a clear vision,” stated Raymundo Rodríguez, south-central regional vice president of sales, at Amplify. “They are passionate about the work, deliberate in their approach, and focused on their objective to ensure that every child can read.”
Aldine ISD currently has 67,000 students, the vast majority of whom are students of color — 73% Hispanic, and 23% African American. Before the adoption, only 30% of third-grade students read on grade level, with an even lower percentage for African American students.
Superintendent Dr. LaTonya M. Goffney stated that the district’s new approach to literacy would increase efficacy and equity.
Aldine ISD is the first school district in Texas to move to this literacy model.
***
About Amplify
A pioneer in K–12 education since 2000, Amplify is leading the way in next-generation curriculum and assessment. Our captivating core and supplemental programs in ELA, math, and science engage all students in rigorous learning and inspire them to think deeply, creatively, and for themselves. Our formative assessment products turn data into practical instructional support to help all students build a strong foundation in early reading and math. All of our programs provide teachers with powerful tools that help them understand and respond to the needs of every student. Today, Amplify serves more than five million students in all 50 states.
For more information, visit amplify.com.
Contact: media@amplify.com
Amplify Education welcomes executive Paul Griffin
Brooklyn, NY (February 24, 2020) — Amplify, a publisher of next-generation curriculum and assessment programs, announced today the appointment of Paul Griffin as vice president of strategic urban initiatives. In Griffin’s new role, he will partner with sales managers across Amplify and work with large urban accounts and superintendents. Griffin previously served as head of national partnerships at Lexia Learning and director of urban initiatives at Houghton Mifflin, where he built relationships with key urban school districts and decision-makers across the nation.
“Amplify is thrilled to welcome Paul Griffin to the company,” said Rita Schaefer, senior vice president and national sales manager at Amplify. “Paul’s extensive K–12 experience, strong record of success, and long-standing ties within the industry will allow us to deliver the dynamic opportunities that educators and students across the country deserve.”
At Lexia Learning, Griffin worked with sales teams and district administrators to bring learning solutions to schools nationwide; at Houghton Mifflin he was the organization’s trusted liaison to member districts of the Council of Great City Schools. He has a long history of participation with nationally recognized organizations such as the Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE), The School Superintendents Association (AASA), the National Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE), and the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents (ALAS).
Griffin is a former advisory board member of the National League of Cities, Youth, Education and Families Institute. He holds The President’s Award from the National Alliance of Black School Educators, the organization’s highest honor, as well as the California Alliance of African American Educators’ Corporate Leadership Award. He has been listed in Ebony Magazine’s 100 most influential Black Americans. Griffin continues to have a strong interest in increasing educational excellence across the country.
About Amplify
A pioneer in K–12 education since 2000, Amplify is leading the way in next-generation curriculum and assessment. Our captivating core and supplemental programs in ELA, math, and science engage all students in rigorous learning and inspire them to think deeply, creatively, and for themselves. Our formative assessment products turn data into practical instructional support to help all students build a strong foundation in early reading and math. All of our programs provide teachers with powerful tools that help them understand and respond to the needs of every student. Today, Amplify serves five million students in all 50 states. For more information, visit amplify.com.
Contact: media@amplify.com