New curriculum resource is helping students become stronger readers and writers
Posted on 03/10/2025
Elementary and middle school students in the Mehlville School District are learning English language arts through a new curriculum resource called Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts. This resource helps teachers provide students with reading, writing, knowledge and interpersonal skills that will help them succeed in school and throughout life.
Amplify is divided into knowledge and skills sections. In the knowledge portion, teachers and students focus on reading texts, building vocabulary and background knowledge, and comprehension activities. In the skills portion, students are immersed in phonics lessons: word recognition, decoding, sight words and phonological awareness.
Amplify is designed to teach students to read fluently while students are also reading to learn about other subjects, like history and geography.
IMAGE: Schellman reads a story with a small group of students during the skills portion of their Amplify lessons.
“It exposes kids to a whole new world of information so that as they progress, these topics will circle back around and kids will already have background knowledge when they explore topics again,” said Jessie Schellman, a first-grade teacher at Hagemann Elementary School. During a recent lesson, students in Schellman's class were learning reading skills with a text about ancient Egypt.
Since the Amplify curriculum is being used in all elementary and middle school grade levels, it allows students to build on their knowledge from year to year. Non-fiction texts usually associated with other subject areas are incorporated into each unit.
“There are lessons that cover science, social studies and history embedded within reading and writing,” said Heidi Kwentus, a fourth-grade teacher at Forder Elementary School. As a result, she said, “the students are exposed to more nonfiction topics and are reading and writing about it with higher level vocabulary than they have used before.”
IMAGE: While learning about inventors, Forder Elementary School fourth-grade students complete a challenge designed to improve their teamwork and collaboration skills.
Amplify allows teachers to provide rigorous lessons that also keep students engaged in learning.
“It’s been an amazing experience to see how the kids respond to the content,” said Sarah Polanc, an English language arts teacher at Oakville Middle School. “We’ve been looking for a program that would push our students. This program challenges them while also providing support.”
IMAGE: In a lesson where sixth graders used evidence from the text to support their viewpoint, students conducted an investigation to determine the cause of yellow fever.
A group of Mehlville School District teachers who piloted the program during the 2023-2024 school year saw positive results in their students’ test scores. They have also seen an improvement in their students' speaking, reading and writing abilities.
“When I used the curriculum for the first time last school year, I saw a huge jump in how easy writing was for my students,” said Kwentus, who was among the pilot group. “They know how to look for evidence, and they’re citing examples from the text better than I’ve ever seen before.”
The lessons also incorporate skills like collaboration, critical thinking and public speaking that will have far-reaching impacts beyond a student’s time in the Mehlville School District.
“The reading, writing, speaking and listening skills will translate to anything students decide to do,” said Polanc. “There’s so much collaboration in this program, and it’ll translate to any class or job in the future.”
Sample Lessons
Below you will find sample lessons displaying some of the content students have learned this school year.
Lesson 1: Comparing ancient civilizations with Schellman’s first-grade students
Schellman: “In the knowledge portion of the unit, we’re studying ancient civilizations. Students are learning about ancient Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia. I enjoyed being able to talk about hieroglyphics, cuneiform, and the benefits the Nile provided and how the people of ancient Egypt were able to build a civilization around it. Today, students are working on a comprehension activity comparing and contrasting what they’ve learned about the different parts of civilizations in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. They have to establish roles for each student in the group and work together, so they’re building social skills, too. In the skills portion of this unit, we’re identifying the difference between long and short vowel sounds. They’ve been practicing writing and reading those. With this curriculum, we teach a skill, and then the story that day has words that include that skill and all of the previously taught skills.”
Lesson 2: Exploring inventions with Kwentus’ fourth-grade students
Kwentus: “In the ‘Eureka!’ unit, students are learning about inventions and inventors. It’s really interesting, especially for kids interested in science, who may not typically enjoy writing as much. At the end of the unit, they’ll work together with their group to create an invention. The writing in this unit is based on their own experiences. There are also a lot of resources for them to use to research the background of different inventors, so they’ll get to develop some of those research skills, too.”
Lesson 3: Investigating the cause of yellow fever with Polanc’s middle school students
Polanc: “This sixth-grade unit is about medical mysteries and investigations. The students began the unit with a historical text about what it was like to be in Philadelphia in the 1790s when yellow fever ran rampant. From there, students got to be part of the investigative team of doctors that was tasked by the United States military to go to Cuba and determine the cause of yellow fever and how it was being transmitted. Students have to dig deep into the investigative part of it, which the kids loved. A big part of the lesson also focused on the character traits of each doctor on the investigative team based on the decisions they made.”
How you can support your child’s reading and writing development at home:
- If possible, read with your student daily. Even 15 minutes of reading together each day makes a big difference.
- Read sections of the text aloud together. If your student struggles, you might try reading the text to them with expression, and then have them read it aloud back to you.
- Find moments to discuss what they are reading and discovering. Examples of questions you could ask: What stood out to you from what you read today? Were any sentences or words confusing? What was your takeaway from the author's passage? What do you think the writer was trying to communicate? Do you agree with the writer's ideas or descriptions? What connections can you make between what you are reading and your own life or other issues?
- Listen to your student read their written responses or have them share with a friend over video chat. If your child is still learning letter formation, write out their responses for them and read it back together.