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What my wedding taught me about choosing curriculum

A teacher leans over a group of elementary students who are working together at a classroom table under a "CKLA Skills" sign, guiding them through successful CKLA implementation.

Before my wedding over 20 years ago, my mom offered me a bit of advice: Choose a wedding photographer that you like. She didn’t mean one who’d win a Pulitzer for her work covering our special day. What she did mean was this: Make sure you like their personality, because you will spend a lot of time with them on your wedding day—maybe even more time than you’ll spend with your future spouse.

Why am I talking about my wedding in a blog about education?

Because choosing a curriculum company is like choosing a wedding photographer. You are not just purchasing a stack of books—you are starting a relationship with a company that will extend far beyond the initial purchase.

Here’s why I think the Amplify team are the education equivalent of ideal wedding photographers.

When our team decided to pilot Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) 3rd Edition as our reading and writing curriculum, I soon began working with the Amplify CKLA pilot team because I knew our classroom teachers needed to be trained quickly. I created a timeline, outlined action steps, and noted questions about the process. I was confident in the product and had a sense of what needed to happen, but it felt like a lot.

At our first meeting, the pilot team presented a detailed brochure. What a comfort it was to read, “Your district’s Amplify CKLA pilot specialist will guide you through every step of the pilot support process.”

Sure enough, Amplify’s live in-person CKLA training was invaluable. The teachers got so excited about the new product that they literally cheered.

Because of our complex pilot schedule, I wanted to make sure our primary students weren’t leaving the year with gaps in their learning. The CKLA pilot team worked closely with me to create a unique unit that would leave no holes in student learning.

After six weeks of piloting the product, a team of experienced CKLA pilot team coaches visited all our pilot classrooms. They affirmed the teachers in their work toward CKLA implementation. They highlighted strengths in classrooms and celebrated the use of the product in our district. The meeting after school was joyful.

The CKLA pilot team also gave our teachers a crucial tip: Because you can’t memorize the lesson, it’s ok to teach with the manual in your hand. Teachers still do this, and we continue to compliment them if we see it during walk-throughs.

The online pilot tool kit provided all of the other resources we might need. This included a Q&A section in which teachers could enter questions as they came up, and receive a response from the support team quickly. I breathed easier during our pilot knowing that CKLA was caring for us.

After our school board officially adopted CKLA 3rd Edition, we transitioned from the CKLA pilot team to the Onboarding Support and Customer Success team. Leaving the pilot team felt like losing a friend, but I trusted Amplify and knew the new team would be just as strong.

The brochure for the development plan confirmed that we would remain in good hands. It read: “This custom professional development package is designed to support teachers, schools, and district leaders in helping teachers feel confident using CKLA in their classrooms. Our professional development opportunities go far beyond initial product training and take participants through different stages of learning.”

At our Launch training in August, teachers learned the core features, rationale, and Science of Reading research, and had time to dive into the CKLA materials. At the Strengthen trainings in October and March, teachers learned about additional tools to deepen their knowledge, planning, and use of the materials. At the Coach sessions, an Amplify coach visited every school, which included meeting with teachers during planning time, visiting classrooms and offering supportive feedback, and modeling lessons.

After each training session, a CKLA team met with me to discuss the success of the training and talk about the feedback from teachers and my next steps to support them in their implementation. Throughout the process, my goal was to help teachers feel successful and confident using this new tool, and Amplify supported me every step of the way.

In addition to the responsive customer service, Amplify also offers plenty of online tools. The PD Library is continually adding resources, while Amplify podcasts highlight the latest research and insights on language comprehension, reading comprehension, and so much more. Amplify also just added a series of instructional routine modeling videos that quickly demonstrate the best practices found in CKLA. The support systems are varied and always developing, yet never overwhelming.

If you’re in the market for a new reading curriculum, take my mom’s advice: Pick the one you love spending time with. Trust me—Amplify is the curriculum you’ll want by your side all day, every day.

How differentiation drives success

A collage features a blue-toned figure holding a mask, silhouettes of people, butterflies, and abstract shapes against a colorful background—evoking scenes from an American classroom helping struggling readers learn by teaching phonemes.

I’d like to share a favorite success story from my ELA class that brings home the true power of differentiation.

There was one boy—let’s call him Dipper. (It’s not his real name; I just really like the show “Gravity Falls.”) Dipper was the sweetest, kindest, most wholesome eighth grader I have ever met. He was absolutely precious.

Dipper also suffered from fairly severe academic struggles. He was well below his middle school reading level, struggled to express ideas in writing, and took longer than other students to break down basic concepts. When Dipper first came to me, he couldn’t start or complete a written sentence. He was easily frustrated and often overwhelmed to the point of tears.

Spoiler: By the end of the school year, Dipper was writing multiple paragraphs and starting to connect them with transition sentences.

Here’s how he got that much closer to grade level.

Using sentence starters and scaffolds to build success

My school district had recently adopted Amplify ELA (6–8). At the outset, I placed Dipper at the differentiation level with the most support. When we talked about how a character reacted to a moment in the story, Dipper had corresponding smiley, frowny, and disgusted faces to identify feelings. He had his own lesson plan with example quotes, shortened readings, alternative questions to spark thinking, and sentence starters to help him focus on comprehension instead of getting stuck at the start.

All of these supports helped him comprehend, share his responses, and contribute to discussions.

So far, so good.

But putting those thoughts to paper—or text box—was a completely different hurdle.

Facing academic struggles with patience and persistence

I can’t talk about Dipper without talking about his one-to-one aide. Let’s call her Ms. Mabel. (Again, “Gravity Falls.” I’m telling you, check it out.)

Ms. Mabel had sat beside Dipper during every ELA class since sixth grade. She helped him stay focused and generate ideas, and she even transcribed his answers when needed. Ms. Mabel’s devotion to Dipper’s success was profound and inspirational.

And it made all the difference when it came to Writing Prompts. At first, the prompts were met with tears and tantrums, panic and disdain, all the joyful wholesomeness ripped from Dipper.

Ms. Mabel would console him and redirect his passions to the work. She would point out the sentence starters, help him copy and paste them to the text box, and have him fill in the blanks. Again and again.

And then, little by little: Less panic. Fewer tears. Sentence starters, fill in the blank. Progress.
Sentence starters, fill in the blank. Success.

Day by day, Dipper, stacking wins like pancakes at an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, found confidence in himself, his reading, and his writing. He went from barely being able to complete a sentence to writing multiple paragraphs with evidence to support his ideas.

We had seen Dipper grow from a tiny sixth grader into a less tiny eighth grader and had watched his initial tenacity meet with stagnation, frustration, and defeat—until this year. This year with Amplify was different.

Why it takes more than just an awesome teacher

Obviously, you can’t pin success on one factor. Dipper had many supports in place: two blocks in the resource room, a dedicated aide, supportive peers and family, and—above all—a fierce drive and work ethic.

But if you asked Ms. Mabel, she would tell you that Amplify helped, too. She found that the way the questions were broken down allowed her to teach Dipper what he misunderstood better than she had been able to in previous years. We discovered very quickly how much autonomy was built in. It wasn’t rigid. It gave us structure and trust. It made differentiation easier, clearer, and more meaningful.

Sure, maybe Dipper was also maturing. Maybe I’m just an awesome teacher. Or maybe, just maybe, we need every little bit of help we can get to do the hard work in life. Maybe we need someone to push us in the right direction. Maybe we need those guardrails to keep us on course. Some of us can start our own engines, but we all need to be able to race.

Sometimes, we need someone who can help us start our sentences so we can learn how to be the ones to finish them.

More to explore

  • Let’s keep the conversation going! Join the discussion in our Amplify learning communities.
  • Looking for inspiration? Watch Teacher Connections, a video series featuring practical advice and tools straight from fellow educators—our very own Amplify Ambassadors.
  • Dive into our podcast hub to hear from top thought leaders and educators and uncover cross-disciplinary insights to support your instruction.

Four ways to engage middle-school students in ELA

You know how engaged middle-school students are—in their own emotions, relationships, and TikToks. How do you engage them in your ELA classroom?

It’s tough! It’s not just about holding their attention while they’re in class. We need to provide the kind of real engagement that leads to real learning.

Research confirms (not surprisingly) that getting middle schoolers ready for college and career depends on it, and requires a truly engaging ELA curriculum.

The stakes are high. Sixth-grade students who fail a literacy course are more than 50% more likely to not graduate from high school.

Yet, on average, middle-school ELA students spend less than 20% of class time engaged with the text. In a 50-minute class period, that’s only 10 minutes of text.

At Amplify, we believe greater engagement with text is key not only for ELA success, but for all academics. That’s why we created these four actionable principles of middle-school ELA engagement.

Middle-school is a moment—one we must seize.

First, here’s why middle schoolers require an approach and curriculum designed just for them.

Young people at middle-school age are becoming increasingly independent, and increasingly self-conscious. They need to feel respected and safe when they participate, especially when they make mistakes. They’re super focused on their peers, but they still depend on guidance from you.

There’s a lot going on in their worlds, and there’s a lot going on in their brains. In fact, early adolescence is the second-biggest stage of rapid brain development.

The development is happening largely in the prefrontal cortex. It’s the area that brain researcher Maryanne Wolf calls “the cognitive workspace.” When it comes to middle-school ELA curriculum, we want to use strategies that engage students in using their cognitive workspaces.

The 4 principles of middle-school engagement

We believe these four principles are most essential to engaging middle-school students in developing their literacy skills—and becoming confident, active learners.

  1. Enable all students to work up. Provide multiple entry points and scaffolds so that every student can find their way into a text or activity. Here are some differentiation strategies:
    1. Incorporate multimedia. Often a video dramatization or audio recording can help students connect with a complex text.
    2. Scaffold with passage previews, read-alongs, and questions that make students want to re-read.
    3. Don’t forget vocab! Daily practice makes a huge difference, especially with assignments designed to challenge students at their level.
  2. Provide just right feedback. At this age, it’s important for students to see opportunity rather than failure.
    1. Quick over-the-shoulder notes feel actionable and encouraging.
    2. Training all students to offer helpful comments creates a positive vibe around feedback.
    3. Focusing on specifics helps students know how to proceed and improve.
  3. Engage multiple modalities, especially collaboration. Students comprehend text in all sorts of ways—hearing, speaking, writing, seeing, performing, and more. Try alternate modalities like dramatic readings or debates, which also give students the benefits of working together.
  4. Promote critical thinking. This one’s the biggest idea beneath all the others.

To be fully engaged, middle schoolers need to know that their work is relevant and recognized. A truly engaging curriculum supports a range of observations and interpretations. Some approaches:

  1. Be clear that the text, not the teacher, has the answers. Ask questions like “How did you get to that response?” Help students follow this rule: If you can justify it in the text, you can hold on to your interpretation.
  2. Guide students to develop theories rather than get it right. For example, ask questions like “Why does (or doesn’t) this make sense?”
  3. Try the Socratic style. Emphasizing inquiry and discussion brings home the power of open-ended questions. It also positions the teacher as facilitator, not deliverer of all knowledge.

These principles won’t just help your students get through middle-school—they’ll help you get through to your middle schoolers.

Learn more.

Read more about Amplify ELA, including an overview of the components of the curriculum in grades 6–8.