Decision 1: adopt or build. The tested option is a published knowledge-building sequence. If your district can't adopt one now, build a K–5 topic map so each grade's reading units build on the last, and use it to choose texts.
What a knowledge unit looks like (about six weeks, one topic)
Launch. Teacher teaches the core ideas directly, with a map, timeline, or diagram.
Read-alouds (K–2) or shared reading (3–5) of connected texts on the topic, each a bit harder than the last.
Vocabulary. Five to eight key words per week taught directly and used in talk and writing.
Write about what was learned. Sentences in K–1, paragraphs by grade 3.
Retrieval. Warm-up questions on earlier weeks and earlier units (principle 6).
Knowledge check at the end: what did students learn about the topic, not "can they find the main idea."
Sample K–5 topic map (illustrative; districts set their own)
Grade
Science-linked units
History and arts-linked units
K
Plants; the five senses
Native Americans; kings and queens in stories
1
The human body; early earth
Early civilizations; American symbols
2
Insects; the water cycle
Ancient Greece; westward expansion
3
Animal classification; light and sound
Ancient Rome; the thirteen colonies
4
Electricity; the human body systems
Middle Ages; the American Revolution
5
Chemistry basics; ecology
Renaissance; the Civil War
Protect the time. Fordham's analysis of national data found extra elementary time on social studies, not on English language arts, was linked to better reading. Thirty more minutes a day went with a gain of about 0.15 standard deviations by 5th grade (EdWeek on Tyner & Kabourek(opens in a new tab)). That is a correlation, not proof, but it points the same way as the trials.
Four-week try-it plan (one grade team)
Week
Do
Check
1
Pick one topic; gather a text set that builds from easy to hard
Do the texts connect, or just share a theme?
2
Teach core ideas and key vocabulary directly
Can students explain the big ideas in their own words?
3
Daily read-alouds or shared reading plus writing
Is student writing using the unit vocabulary?
4
Knowledge check plus retrieval questions from week 1
What stuck, and what needs to come back in warm-ups?
Troubleshooting
Problem
Fix
"We have to teach the tested skills"
State tests use passages on topics; knowledge is what lets students understand them
Science and social studies keep getting cut
Put them on the master schedule as protected blocks, checked in visits
Texts are too hard for some students
Read them aloud; knowledge can be built by listening while decoding catches up