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Core Knowledge
What Your Sixth Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good Sixth-Grade Education, Revised Edition
What should your child learn in the sixth grade? How can you help him or her at home? This book answers these important questions and more, offering the specific shared knowledge that thousands of parents and teachers across the nation have agreed upon for American sixth graders. Featuring sixteen pages of full-color illustrations, a bolder, easier-to-follow format, and a thoroughly updated curriculum, What Your Sixth Grader Needs to Know, Revised Edition, is designed for parents and teachers to enjoy with children. Hundreds of thousands of children have benefited from the Core Knowledge Series. This revised edition gives a new generation of sixth graders the advantage they need to make progress in school today, and to establish an approach to learning that will last a lifetime. Discover:
• Favorite Poems—old and new, from Edgar Allan Poe’s classic “The Raven” to Maya Angelou’s “Woman Work”
• Literature—from around the world, including Homer’s epics the Iliad and the Odyssey, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper
• Learning About Language—he rules of written English, including the four kinds of sentences, common English sayings and phrases, plus an introduction to Greek and Latin roots
• History and Geography—world history from ancient Greece and the fall of the Roman Empire to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution; American history of the post—Civil War era, including the Industrial Revolution, immigration, urbanization, and reform
• Visual Arts—a brief history of art, stretching from the classical period through the Renaissance, Baroque, and Romantic periods all the way to the age of realism, with full-color reproductions and discussions of great works by artists such as El Greco, Rembrandt, and Winslow Homer
• Music—understanding and appreciating music, including musical notation, chords, and scales—plus biographies of great composers such as Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin
• Math—challenging lessons, ranging from probability and statistics, geometry, ratios and proportions to basic pre-algebra
• Science—fascinating discussions of plate tectonics, oceans, astronomy, the environment, the human body, and the immune system—plus short biographies of great scientists such as Marie Curie
• Favorite Poems—old and new, from Edgar Allan Poe’s classic “The Raven” to Maya Angelou’s “Woman Work”
• Literature—from around the world, including Homer’s epics the Iliad and the Odyssey, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper
• Learning About Language—he rules of written English, including the four kinds of sentences, common English sayings and phrases, plus an introduction to Greek and Latin roots
• History and Geography—world history from ancient Greece and the fall of the Roman Empire to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution; American history of the post—Civil War era, including the Industrial Revolution, immigration, urbanization, and reform
• Visual Arts—a brief history of art, stretching from the classical period through the Renaissance, Baroque, and Romantic periods all the way to the age of realism, with full-color reproductions and discussions of great works by artists such as El Greco, Rembrandt, and Winslow Homer
• Music—understanding and appreciating music, including musical notation, chords, and scales—plus biographies of great composers such as Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin
• Math—challenging lessons, ranging from probability and statistics, geometry, ratios and proportions to basic pre-algebra
• Science—fascinating discussions of plate tectonics, oceans, astronomy, the environment, the human body, and the immune system—plus short biographies of great scientists such as Marie Curie
391 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
80 people are currently reading
190 people want to read
About the author
E.D. Hirsch Jr.
156 books111 followersE. D. Hirsch, Jr. is the founder and chairman of the Core Knowledge Foundation and professor emeritus of education and humanities at the University of Virginia. He is the author of several acclaimed books on education in which he has persisted as a voice of reason making the case for equality of educational opportunity.
A highly regarded literary critic and professor of English earlier in his career, Dr. Hirsch recalls being “shocked into education reform” while doing research on written composition at a pair of colleges in Virginia. During these studies he observed that a student’s ability to comprehend a passage was determined in part by the relative readability of the text, but even more by the student’s background knowledge.
This research led Dr. Hirsch to develop his concept of cultural literacy—the idea that reading comprehension requires not just formal decoding skills but also wide-ranging background knowledge. In 1986 he founded the Core Knowledge Foundation. A year later he published Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, which remained at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for more than six months. His subsequent books include The Schools We Need, The Knowledge Deficit, The Making of Americans, and most recently, How to Educate a Citizen: The Power of Shared Knowledge to Unify a Nation.
In How to Educate a Citizen (September, 2020), E.D. Hirsch continues the conversation he began thirty years ago with his classic bestseller Cultural Literacy, urging America’s public schools, particularly in Preschool – Grade 8, to educate our children using common, coherent and sequenced curricula to help heal and preserve the nation.
A highly regarded literary critic and professor of English earlier in his career, Dr. Hirsch recalls being “shocked into education reform” while doing research on written composition at a pair of colleges in Virginia. During these studies he observed that a student’s ability to comprehend a passage was determined in part by the relative readability of the text, but even more by the student’s background knowledge.
This research led Dr. Hirsch to develop his concept of cultural literacy—the idea that reading comprehension requires not just formal decoding skills but also wide-ranging background knowledge. In 1986 he founded the Core Knowledge Foundation. A year later he published Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, which remained at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for more than six months. His subsequent books include The Schools We Need, The Knowledge Deficit, The Making of Americans, and most recently, How to Educate a Citizen: The Power of Shared Knowledge to Unify a Nation.
In How to Educate a Citizen (September, 2020), E.D. Hirsch continues the conversation he began thirty years ago with his classic bestseller Cultural Literacy, urging America’s public schools, particularly in Preschool – Grade 8, to educate our children using common, coherent and sequenced curricula to help heal and preserve the nation.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 9, 2009
I just re-read the whole CORE Knowledge Series this week. I have to say, I'm torn by these...bit of a love/hate relationship I suppose. How awesome that Hirsch takes the basics and breaks them down into digestible bits of information in a meaningful sequence...always building on what kids have learned already. At the same time, how scary that educators may pick these up and think that truly this is all a first-grader, second-grader, etc. needs to know. Knowledge is infinite and true love of learning can never be developed by focusing on a single textbook no matter how many subjects it covers. I know Hirsch didn't intend for this to be all that kids are taught, and yet that always feels a little suggested to me as I read them. A good resource that has no hope of ever replacing great literature.
December 29, 2020
Great ideas for homeschooling a 6th grader
May 6, 2014
This is essentially the equivalent of a Readers Digest Condensed Book of an entire grade's textbook. Other than purposely using it as supplement at home by setting time aside to read it it with your child, I don't really see an application for this style of book. The material is presented very dryly and in this large book seems overwhelming so no child would read it alone.
November 1, 2008
Using this for basic knowledge.
February 28, 2011
These are great supplemental books for elementary grade levels This one was just as good as the others.
October 8, 2013
We started homeschooling this year and this series is a very good backbone for making your own curriculum. I checked this out at the library then later purchased it for use at home.
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January 4, 2015I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
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February 17, 2016
Good for parents and grandparents to supplement their child's school learning.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews