Over the past year, there has been widespread, well-founded enthusiasm for knowledge-rich curricula. At the same time, there is growing global attention for so-called high-quality instructional materials. Anyone who follows this blog, or the work of Natalie Wexler, will understand why. Reading comprehension does not improve simply through isolated strategies. Instead, it improves through systematically built knowledge, rich texts, and carefully sequenced learning progressions. School systems that invest in this are, without doubt, taking an important step forward.

But what happens next, once such a curriculum is actually in place and in daily use?

A recent learning brief by SRI Education, tellingly titled Beyond the Surface, offers an uncomfortable but highly relevant look behind the scenes. Researchers observed over one hundred lessons in four US school districts that have been working for several years with well-regarded knowledge-rich curricula such as Core Knowledge Language Arts, Wit & Wisdom, and EL Education. This was not a pilot phase. These programmes had reached a mature stage of implementation. Schools had moved beyond the teething problems. Experienced teachers used the materials almost every day. Lessons focused squarely on texts, and pupils engaged actively in the work. On paper, everything pointed to success.

And yet something fundamental was missing.

In nearly two-thirds of the observed lessons, students engaged with texts only superficially. They carried out the assigned tasks. They met the standards. And they identified features, named events and structures, and completed the required tasks. Yet they seldom built a coherent mental model of what the text actually meant. Reading became something to get through, not an activity aimed at making meaning. The researchers, therefore, draw a clear distinction between surface-level and robust comprehension. The key question is whether students move beyond recognition and labelling. Also, whether teaching actively supports their integration of ideas into a meaningful whole.

The confronting insight is that this problem emerges not in spite of the curricula, but alongside them. The materials offer rich content. However, paper richness does not automatically translate into classroom meaning-making richness. Visible indicators such as standards being addressed, pupils staying on task, or high levels of participation can easily create a misleading impression of quality. The deeper work happens in how teachers guide their talk about texts. Do their questions stop at “what does the text say?” Or do they deliberately push students towards “what does this mean, and why does it matter within the larger whole?”

Crucially, the report shows that this is not about one curriculum outperforming another. Classrooms using the same programme differed markedly. More robust comprehension is consistently aligned with specific instructional practices. For example, teachers modelled their thinking explicitly, activated prior knowledge in a systematic way, gave feedback that deepened understanding, and posed questions that required students to connect details into broader ideas. These practices are not revolutionary, but they do not happen by default.

The most consequential warning, however, concerns policy and professional development. When observation tools prioritise visible features such as time on task, active participation, or fidelity of implementation, they risk rewarding precisely the behaviours that allow superficial understanding to persist. Likewise, when reading data are broken down into isolated standards such as “main idea” or “text structure”, systems push teachers towards fragmentation rather than coherence.

This is why the brief is so compelling. It does not argue against knowledge-rich curricula. On the contrary, it underlines just how much potential they hold. At the same time, it shows how easily that potential slips away. This happens when implementation becomes an exercise in following materials rather than understanding them. Put plainly, without sustained attention to meaningful instruction, even the strongest curriculum can end up as little more than a checklist.

This is why the brief is so compelling. It does not argue against knowledge-rich curricula. On the contrary, it underlines just how much potential they hold. At the same time, it shows how easily that potential slips away when implementation becomes an exercise in following materials rather than understanding them. Put plainly, without sustained attention to meaningful instruction, even the strongest curriculum can end up as little more than a checklist.