Ever wish your students were as excited about reading as they are about TikTok?
Keeping students engaged with complex texts while still meeting standards is one of the hardest parts of teaching ELA. Khan Academy’s new ELA courses for grades 4–10 were built with that reality in mind. They help students build reading comprehension, vocabulary, and critical thinking skills in ways that feel rigorous and relevant.
Here are three reasons teachers are starting to explore Khan Academy ELA.
1. Built by teachers who understand your classroom
Teaching ELA means balancing a lot at once: standards, assessments, engagement, and limited time.
Khan Academy ELA courses were designed by experienced educators who know those challenges firsthand. Lessons are aligned to grade-level expectations and built to support the skills students need for end-of-year assessments—without losing sight of curiosity and meaning.
Each course gives you:
- A thoughtful mix of informational texts and literature
- Short instructional videos and articles that model close reading
- Vocabulary instruction and practice exercises
- Reading strategies and test-taking tips you can use right away
Whether you’re introducing sixth graders to making inferences or helping tenth graders analyze arguments, Khan Academy ELA offers ready-to-use materials that save time and support strong comprehension.
2. A focus on thinking—not just answers
Strong readers don’t just understand what a text says. They understand how it works.
Instead of telling students what to think, Khan Academy ELA helps them learn how to think. Lessons connect literature with history, science, and real-world topics, giving students meaningful opportunities to analyze, evaluate evidence, and make inferences from complex texts.
Built-in reading-strategy articles make it easy to model metacognitive skills during regular instruction, helping students become more confident, independent readers across subjects.
3. Texts students actually want to read
Engagement matters. If students don’t connect with what they’re reading, learning stalls.
That’s why Khan Academy ELA features texts chosen to spark curiosity. Students encounter excerpts from well-known novels, such as The Giver and Esperanza Rising, alongside informational texts that explore questions about how video games can build survival skills, for example, or why the U.S. Navy once built a floating ice cream barge.
The result? In a recent survey of more than 700 students, 85% said they found the texts in Khan Academy’s ELA practice exercises somewhat or very interesting.
When was the last time that many students felt engaged during reading practice?
Ready to get started?
Khan Academy ELA is designed to support the work you’re already doing, helping students think critically, read with confidence, and engage more deeply with text.
You’ll find standards-aligned lessons, engaging readings, and meaningful practice—all free and easy to try on your own terms.
