Content update: Upcoming restructuring to reading and vocab courses

We’ve made some important updates to Khan Academy’s reading and vocab courses for grades 4–10.

These changes are designed to make it easier for teachers to quickly identify and assign targeted skills practice and instructional resources in the reimagined Khan Academy Classroom experience.

This update is part of Khan Academy’s 2026 back-to-school content rollout. You can view the full BTS 2026 content overview here.

Grammar units have been integrated into 5th–10th grade reading and vocab courses

We want to make it simple for you to assign all the ELA practice your students need. So we’ve integrated grade-level grammar units into our existing 5th–10th grade reading and vocab courses. With just a few clicks, you can assign practice in all three domains: reading comprehension, grammar, and vocabulary at one time. Assign all the lessons at once or focus on just the skills your students most need to practice. 

This is the same rigorous, standards-aligned grammar practice that you’ll find in our stand-alone grammar courses, now also integrated into our reading courses so you can find all the ELA practice you need in one place. 

You’ll also notice that our ELA courses have been renamed to reflect the breadth of skills coverage: 

• 5th grade reading, grammar, and vocab 
• 6th grade reading, grammar, and vocab 
• 7th grade reading, grammar, and vocab 
• 8th grade reading, grammar, and vocab 
• 9th grade reading, grammar, and vocab 
• 10th grade reading, grammar, and vocab 

Unit names now focus on skills

In our 4th–10th grade ELA courses, reading comprehension units are now organized around Common Core-aligned skill groups:

• Key ideas and details
• Craft and structure
• Integration of knowledge and ideas

Previously, units focused on broader themes. The new naming structure is designed to make it easier to quickly identify the skills covered in a unit.

Articles have been renamed

Our ELA articles provide instruction, modeling, and opportunities for low-stakes practice. These resources follow an “I do / we do / you do” instructional model and can be used independently by students or as part of whole-class or small-group instruction. 

To help teachers and students better understand the content of the articles, they now use this naming format:

Skill name | Guided practice

For example:

• Making inferences → Making inferences | Guided practice

Vocabulary instruction is moving into separate units

For grades 4–10, vocabulary practice is being moved into stand-alone vocabulary units at the beginning of the course, rather than being embedded within reading comprehension units. This change is intended to give teachers more flexibility around when or if to assign vocabulary practice. 

These new vocabulary units will cover both high-frequency, high-utility grade-level words and transferable skills like using context clues, roots, and affixes to determine word meanings. 

We recommend that learners complete the vocabulary unit before beginning reading units, so students can review strategies that will help them determine the meanings of unfamiliar words in reading passages.  Students will also see many of these useful vocab words in the reading passages in the rest of the course.

If you want to dive straight into reading, however, go ahead! In the 5th–10th grade courses, students will encounter the same transferable vocabulary skills in a later Word Study unit. 

Will this affect mastery progress?

Khan Academy’s 5th–10th grade reading, grammar, and vocab courses will now include dozens of new grammar lessons and over 70 new grammar practice exercises per course. We’ve also added a new vocabulary exercise to the 7th–10th grade courses. 

While these changes will significantly affect mastery progress, we believe they will make the courses much easier to use in the reimagined Khan Academy Classroom experience.

Why are these changes being made?

Based on feedback from teachers, these updates are intended to make Khan Academy’s ELA courses easier to use in classrooms and easier to align with existing curriculum and coursework.

The updated structure is designed to help teachers:

• quickly identify relevant skills practice
• assign targeted instruction more easily
• use vocabulary practice more flexibly

We’ll continue monitoring feedback as these updates roll out.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out.

What’s coming next for Khan Academy ELA?

We’re creating even more practice exercises for reading skills in 7th–10th grade! Stay tuned!