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The Core Knowledge Early Literacy Program focuses on building students' content knowledge while emphasizing phonics and vocabulary.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein says the students participating in the pilot program made significant gains compared to students who didn't.

He also says the method can go a long way toward bridging learning gaps.

"When kids come to school from different communities and they have three or four or five times the vocabulary that other children have that's not something like math that you can just sit down in the classroom and immediately teach people," Klein said.

The Core Knowledge Program is a three-year pilot program and will continue to be used with the same students as they move through first and second grades.

Klein says it will not be part of a mandated curriculum, but he is hoping teachers choose to use it.