1st Grade - Gateway 2

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for materials to contain a teacher edition with ample and useful annotations and suggestions on how to present the content in the student materials. Where applicable, materials include teacher guidance for the use of embedded technology to support and enhance student learning.

The Teacher Guide helps facilitate foundational skills instruction via written step-by-step directions and visuals. Each lesson provides the teacher with explicit routines, timelines, materials, and assessments. The Teacher Guide lists the Tricky Spellings, Warm-Up activities, Unit Assessment, Pausing Points, and teacher resources for each unit. There is a consistent lesson structure that starts with a Warm-Up, then moves into phonological awareness (environmental sounds), phonics, and then writing.

The materials provide a well-defined, Teacher Guide for content presentation. Materials include a Table of Contents, Common Core Alignment, Primary Focus Objectives for each lesson, Formative Assessments, and a Lesson at a Glance. Grouping strategies and suggested times are provided. There is an Advance Preparation Chart to help the teacher prepare prior to the lesson. For example, in Skills 5, the Advanced Preparation section explains the major spellings for the /p/ sound. There are sidebars throughout the program that provide support and challenges for various learners.

The Teacher Guide contains instructional routines to help the teacher effectively implement all foundational skills content. The teacher needs picture readers, blending picture cards, a chaining folder, large letter cards, sound cards, small letter cards, and sound posters. All lessons follow a similar routine. Lessons start with a Warm-Up. For example, in Skills 2, Lesson 1, students review how to use the vowel flip code book to practice decoding short vowel sounds. The lesson continues with phonological awareness, then phonics, and ends with a writing component. When introducing a new sound, there are step-by-step directions on how to introduce the sound. Each lesson contains visual aids for the teacher. For example, in Skills 3, Lesson 1, materials explicitly show the total physical response motions that correlate to the blending motion.

Technology is provided to support and guide teachers. For example, there is a sound library that models the correct pronunciation of each sound. The teacher can sort the sounds by grade level or use the search feature.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for materials to contain full, adult-level explanations and examples of the foundational skills concepts included in the program so teachers can improve their own knowledge of the subject, as necessary.

The materials include an overview of the foundational skills taught at the grade level, with complete, detailed adult-level explanations. In the introduction to each unit, there are explanations and rationales behind the instructional practices presented to students. Examples of each concept are provided along with additional information to help support the teacher in delivering the foundational skills lessons. Appendix A includes a detailed explanation of the Simple View of Reading, and it informs the program design. It has detailed explanations for the difference between sight words and tricky words.

Throughout the program there are complete, adult-level explanations for each foundational skill taught at the grade level. Each lesson includes a primary focus objective and the corresponding Common Core State Standard(s) are listed. The Teacher Guide introduction provides an overview of the lessons and skills taught throughout the unit. Some specific examples include:

• In Skills 1, the introduction provides an overview of the lessons and skills taught. The Overview explains that “These lessons review the majority of sounds and spellings taught in the CKLA Kindergarten curriculum. The presentation and practice of sound/spelling correspondence in these lessons, most of which should be familiar to students who participated in the Kindergarten CKLA program, allows for rapid review.”
• In Skills 4, the introduction provides an overview of the lessons and skills taught throughout the unit. It says, “In this unit, you will introduce the sounds that are sometimes called r-controlled vowel sounds and are most common (or least ambiguous spelling for each sound... /er/ spelled ‘er’ as in her, /ar/ spelled ‘ar’ as in car, and /or/ spelled ‘or’ as in for.” It also goes on to say, “The sounds /er/ as in her, /ar/as in car, and /or/ as in for are classified as r-controlled vowel sounds rather than vowel+consonant combinations. In this program, /er/, /ar/ and /or/ are treated as discrete phonemes.”
• In Skills 5, the introduction explains that “the term digraph refers to two letters that stand for a single sound. It is not necessary to teach this term to students. However, it is important that students understand that a letter can stand for a single sound all by itself or it can work with a second letter to stand for a single sound.”

There are detailed examples of the grade level foundational skill concepts for the teachers. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Lesson 1, students begin segmenting words that contain two or three sounds. Explanations for the teacher include, “Blend the sounds to produce the word at, making a first with your hand. Have students tap and blend the sounds in the word” and “Wiggle or move your index finger for the first sound in the word, /a/.”
• In Skills 2, when introducing the spelling of /ee/ examples of words that follow the sound spelling are given. The teacher explains that “the two letters work together to stand for the /ee/ sound.”
• In Skills 4, Lesson 1, students are introduced to the sound /er/ through sound riddles. The teacher is prompted to say, “ask students to repeat a number of words that have the /er/ sound in the middle: burn, fern, clerk, lurk, circus” and “Ask students to repeat a number of words that have the /er/ sound at the end: her, sister, brother, cover, later.”

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for scope and sequence to clearly delineate the order in which phonological awareness skills are to be taught, with a clear, evidence-based explanation for the expected hierarchy of phonemic awareness competence.

In the Grade 1 Teacher Guide, Appendix A, the materials provide an explanation for the sequence of phonological awareness skills. The Teacher Guide states, “CKLA focuses consistently on the phoneme, or single sound, and not on larger units.” The progression of phonological awareness skills, found in the Standards Alignment, allows for students to learn in a sequential way to build their understanding of phonological awareness. The Standards Alignment document provides both the grade level Standard Alignment and the individual Skills Standard Alignment, providing a cohesive sequence of instruction for phonemic awareness.

Materials contain a clear, evidence-based explanation for the expected hierarchy for teaching phonological awareness skills. Specific examples include:

• In the Program Guide, the materials explain the program is based on the Simple View of Reading and “The Skills strand is built upon a large research base including the National Reading Panel...” Furthermore, the materials state, “Each lesson is dedicated to print concepts, phonological awareness, and phonics, and word recognition.”
• The Program Guide says, “In CKLA phonics instruction, students are first introduced to the sound and participate in interactive, engaging oral language exercising in which they repeatedly say and hear the sound.”
• In the Alignment Chart, each lesson lists the phonological awareness standards. For example, in Skills 2, Lessons 1, 3, 6, 8, and 12, students isolate and pronounce initial, medial, and final sounds.

Materials contain a coherent phonemic awareness sequence of instruction and practice exercises based on the expected hierarchy. The Grade 1 Alignment Chart references the Grade 1 Skills Teacher Guide in which phonological awareness standards are noted. Some of the activities include:

• In Skills 1, students orally produce single syllable words by blending, isolating, and producing sounds in words. In Lesson 5, students isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel, and final sounds in spoken syllable words.
• In Skills 2, students distinguish long from short vowel sounds and segment words into individual sounds.
• In Skills 3, students produce single-syllable words by blending sounds. In Lesson 13, students orally produce single syllable words by blending sounds, including consonant blends.
• In Skills 4, students blend and segment onset and rimes.
• In Skills 5, students blend and segment onset and rimes and distinguish long from short vowels in spoken words.
• In Skills 6, students blend and segment onset and rimes.
• In Skills 7, students segment words into individual sounds.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for the scope and sequence to clearly delineate an intentional order in which phonics skills are taught. A clear explanation for the sequence is included.

The materials include a coherent scope and sequence of phonics that build toward application of skills. Through the research base and sequence of instruction, the program teaches the 150 spellings for the 44 sounds of the English language throughout the first three years of school. The scope and sequence can be found in the Table of Contents, the Appendix, the Scope and Sequence document, and the Alignment Chart. Research is found in the Research Guide which explains the underlying reason for the order of instruction.

Materials clearly delineate a scope and sequence with a cohesive, intentional sequence of phonics instruction and practice for building toward application of skills. In the Resources, a Scope and Sequence of the Skills strand is identified for each grade level. The materials provide the scope and sequence, broken apart by the focus of each lesson, for each Unit in the Skills Strand. In addition, the Table of Contents for each CKLA Skills Teacher Guide provides a reference sequence of phonics instruction and activities in the lesson that build toward application of the skill. The following is the Grade 1 Scope & Sequence (note: in the Appendix B, which lists the Scope & Sequence, it is labeled as Unit instead of Skills):

• Unit 1: review reading and writing CVC, CCVC, CVCC, CCVCC words.
• Unit 2: long vowel spellings of ee, a_e, i_e, o_e, u_e.
• Unit 3: spelling for the sounds /oo/, /ou/, /oi/, and /aw/ and read two syllable words
• Unit 4: Spelling for r-controlled vowel sounds and past tense endings.
• Unit 5: Consonant spelling alternative such as tch for /ch/, g for /j/, and wr for /r/.
• Unit 6: Consonant spelling alternatives for sounds such as c for /s/ and kn for /n/.
• Unit 7: Spelling alternatives for vowel such such as ai, ay and oe.

Materials have a clear research-based explanation for the order of the phonics sequence. Evidence of a clear research-based explanation include:

• “Research consistently demonstrates that explicit phonics instruction has important, lasting benefits to children’s reading accuracy, and this is one of the most emphasized aspects of phonics instruction for English language learners, as well as children struggling to learn reading (August et al., 2005, Brady, 2011; DeGraaff et al., 2009; Ehri et al., 2001; Torgesen, 2006; Torgesen et al., 2001; Vaughn, 2007).”
• It is important to include “a variety of features designed to minimize confusion and maximize practice and application of each sound spelling, consistent with research that such an approach leads to significant benefits in efficiency and in accuracy with children’s learning (Share, 1995; Torgesen, 2006; Torgesen et al., 2001; Ziegler and Goswami, 2005).”
• “Emphasizing the use of systematic, mastery-oriented practice that distinguishes the program from many other explicit phonics instructional programs... CKLA’s approach balances both the motivation and mastery aspects of practice (Carpenter et al., 2012., 2012; Cepeda et al., 2006; Gerbier and Toppino, 2015).”
• CKLA teaches “phonics and reading/writing fundamentals through an integrated system of assessment, general curriculum, and supplementary curricular materials designed for added differentiation and support. Research finds that one of the challenges in providing differentiated instruction to students is a lack of specifically designed activities or ideas that relate to the skills or targets taught within the general curriculum (e.g., Al Otailba et al., 2011).”
• In Skills 1, the introduction states, “CKLA includes explicit, systematic phonics instruction, but the instruction differs from the type of phonics usually taught in the United States in that it begins with a focus on sounds and then links those sounds to spellings.” It states, “CKLA uses a synthetic phonics approach which teaches students to read by blending through the word; it does not teach multiple cueing strategies, use of pictures as a primary resource in decoding, or part-word guessing.
• In Skills 1, Appendix A, the Teacher Guide references Philip Gough and William Tunmer’s research on the Simple View of Reading and its focus on word recognition skills and language comprehension

Phonics instruction is based in high utility patterns and/or common phonics generalizations. CKLA explicitly teaches the 150 spellings of the 44 sounds throughout Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2. The year starts with phonics of consonants and then moves into vowels and one syllable words. In Skills 3, students learn about vowel digraphs before learning about vowel r combinations in Skills 4. In Skills 5-7, students learn about alternative spellings for phonemes.

Patterns and generalizations are carefully selected to provide a meaningful and manageable number of patterns and common generalizations for students to learn deeply. According to the program, the sequence of instruction “progresses from the most common, least ambiguous spellings in Kindergarten to the least frequent, most confusing sound spellings in Grade 2.” One phoneme pattern or common generalization is taught per lesson.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for materials to include decodable texts with phonics aligned to the program’s scope and sequence.

Materials include decodable texts for each unit, aligned to the scope and sequence for Grade 1. Students have multiple opportunities to read the decodable texts during small group and partner reading sessions.

Materials include decodable texts to address securing phonics. For example:

• In the K-2 Program Guide, it states that the “readers contain decodable text aligned to the sequence of phonics instruction.” It also states that the “CKLA Readers are built according to the program and the code students have been introduced to.”
• In Skills 1, Lesson 29, the decodable text “The Bus Stop” contains words to practice sh, th, and -ck phonics skills and includes words such as thrush, Beth, and deck.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 4, students review the various ways to spell the /k/ sound and then read the text “In the Cave,” which includes words with this phonics skill. Words included in this text are cave, hike, and coin.

Decodable texts contain grade-level phonics skills signed to the program’s scope and sequence. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, students read “The Fish” which contains the double-letter spellings for consonant sounds, such as ll and ss, and “The Man in the Kilt,” which contains the /qu/ sound.
• In Skills 2, the reader states that students will encounter words with short vowel sounds, which they have already learned and additional phonics skills will be added. For example in the text “Gran’s Trips” students begin reading words with the /ee/ sound and in the story “The Swim Meet,” students begin encountering words with the sound /ie/ as in bite.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 13, students read “The Sweet Shop,” which includes long vowel spelling words such as sweet, cake, shakes, make, sweet, case, and games. The scope and sequence for Skills Unit 2 says students will learn the long vowel sound spelling of ee, a_e, i_e, o_e, and u_e.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 10, students read the decodable text, “Mandrills,” which include words looking, because, yawning, and sharp. The Scope and Sequence for Unit 4 includes r-controlled vowel sounds, past tense endings, and reading two-syllable words.
• In Skills 6, students read “Mister Spencer and the Rabbits” and encounter words with the sound /s/ spelled with c and ce and in the text “The Band” they begin reading the sound /n/ spelled kn.

Materials include detailed lesson plans for repeated readings of decodable texts to address securing phonics skills. Examples include:

• In the K-2 Program Guide it states, “The decodable Student Readers have been carefully constructed to provide students with recurring, distributed practice in reading stories that use decodable words.”
• In Skills 1, Lesson 26, the Teacher Guide encourages teachers to use silly voices to get kids to reread decodable texts, as long as students are reading fluently.
• In Skills 2, Lessons 3, 9, 14, 16, and 19, students have opportunities for rereading the stories from the Reader.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 9, students reread the decodable text “The Two Mules,” which contains words to practice the /ou/ sound spelling taught in the lesson. Students take turns rereading the text aloud with a partner.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 19, students reread the decodable text “Grace the Performer,” which contains words to practice the /n/ spellings in Lessons 18 and 19 and /wh/ in Lesson 16.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for materials to include decodable texts with high-frequency words aligned to the program’s scope and sequence.

The materials include decodable texts for each unit, which contain opportunities for students to read high-frequency/irregularly spelled words. The decodable texts are used for multiple readers during small group instruction and partner reading.

Materials include decodable texts that utilize high-frequency/irregularly spelled words. Examples include:

• In Skills 2, the Reader includes Tricky Words such as she, they, their, and your.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 17, students read the text “The Fox and the Grapes,” which includes Tricky Words such that, those, look, and down.
• In Skills 6, the Reader includes Tricky Words such as the days of the week, picture, stagecoach, should, and yesterday.
• In Skills 7, Lesson 4, students read the text “Dinner with Kay,” which includes high-frequency words such as next, for, on, and after.

Decodable texts contain high-frequency/irregularly spelled words aligned to the program's scope and sequence. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Lesson 22, students read the text “Bud the Cat,” which includes Tricky Words such as of, the, one, and said, which is part of the Skills 1, Scope and Sequence.
• In Skills 2, students learn Tricky Words such as he, she, be, me, their, and your and are found throughout the Reader.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 8, students learn the Tricky Words today and yesterday and the words are in the Reader in the stories “Groundhogs” in Lesson 15 and “Deer” in Pausing Points.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 23 the word cow is introduced as a Tricky Word, and it is introduced in the Reader as well.

Materials include detailed lesson plans for repeated readings of decodable texts to address securing reading of high-frequency words/irregularly spelled words in context. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Lesson 26, students reread their Reader with silly voices.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 3, students reread either the text “Gran’s Trip” or “The Pet” independently or with a partner. Both of these texts include Tricky Words such as when, was, says, no, and what.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 8, students reread the text “The Picnic by the River” which includes Tricky Words by, down, their, and should.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for materials to regularly and systematically offer assessment opportunities that measure student progress through mastery of print concepts (K-1), letter recognition (K only), and printing letters (as indicated by the program scope and sequence) (K-1).

Materials offer assessments throughout the year. There are formative assessments throughout the Skills units and Summative Assessments found at the end of the Units. Assessments require students to show understanding of print concepts, letter recognition, and writing letters.

Materials regularly and systematically provide a variety of assessment opportunities over the course of the year. The assessments show student progress toward mastery and independence of print concepts, letter recognition, and letter formation.

• In Skills 1, Lesson 7, there is a letter name assessment where the teacher says a letter, and the student circles that letter in a line of letters.
• In Skills 1, Lesson 18, Student Performance Assessment, Practice Reading, the teacher assesses students on understanding phrases and sentences. Teacher directions state: “Tell students that when we write, we leave a space between each word in a phrase. Point to the phrase fast ship on the board/chart paper and point out the space between the two words. Invite a student to read the phrase. Repeat with the phrase two cups. Explain that words can also be combined to make sentences. Tell students that a sentence is a complete thought. The first letter in the first word of a sentence is capitalized. Point to the first sentence on the board/chart paper and point out the spaces between the words: This is fun. Invite a student to read the sentence. Point out the period at the end of the sentence. Explain that the little dot at the end of a sentence is called a period. It indicates that it is time to make a full stop and take a breath when reading. Repeat with the remaining sentences.”

Assessment materials provide teachers and students with information concerning the current skills/level of understanding of print concepts, letter recognition, and letter formation.

• In the Assessment and Remediation Guide, there is a flow chart for each skill assessed that helps the teacher know which lessons to use next with a student, whether it is a Pausing Point activity or a lesson from the Assessment and Remediation Guide.
• Within the Skills Units, formative assessments are marked for the teacher to gather data to determine need for additional supports.

Materials support teachers with instructional suggestions for assessment-based steps to help students to progress toward mastery in print concepts, letter recognition, and letter formation.

• For each skill, Sample Remediation lessons are in the Assessment and Remediation Guides.
• In Skills 3 of the Assessment and Remediation Guide, there are sample lessons.
• Formative assessments during a Skills Unit help the teacher know how much time is needed to master the concept by a class or small group. By utilizing Pausing Points or additional support activities found within the unit a teacher can verify if additional support is needed.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for materials that regularly and systematically offer assessment opportunities that measure student progress of phonics (as indicated by the program scope and sequence).

The materials provide phonics assessment materials and tools that include scoring and recording sheets to collect ongoing data about student progress in phonics. The materials help teachers determine levels of progress through the systematic implementation of Student Performance assessments in the Skills Unit and the Phonics Progress Monitoring assessments within the Assessment and Remediation Guide. The materials include instructional adjustments that help students progress towards mastery in phonics with scoring information, item analysis charts, and remediation lessons in the Assessment and Remediation Guide.

Materials provide resources and tools for the teacher to collect ongoing data about student progress in phonics. Examples include:

• In Skills 3, the Assessment and Remediation Guide provides a Phonics Progress monitoring assessment that contains nine words with vowel digraphs that students read.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 7, a Progress Monitoring assessment for r-controlled vowels is administered. The teacher uses the Record Sheet to record each word as the student reads.
• In Skills 6, there is a Phonics Progress Monitoring assessment in the Assessment and Remediation Guide that includes seven words with consonant spelling alternative words.

Materials offer assessment opportunities to determine student progress in phonics that are implemented systematically. Examples include:

• In Skills 2, Lesson 18, a Unit Assessment is given which includes a Word Recognition Assessment, which assesses students’ skills to read words with digraphs and spellings previously taught.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 22, a Unit Assessment is given, which includes a Word Recognition assessment that assesses students’ ability to read words that contain previously taught sound spellings.

Multiple assessment opportunities are provided regularly for students to determine progress toward mastery and independence with phonics. Examples include:

• In Skills 4, spelling assessments are provided in Lessons 5, 10, 15, and 20. In Lesson 20, words contain one-syllable words that contain ar, oi, er, and the Tricky Word because.
• In Skills 7, spelling assessments are provided in Lessons 5, 10, and 15. In Lesson 10, words include /ae/ spelled ay, /ae/ spelled a_e, and ai.

Assessment materials provide teachers and students with information about current skills/level of understanding of phonics. Examples include:

• In Skills 3, students are given a Phonics Progress monitoring assessment which is composed of nine vowel digraphs. Scoring interpretation includes a score of 8 points is considered excellent, a score of 6 or 7 is considered good, a score of 5 points is considered fair, and a score of 5 or less is considered poor.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 8, students take an assessment on r-controlled vowels and receive a point for every word read correctly. A score of 6 indicates excellent, a score of 5 indicates good, a score of 4 indicates fair, and a score that is less than 4 points indicates poor.
• In Skills 6, students take a Phonics Progress Monitoring assessment, which is composed of seven consonant spelling alternative words. Scoring interpretation states that a score of 6 is considered excellent, a score of 5 is considered good, a score of 4 is considered fair, and a score less than 4 is considered poor.

Materials genuinely measure student progress to support teachers with instructional adjustments to help students make progress toward mastery in phonics. Each unit contains a flow chart to help teachers determine the needs of each student. Specific examples include:

• In Skills 3, the Phonics Progress Monitoring assessment states that if students score five or less, they require additional reteaching and reinforcement from the Assessment and Remediation Guide.
• In Skills 3, there is a teaching resource with five columns that indicate five phonics skills recently taught. The teacher records errors while students read and the chart indicates what next steps should be done in order to ensure the student has mastered the phonics. For example, an error in Column 2 means, “the spelling ‘oo’ for the ‘oo’ sound is a vowel digraph, where two letters work together to stand for a single sound.... What you should do: You may wish to review the Tricky Spelling discussion in Lesson 7, You may also wish to do Minimal Pairs activities to help students distinguish between this and other similar sounds.”
• In Skills 4, Lesson 8, students take a Progress Monitoring assessment and a score of 4 or less indicate additional reteaching and reinforcement from either Pausing Points or the Assessment and Remediation Guide. The teacher is encouraged to analyze scores to determine if there is one or more particularly problematic sound/spelling.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 8, students who score 8 or less require reteaching and reinforcement. It suggests that teachers analyze student errors to determine whether there is one particularly problematic sound/spelling.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for materials to regularly and systematically offer assessment opportunities that measure student progress of word recognition and analysis (as indicated by the program scope and sequence).

Materials to monitor and assess student progress of word recognition and analysis are provided. Assessments provide information to the teacher concerning student levels and understanding, as well as next steps for students to reach mastery. The materials contain opportunities during the lessons to assess students and the Assessment and Remediation Guide provides summative and more formal assessments to determine the abilities and learning needs of each student.

Materials regularly and systematically provide a variety of assessment opportunities over the course of the year to demonstrate student progress toward mastery and independence of word recognition and analysis. Examples include:

• In Skills 2, there is an optional Tricky Word Assessment that teachers are encouraged to give at the beginning and end of the unit. A Tricky Word Assessment Record is provided, and students are expected to read words faster than 3-5 seconds.
• In Skills 3, there is a Tricky Word Assessment that includes all 46 Tricky Words. While it is an optional assessment, it is suggested to be given at the beginning of the unit and at the end of the unit.

Assessment materials provide teachers and students with information concerning student current skills/level of understanding of word recognition and word analysis. Examples include:

• In Skills 3, Assessment and Remediation Guide, there is a Tricky Words Progress Monitoring Assessment. While it is encouraged that teachers make note of errors, the scoring interpretation provided states, “5 points - Excellent, 4 points - Good, 3 points - Fair, Less than 3 points - Poor.” It goes on to state that a score of 4 or 5 is considered good, and a score of 3 or less “indicate additional reteaching and reinforcement."

Materials support teachers with instructional suggestions for assessment-based steps to help students to progress toward mastery in word recognition and word analysis. Examples include:

• In Skills 3, the Assessment and Remediation guide states that for students who struggle with Tricky Words, several materials can be used including, Tricky Word Cards (Skills 3, Lessons 2, 7, 10), Tricky Word Review/Practice (Skills 3, Lessons 5 & 10), and Tricky Word Baseball Game (Skills 3, Lessons 11 & 16).

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for materials to regularly and systematically offer assessment opportunities that measure student progress in fluency (as indicated by the program scope and sequence).

The materials provide fluency and comprehension Progress Monitoring assessments within the Assessment and Remediation Guide. The materials provide teachers with an Anecdotal Reading Record in order to monitor reading progress through observations while students read aloud. The Fluency and Comprehension Progress Monitoring Assessment provides information about a student's current level of understanding of fluency and instructional adjustments to help each student make progress toward mastery in fluency. Flow charts are provided that help students and teachers with information about current levels and supports to make progress.

Multiple assessment opportunities are provided regularly and systematically over the course of the year. Using these core materials, students demonstrate progress toward mastery and independence of fluency. Examples include:

• In Skills 3, in the Assessment and Remediation Guide, there is a Fluency and Comprehension assessment, where students are given a passage to read and the teacher takes a running record while the teacher records errors on a given record sheet.
• In Skills 4, students read aloud “The Ostrich” in their oral reading fluency assessment.
• In Skills 5, there is a Fluency and Comprehension Progress Monitoring assessment found in the Assessment and Remediation Guide. The assessment includes a running record for oral reading.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 19, an Anecdotal Reading Record is provided for teachers to make notes as they listen to students read aloud.

Assessment materials provide teachers and students with information about a student’s current skills/level of understanding of fluency. Examples include:

• In Skills 3, in the Assessment and Remediation Guide, students take a fluency and comprehension assessment. In the Running Record portion of the assessment, the goal is for students to score between 89% and 100%. Scores of 88% or below indicate that additional reteaching and reinforcement may be needed.
• In Skills 4, students take a fluency assessment and are considered good if they score between 89% and 100%. Scores below 88% indicate that additional reteaching and reinforcement may be needed.
• In Skills 5, students take a fluency assessment and information is provided to analyze scores. It states that if a student makes between 0-8 errors, they are reading 96-100% accurate which is very good and okay for the student to move on. If a student makes between 9-21 errors, the student scores between 85% and 89%. The teacher should use judgement to determine if a student is ready to move on or needs additional support. If a student makes more than 22 errors, the student is considered weak in fluency and should receive additional support.

Materials support teachers with instructional adjustments to help students make progress toward mastery in fluency. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, in the Assessment and Remediation Guide there is a flow chart for the teacher to determine next steps for students who need additional support. The flow chart includes various skills and the corresponding section and plan for reteaching.
• In Skills 3, students take a fluency assessment. For students who need reteaching and remediation, the Assessment and Remediation Guide II in Fluency and Comprehension provides explicit and independent fluency and comprehension exercises for remediation and instruction. The section Steps for Determining Student Need assists the teacher in deciding which remediation lessons to use.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for materials regularly providing all students, including those who read, write, speak, or listen in a language other than English with extensive opportunities for reteaching to meet or exceed grade-level standards.

The materials provide support for English Language Learner students through the Language and Foundational Skills sidebars in the Teacher Guide for individual lessons. There is specific information about Spanish and English correlations, as well as other languages. The materials contain suggestions with Universal Access to assist students with letter sounds such as the use of pictures or photographs.

Materials provide support for English Language Learner (ELL) students. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Lesson 5, when students are reviewing the letter h, the sidebar states, “The spelling ‘h’ is silent in Spanish (unlike in the English word hot). When we see the spelling h we make the /h/ sound.” The teacher models how to create this sound.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 4, the Universal Access suggests that the teacher brings in pictures of coins, brooms, a tooth, scoop, couch, and a hood to help students complete Activity Page 14.1.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 1, in Universal Access, it is suggested that the teacher find and use pictures of objects that begin with the letter ‘p’ such as puppy, pink, and popsicle before students complete a sentence competition activity.
• In Skills 7, Lesson 1, the Support Sidebar suggests that if students have trouble with the spelling alternatives, the teacher should draw different looking flowers and explain that in the same way there can be different looking pictures of flowers, we can draw different looking pictures for the /ae/ sound.
• In Skills 7, Lesson 5, in a Match the Picture activity, a note is provided to teachers that most r-controlled vowels in Spanish do not include the sound of the vowel as in -er in English.

General statements about ELL students or strategies are noted at the beginning of a unit or at one place in the Teacher Guide and are then implemented in the materials throughout the lessons. Examples include:

• In the K-2 Program Guide, it notes that a hand raised icon provides an Alert for Access Support to help ELL learners access grade-level content.
• In the K-2 Program Guide, it explains a variety of tools to help students, including ELL students, access the curriculum. Some of the tools include the digital component field that allows for a range of presentations of images and text to support learning and clarification on language throughout the program.
• In the K-2 Program Guide, it lists a variety of methods for students, including ELL students to demonstrate their learning. This includes the Wiggle Cards that allow students to demonstrate their decoding and a variety of ways to respond to prompts such as oral responses, written responses, and shared class response.
• In Skills 1, the Teacher Guide Introduction states that Additional Support activities are suggested at the end of each lesson and can be used with any student needing more help, including English Language Learners.
• In Skills 1, the Teacher Guide Introduction states that sidebars are found throughout the lesson to provide further guidance for teachers.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for materials that regularly provide all students, including those who read, write, speak, or listen below grade level with extensive opportunities for reteaching to meet or exceed grade-level standards.

Throughout the program there are opportunities for students to receive reteaching of skills through the use of small groups. These opportunities include rereading through a decodable reading in small groups, support ideas on the sidebar of lessons, Additional Support activities found at the end of lessons, Pausing Points at the end of each Skills Teacher Guide, and also through activities found in the Assessment and Remediation Guide. The materials include Universal Access points to provide scaffolding and adaptations for activities for students who read, write, speak, or listen below grade level.

Materials provide opportunities for small group reteaching. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Teacher Guide, Introduction, it provides information about Small Groups. One group will consist of independent workers while the other consists of students needing more support. Small group work is typically either done during story reading time or when students are completing activity pages. The Guide states that, “you may also use small group time to reteach/reinforce a skill that you feel needs further practice with students needing more support.”
• In Skills 1, Lesson 2, students who need more support work in a small group to finish the activity of matching words from a group. The teacher can practice chaining, blending, and/or segmenting.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 1, the teacher reviews vowel sounds. For students that need extra support, the program asks that teachers pull students struggling with identifying the correct sound in the Vowel Code Flip Book for small group practice with other words that contain short vowel spellings...”
• In Skills 3, Lesson 4, students reread “The Two Dogs” in small groups. One group works with the teacher to reread the text.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 10, students read the text “Mandrills.” In Lesson 12, additional support is provided in a small group to help students with oral reading using picture cards from Activity Page TR 10.2.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 4, the teacher divides students into two groups and one group works with the teacher to get additional support with the text “The Cave.” Students reread the text aloud and then complete Activity Page 4.1 in a group.

Materials provide guidance to teachers for scaffolding and adapting lessons as well as activities to support students who read, write, speak, or listen below grade level in extensive opportunities to learn foundational skills at the grade-level standards. Examples include:

• In Skills 3, Lesson 1, in a minimal pairs activity, a support sidebar is provided with information for the teacher to help students understand the /oo/ sound. It tells the teacher to say the words provided one at a time and have the students repeat the words with /oo/ and then choose the word in the pair with the /oo/ sound in it.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 2, in the Additional Supports section at the end of the lesson, there is more help with blending. The teacher completes another chaining activity.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 3, students learn how to spell words with suffixes that may or may not need to double the consonant before adding the suffix. Support is offered to students who are below grade level by having “students read each word on the activity page and circle the words that end with a single consonant, to indicate that those words need the final letter doubled before adding the inflectional endings.”
• In Skills 6, the Assessment and Remediation Guide provides a remedial lesson template for reteaching /w/ spelled wh versus /w/ spelled w. Multiple remedial lessons are available for this skill.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for materials to regularly provide extensions and/or more advanced opportunities for students who read, write, speak, or listen above grade level.

Materials provide multiple opportunities through the Challenge Sidebars and Pausing Points to provide extension opportunities for students who read, write, speak, and listen above grade level. Additional readers are included in the Pausing Points for extension opportunities.

Materials provide multiple opportunities for advanced students to investigate grade-level foundational skills at a greater depth. Examples include:

• In the K-2 Program Guide, Differentiation, it notes, “Pausing Point days include several days’ worth of enrichment and remediation instruction.”
• In the K-2 Program Guide, Student Enrichment, it notes, “CKLA provides multiple opportunities for challenge and enrichment, including Challenge Sidebars.” These provide stretch questions and activities throughout the lesson.
• In Skills 1, Lesson 15, in a chaining lesson, a Challenge Sidebar is provided to ask students after the word is created if it is a real word or a nonsense word.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 1, the Challenge Sidebar provides the following extension guidance, “Ask students to think of other word pairs with /oo/ and /ue/. Have individual students say the word pairs to the class and ask which word has the /oo/ sound.” The teacher displays a list of words that students may use to practice using their Code Charts independently, finding the appropriate short vowel spellings for words.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 14, the Challenge Sidebar asks students to write the number of syllables in each word in the circles on Activity Page 14.1 while the rest of the class writes down the number of sounds heard in the word and copy the word.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 3, students learn about root words and doubling the final consonant when adding suffixes. For the challenge, it states, “have students think of other one-syllable words to which the inflection endings can be added. Have them identify whether the final consonant must first be doubled before adding the inflectional endings.”
• In Skills 6, Lesson 6, the Challenge Sidebar provides the following extension guidance, “After students finish sorting the words, have students write silly sentences using some of the words from Activity Page 6.1.” Students may share their sentences with a partner.
• In Skills 7, Lesson 5, the teacher groups students. Students who are above-level work independently or with a partner, but the other students work with the teacher.

There are no instances of advanced students simply doing more assignments than their classmates. Opportunities for advanced students were noted during whole group and small group time. Students were not assigned to do more work than their classmates, but rather, a variance of activity. Students who were advanced were seen more to work on their own or with a partner, whereas students showing the need for additional support worked with a teacher.