2nd Grade - Gateway 2

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials 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. 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. The Lesson at a Glance addresses word analysis and the tricky words that will be taught in the lesson.

The Teacher Guide also contains instructional routines that help the teacher effectively implement all foundational skills content. The teacher is regularly prompted to use picture readers, blending picture cards, a chaining folder, large letter cards, sound cards, small letter cards, and sounds posters. All lessons follow a similar routine as well. Lessons start with a Warm-Up. For example, in Skills 1, Lesson 13, students review the double-letter spellings using the Consonant Code Flip Book. Grade 2 materials include a fluency packet. Directions on how to utilize the fluency packet is addressed in the Unit 2 Teacher Guide.

Technology is provided to support and guide the teacher. For example, there is a sound library that is a resource 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 2 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 Teacher Guide introduces the skills taught throughout the unit. There is a list provided of spellings for consonant sounds that are reviewed rapidly. It explains that, “The list includes the basic code spelling for each consonant sound as well as some common spelling alternatives. When a sound can be spelled more than one way, we say it has spelling alternatives.” It goes on to explain the different ways to spell the /k/ sound.
• In Skills 4, the Teacher Guide introduction provides an overview of the lessons throughout the unit. The introduction states, “Unit 4 is devoted to introducing more spelling alternatives for vowel sounds and three tricky spellings. Remember vowel sounds and their spellings are the most challenging part of the English writing system. Only two vowel sounds are almost always spelled one way /a/ and /ar/. The other seventeen vowel sounds have at least one significant spelling alternative. Several of them have many spelling alternatives.”
• In Skills 5, the Teacher Guide explains that students will learn the different sounds y can make in a word. It is introduced as an /i/ sound as well as a /ie/ sound.

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

• In Skills 1, Lesson 1, information is provided to the teacher about the activity Code Flip Book that reviews long and short vowels in one-syllable words. It states to, “Remind students that /a/ is a vowel sound. Explain that vowel sounds will always be written in green on the Spelling Cards because when we say a vowel, we open our mouths, letting the air go.”
• In Skills 4, Lesson 3, information about y as /y/ is provided in a note to the teacher. It says, “Today you will quickly review the basic code spelling of y as /y/ and will then introduce the letter /y/ as an alternative spelling for /i/.” It explains that, “the sound /i/ does not occur at the end of words. It is always followed by a consonant” and “the ‘i’ spelling is used at the beginning of a word (inch, interest) and in the middle of a word (swim, dish).”

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meets the criteria for foundational skills lessons to be well-designed and take into account effective lesson structure and pacing. Content can reasonably be completed within a regular school year, and the pacing allows for maximum student understanding.

The materials include well-designed, research-based lesson plans, and the program can reasonably be completed in a typical school year. It is suggested that it will take 180-186 school days to complete the entire program. While the program should take 39 weeks to complete, there is an alternative calendar provided that gives the teacher details on how to complete the program in 37 weeks.

Lesson plans utilize an effective, research-based lesson plan design for early literacy instruction. According to the National K-2 Program Guide, CKLA teaches the most frequent sound spellings first in order to maximize the words students can read and move them into engaging, well-written, decodable text. Lessons are multi-sensory, and each lesson starts with phonological awareness. The lesson moves from the auditory to the visual production of a sound with the teacher modeling before students form the sound.

The lessons include both whole group and small group instruction. According to the Program Guide, the teacher will “engage in direct instruction, particularly when new concepts, foundational skills, and content are introduced.” In addition, “small group and partner activities and discussions are used in short and longer sessions.”

The pacing of each component of daily lesson plans is clear and appropriate. The Program Guide suggested 60 minutes of instruction daily, with 2 - 3 pausing point days build in. CKLA provides the teacher with a calendar tool to assist in planning. Within each individual lesson, the time needed for each component is listed.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for scope and sequence to clearly delineate an intentional sequence in which phonics skills are to be taught, with a clear explanation for the order of the sequence.

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 to build 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 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 2 Scope & Sequence (note: in the Appendix B, which lists the Scope & Sequence, it is labeled as Unit instead of Skills):

• Unit 1: read and spell two syllable words with short vowels and spelling alternatives for /j/, /w/, /r/, and /n/.
• Unit 2: read one and two-syllable words with long vowels, r-controlled vowels, and vowel digraphs /oo/, /ou, and /oi/.
• Unit 3: read multisyllabic words with spelling alternatives for ai, ay, a, for /ae/, oa and o for /oe/, ie, and i for /ie/, ue and u for /ue/, and au for /aw/.
• Unit 4: read multisyllabic words with spelling alternatives for ir and ur for /er/, y for /i/, igh and y for /ie/, o, ow for /oe/, e, y, and ey for /ee/, and ai for /aw/.
• Unit 5: read multisyllabic words with schwa.
• Unit 6: read multisyllabic words with spelling alternatives for ph for /f/, ar and er for /er/, and ch for /k/.

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 scope and sequence of grade 2 builds upon the learning of Kindergarten and grade 1.

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. For the majority of lessons, one phonics pattern or common generation is taught per lesson.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 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. Students have multiple opportunities to read the same text, giving them practice of grade-level phonics skills.

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 states that the “CKLA Readers are built according to the program and the code students have been introduced to.”
• The Unit 1 the decodable reader ensures students have ample practice with vowel sounds and spellings, as well as consonant sounds and spellings.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 5, the decodable text “The Frog Race” includes words for practice with the oo spelling. Words included in the decodable text are drool, whoop, looked, took, and goodness.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 18, the decodable text “Keeping it Up” includes words for practice with phonics skill /ee/ for y, /ie/ for y, i, and i_e, and /oe/ for o.

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

• In Skills 1, Lesson 18, the decodable text “The Milk” includes phonics skill practice with the sound /n/. The scope and sequence for Skills Unit 1 says that students will be able to read one and two syllable words with short vowels, all consonants, spelling alternatives for /s/, /j/, /w/, /r/, and /n/.
• In Skills 2, students read the text “Mike’s Bedtime” which contains the skill /ae/ as in cake and /ie/ as in bite as well as “The Frog Race,” which contains the skills /oo/ as in soon and /oo/ as in look.
• In Skills 4, the decodable reader gradually adds new phonics skills. In the beginning of the reader, students read “Morning,” which contains /er/ and by the end of the unit, students read “Inventory” with the sound /ee/ spelled ey.
• In Skills 5, the decodable readers include previously taught phonics skills as well as the schwa sound in the text “Fire” and consonant -le in the text “The King’s Ghost.” In Lesson 2, students preview the sounds /n/ spelled kn and /ee/ spelled ea prior to reading the story “The Beginning,” which includes these phonics patterns. In Lesson 3, students read “The Thief,” which includes practice for spellings o and o_e for /u/.

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

• In Skills 1, Lesson 13, students reread “The Chicken Nugget” in small groups.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 3, students reread “The Milk,” after first reading it in Lesson 2.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 9, students take turns rereading “The Hare and the Hedgehog” in small groups.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 13, students reread the decodable text “The Big Race” during small group instruction. Half of the class reads to the teacher and the other half partner read.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 4, students reread the text “Drummers Grove” in pairs.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 9, students reread the decodable text “The War Hawks” which includes practice for phonics skill /er/.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 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, that contain opportunities for students to practice reading high-frequency/irregularly spelled words in context. The decodable texts are reread throughout the unit during small group instruction and partner reading.

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

• In Skills 1, students read “The Chips” which includes the Tricky Words there and said as well as “The Snack Mix,” which includes down and how.
• In Skills 2, the Reader includes Tricky Words such as street, have, their, were, and some.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 6, students read the decodable text “Miss Baker,” which includes Tricky Words such as the, she, and you.
• In Skills 5, the Reader includes Tricky Words such as father, water, ghost, death, wizard and against.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 21, students preview the Tricky Words whose, broad, and bomb before reading the Reader.

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

• In Skills 1, Lesson 14, students read the decodable text “The Snack Mix," which includes Tricky Words such as he, how, and down. Throughout the Skills 1 Unit, students learn these words.
• In Skills 2, Tricky Words such as you, street, are, were, some, and they are introduced and these are the same words that are introduced throughout the Skills 2 Reader.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 3, students read the decodable text “Brooklyn” which includes the Tricky Words people, walk, and grownup. According to the Scope and Sequence, students review these Tricky Words throughout the unit.

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

• In Skills 2, Lesson 9, students reread the text, “The Hare and the Hedgehog” which includes irregularly spelled words such as join, coins, enjoy, and frowned.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 7, students reread the decodable text, “The Hungry Troll,” which includes irregularly spelled words such as monstrous, thunderous, and famous.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 9, students reread “The War Hawks” in small groups.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials to regularly and systematically offer assessment opportunities that measure student progress in 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 offer opportunities to help teachers determine student progress through the systematic use of the Student Performance Assessments in the Skills Unit, spelling assessments, and the Phonics Progress Monitoring Assessment within the Assessment and Remediation Guide. The materials include instructional adjustments to help students make 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 to collect outgoing data about students’ progress in phonics. Examples include:

• The Assessment and Remediation Guide provides a start of the year Word Reading in Isolate Assessment that consists of 120 words containing particular spellings sequenced to reflect the order of instruction in the CKLA program beginning with the Kindergarten level.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 25, students do a Dictation Identification Assessment where students listen to dictated words and select words from a list of words with similar spellings.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 23, students take a Dictation Identification Assessment where students hear dictated words and select the correct word from a list of similarly spelled words and circle words that share the same vowel sound as the dictated word.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 35, students take an End-of-Year Assessment, including a Word Reading in Isolation Assessment, which assesses skills such as long vowels, r-controlled vowels and tricky spellings.

Materials offer assessment opportunities to determine students’ progress in phonics that are implemented systematically. There are progress monitoring opportunities as well as an Anecdotal Reading Record. Examples include:

• In Skills 2, Lesson 16, students take a Unit Assessment, which includes a Dictation Identification Assessment. For each word that the teacher says, students are to circle the word on their activity page.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 27, students take a Unit Assessment, which includes a Decoding Assessment, where the teacher says a word, and students circle the correct one on their activity page.

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

• In Skills 4, spelling assessments are provided in Lessons 5, 10, 15, and 20. The Spelling Assessment in Lesson 10 contains words with one-syllable r-controlled vowel patterns. Students write a dictation sentence.
• In Skills 6, spelling assessments are provided in Lessons 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30, which contains words with two-syllable r-controlled patterns.

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

• In the beginning of the year, students take a Word Reading in Isolation Assessment. Students who read 65 words of the 120 words correctly have adequate preparation for Grade 2, and students who score a 100 have an outstanding or strong preparation for Grade 2.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 16, there is a Unit Assessment, which includes a Dictation Identification Assessment, which includes various vowel sound spelling patterns. Teachers use a Dictation Identification Assessment Analysis chart to help determine if students have mastered the new sound/spellings.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 15, students do a progress monitoring assessment. Scores of 14 or 15 are considered excellent, 11-13 good, 8 -11 fair, and less than 8 poor.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 27, students take a Decoding Assessment and according to the Teacher Guide, “Student performance on this assessment is a good indicator of whether students have mastered the new sound/spellings.”
• In Skills 6, Lesson 35 students take an end of year assessment. Students who score 48 or fewer out of 70 will have minimal preparation for Grade 3, students scoring 49-59 words correct out of 70 have adequate preparation and students scoring 60 out of 70 words correct have an understanding preparing for Grade 3.

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

• In The Assessment and Remediation Guide there are flow charts to help the teacher determine next steps for students based on assessments.
• At the beginning of the year, students take a Word Reading in Isolation Assessment, which is broken down by phonics skill. There is a Word Reading in Isolation Analysis Chart, and it provides guidelines for evaluating results. For instance it says that students who score 11 or fewer out of 15 in the first three lines will need “intensive remediation” using either the Grade 2 Assessment and Remediation Guide, Unit 1 or Kindergarten Unit 3.
• In Skills Unit 1, Teacher Guide, there is a placement assessment and Interpreting Assessment Scores chart to help teachers group students to close any learning gaps.
• In Skills 1, Teacher Guide, there is a data collection sheet to help teachers determine next steps based on errors. For example, in column 3, words have consonant digraphs. It states that if students make mistakes in this column, the teacher should refer to Section 1 of the Assessment and Remediation Guide for additional activities such as word sorts.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 25, students take a Dictation Identification Assessment, and it tells teachers to use the record sheet to record errors and identify targeted explicit remediation using Pausing Points.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials regularly and systematically offer assessment opportunities that measure student progress of word recognition and analysis (as indicated by the program scope and sequence).

Materials for assessment to monitor 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 helping students reach mastery.

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

• In Skills 1, Lesson 22, the End-of-Unit Assessment notes, “You may also use Pausing Point days to administer the optional Tricky Word Assessment included in Teacher Resources to specific students that you suspect may not have thoroughly mastered the Tricky Words reviewed in this unit.”
• In Skills 2, Lesson 5, a Spelling Assessment is given to students, which includes 10 words with the -ed inflectional ending and the Tricky Word you. Words included in the assessment are liked, yelled, and smiled.
• In Skills 10, Lesson 10, a spelling assessment is provided, which includes 20 r-controlled words and the Tricky Word war.

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

• In the Skills 1-6 Assessment and Remediation Guide, a Tricky Words Assessment provides a tool to assess 35 high frequency words. Mastery is indicated at 28/35 correct words.
• In the Skills 1-6 Assessment and Remediation Guide, there is a Word Reading in Isolation Assessment, which includes 20 Tricky Words. The materials state that if students struggle with any of those words, remediation will be needed.

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 the Skills 1-6 Assessment and Remediation Guide, there is a section called Teaching Tricky Words as a Remediation Intervention in Grade 2. It states, “You may find, however, students who have a specific problem recognizing Tricky Words. These students will benefit from targeted instruction using the materials in this section.”

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials regularly and systematically offer assessment opportunities that measure student progress in fluency (as indicated by the program scope and sequence).

Fluency assessments are provided in the Assessment and Remediation Guide. The materials include Anecdotal Reading Records for teachers to monitor student reading progress based on observations while students read aloud. The assessments provide teachers and students with information about student progress and understanding of fluency.

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

• In the Assessment and Remediation Guide, there is a Grade 2 Placement Assessment, which includes an assessment for reading fluency. The students read aloud an unseen text, and the teacher notes the time it takes the student to read the passage as well as errors.
• In the Assessment and Remediation Guide, there is a fluency assessment in Units 2-6. There are fluency passages and procedures for each Unit.
• In Skills 1, Lesson 14, the teacher uses the Anecdotal Reading Record to monitor students’ reading progress. It is suggested that teachers listen to students read at least one or twice a week and take notes using the form.
• In Skills 2, students take a fluency assessment by reading a story aloud to the teacher within three minutes.
• In Skills 3, in the Assessment and Remediation Guide, there is a Fluency Assessment. Students read the story “The Slug Trainer,” which contains 297 words. Scoring instructions are provided as well as a Words Correct Per Minute Calculation Sheet.

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

• The introduction to the Assessment and Remediation Guide contains the 2006 Hasbrouck & Tindal Oral Reading Fluency Data, which provides the percentile and word per minute markers for fall, winter, and spring. For example, students in Grade 2 in the fall should read 79 correct words per minute to be in the 75th percentile. Fluency assessments to help understand students’ current skills are found in Skills Units 2-6.
• In the Assessment and Remediation Guide, information on analysis of assessment results is provided. Teachers use a table provided to find students’ fluency percentage. A score below the 50th percentile may be cause for concern. A score below the 25th percentile is definite cause for concern.
• In Skills 2, students read aloud to the teacher and have three minutes to read. Students who need more than three minutes need to work on fluency.
• In Skills 3, fluency assessments are given during Pausing Points and guidance is provided comparing student performance to the national norms for Winter of Grade 2 according to the Hasbrouck and Tindal Oral Reading Fluency Data. The 90th percentile is 125 C.W.P.M, the 75th percentile is 100 C.W.P.M, the 50th percentile is 72 C.W.P.M, the 25th percentile is 42 C.W.P.M, and the 10th percentile is 18 C.W.P.M.

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

• The Assessment and Remediation Guide states, “While it is beyond the scope of this Guide to provide detailed suggestions for improving fluency, the following best practices are highly recommended: Model fluent reading for students by reading passages aloud with expression, demonstrating how to use punctuation as a guide for pauses. Provide opportunities for students to reread passages, after corrective feedback on any decoding errors has been provided. Pairing students for partner reading and using Reader’s Theater are both strategies that can be used to encourage reading. Occasional choral reading may also be effective.”

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 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 the 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 3, the teacher is provided with information in the Foundational Skills sidebar. It states, “Spanish speakers may need guidance in producing the /h/ sound for the letter h because in Spanish, h does not represent a sound.”
• In Skills 2, Lesson 8, in the ELD Access Sidebar, it suggests, “Before reading oi/oy words, show students the images you prepare in advance. As you show each image, say the word in a segmented fashion and ask students to repeat after you. You may also want to further explain and define the word ointment.”
• In Skills 5, Lesson 1, in Universal Access, it suggests that teachers bring in images to support spelling words such as duck, bug, mother, brother, touch, and love. It suggests bringing in pictures of antonym pairs such as slowly-quickly and ugly-pretty.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 1, the Universal Access suggests that the teacher gathers pictures or objects of the words phone, graph, elephant, trophy, dolphin, pharmacy, autograph, and sphere to help ELL students when they learn that ph says /f/.

General statements about ELL students or strategies are noted at the beginning of the unit or at one place in the Teacher Guide are then implemented by 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 digital component field that allows for a range 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 Universal Access preparation prompts are included to ensure that specific activities are adapted for English language Learners.
• In Skills 1, the Teacher Guide Introduction states that “throughout the lesson, support and challenge sidebars provide further guidance to assist teachers in differentiating instruction. Access sidebars provide specific tips for working with English Language Learners.
• In Skills 1, the Teacher Guide Introduction states that additional support activities are suggested at the end of each lesson, which can help English Language Learners.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials to 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.

The Grade 2 materials regularly provide opportunities for reteaching for students below grade level through the use of grouping when rereading the decodable reading, support ideas on the sidebar of lessons, Additional Support activities found in each Pausing Points at the end of each Skills Teacher Guide, and through activities found in the Assessment and Remediation Guide. The teacher meets in small groups with those students that need support in reading/rereading the decodable reading and the activities at hand.

Materials provide opportunities for small group reteaching. Examples include:

• In Skills 3, Lesson 4, students engage in small group work with the story, “The Jumping Frog.” Students who need more support read the story with the teacher. The teacher models how to read the dialogue in quotations with different voices for each character and encourages students to do the same.
• In Skills 4, the Assessment and Remediation Guide suggests that students working in small groups are shown previous spelling cards. The teacher shows the sound and the students repeat it.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 1, students work with alternative spellings for /u/. In the Additional Support section, which provides small group remediation lessons, students read and sort word cards for the /u/ spelling alternatives.

Materials provide guidance to teachers for scaffolding and adapting lessons and 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, 2 Lesson 1, students learn the spelling a_e for the /ae/ sound. The Teacher Guide explains that for students who struggle with this concept, “help students practice the sound spellings ‘a_e; and ‘i_e’, say the following word pairs: plan-plane, mad-made, Tim-time; rip-ripe. Have students repeat the words to you. Have students hold the magic ‘e’ when they say the word with the long vowel sound.”
• In Skills 4, Lesson 20, an extensive listing of additional activities to teach and practice the Unit 4 skills can be found in the Pausing Point section. It is recommended that the teacher pause for 4 or 5 days and provide targeted remediation for individuals or groups of students in any areas in which they performed poorly on the end-of-unit assessment.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 2, students read the decodable text and in the sidebar it suggests that the teacher pairs students who need additional support reading with more proficient readers.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials regularly provide extensions and/or advanced opportunities for students who read, write, speak, or listen above grade level.

Materials provide multiple opportunities through the Challenge Sidebar and the Pausing Points to provide extension opportunities for students who read, write, speak, or listen above grade level. Additional readers are included during 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 states that there are Challenge Sidebars that provide stretching questions and activities throughout the lesson. In Skills 2, Lesson 2, the teacher reviews the spellings in the text, “The Milk” and as a challenge, students hunt for additional words containing i_e and a_e.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 19, the Challenge Sidebar states, “After you read all the words, repeat the words that include a different vowel sound. Ask students to identify what vowel sound they hear in these words.” The rest of the class is raising a certain number of fingers to denote the sound heard in the word.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 1, for a challenge, the students sort words into alternate spellings for the short u sound, specifically o-e. When students are ready, they work in pairs to write one or two sentences that include a word that contains the spelling o_e.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 1, the Challenge sidebar provides the following extension guidance, “Ask students to identify other spellings for the /f/ sound. (‘gh’>/f/). Write the words enough, laugh, cough, and tough on the board. Have students write these words on the bottom of Activity Page 1.1 and circle the letter(s) that make the /f/ sound.”

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 either work on their own or with a partner, whereas students showing the need for additional support worked with a teacher.