1st Grade - Gateway 1

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria of Indicator 1c.

The mentor read-aloud texts, shared readings, and poetry texts have the appropriate level of complexity for the grade level according to quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis, and a relationship to their associated student task. Across the year, anchor texts range from 350L to 790L. The distribution of texts is varied and includes thirteen accessible texts, twenty-six moderate texts, five complex texts, and five very complex texts. The Program Support Guide includes rationales for educational purposes and placement in the grade level. Students engage in tasks, such as participating in discussions with partners, using text evidence from illustrations and text features to answer questions, and engaging in shared and interactive writings about texts.

Texts have the appropriate level of complexity for the grade according to quantitative and qualitative analysis and relationship to their associated student task. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 1, Week 1, students listen to the anchor text, An Oak Tree Has a Life Cycle by Debra Castor (590L).  The qualitative complexity rating is moderate due to captions and flow charts, sentences containing clauses and transition words, and domain-specific vocabulary. Students describe sequential text connections to build knowledge about the lifecycle of oak trees, answer text-based questions using evidence to demonstrate understanding, and analyze text structure. 

• In Unit 4, Week 2, students listen to the anchor text, Mother Bruce by Ryan T. Higgins (500L). The qualitative complexity rating is moderate due to simple and complex sentences. Students make inferences and connections between subtle events and ideas and talk to a partner about their inferences and predictions. Students participate in guided shared writing and oral rehearsal and independently write an opinion piece. 

• In Unit 9, Week 2, students listen to the anchor text, Goods and Services are Important by Andre Thomson (650L). The qualitative complexity rating is moderate due to several complex and compound sentences. Students talk to a partner using text evidence from the pictures and words to support their thinking. Students participate in guided shared writing and oral rehearsal. Students independently write a research report. 

Anchor/Core texts and series of texts connected to them are accompanied by an accurate text complexity analysis and a rationale for educational purpose and placement in the grade level. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 2, Week 1, students listen to the text, The Ant and the Hopper by Sunita Apte (620L). The text has a low qualitative complexity rating. The rationale for educational placement states that the story is a fable that tells how characters face challenges. The ant prepares for winter, and the grasshopper does not. 

• In Unit 3, Week 2, students listen to the text, Being a Responsible Citizen by Margaret McNamara (520L). The text has a medium qualitative complexity rating. The rationale for educational placement states the informational text provides chapters to learn about being a good citizen. The chapters address how good citizens are honest, respect others, follow the rules, and help make decisions. 

• In Unit 5, Week 3, students listen to the mentor text, Technology Breakdown by Brenda Parks and Jeffery B. Fuerst.  The text has a 540 Lexile level and is considered moderately complex.  The story shows how characters use technology to solve problems related to the unit’s technology theme.

• The Text Overview provides accurate information relating to the texts’ qualitative features for the grade level as determined by the rubrics included in the EdReports evidence guides. The Lexiles available on Metametrics indicate an appropriate quantitative level of complexity for Grade 1.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria of Indicator 1e.

Materials provide three pacing options: 150-minute, 120-minute, or a 90-minute literacy block. The Reading Foundations, Reading to Build Knowledge and Vocabulary, Read-Aloud, and Writing and Grammar supports include teacher guidance on dividing the time. Materials include Interactive Read-Alouds, Shared Readings, Reading Mini-Lessons with Mentor Read-Alouds or Extended Reads, and Small Group Readings. Each unit contains twenty or more texts per week related to the unit topic in shared readings, vocabulary mini-lessons, and small group instruction. The three-week units include five to seven shared readings, two extended reading texts, two Mentor Read-Alouds, decodables, leveled readers to use within small group instruction, and two reader’s theater texts. 

Materials include a comprehensive range of materials to support a robust independent reading program, including reading logs, anchor charts, at-home monitoring, classroom design, and suggestions. In addition, materials provide daily guidance and structures to support teachers with incorporating independent reading into the literacy block. The Managing an Independent Reading Program resource includes teacher guidance on supporting students in reading. Guidance encourages students to develop a daily at-home reading practice for a minimum of twenty minutes.

Instructional materials clearly identify opportunities and supports for students to engage in reading a variety of texts. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 1, students listen to six texts: two Mentor Read-Alouds, two Extended Reads, and one poem. The unit contains two informational science texts, three folktales, and one free verse poem.

• In Unit 2, students listen to five texts: two Mentor Read-Alouds, two Extended Reads, and one poem. All of the texts in this unit are literary texts and include one folktale, two realistic fiction texts, and one free verse poem.

• In Unit 4, students listen to five texts: two Mentor Read-Alouds, two Extended Reads, and one poem. All of the texts in this unit are literary texts and include one fantasy text, two realistic fiction texts, one adventure story, and a nursery rhyme. 

• In Unit 7, students listen to five texts: two Mentor Read-Alouds, two Extended Reads, and a poem. The unit contains two informational science texts, two technical texts, and one free verse poem.

Instructional materials clearly identify opportunities and supports for students to engage in a volume of reading. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 6, students engage in a volume of reading:

  • In Unit 6, Week 1, students listen to the Shared Reading selections, “Lunch,” “No Tiger Hunt Today,” and the poem “Friends” as well as the Mentor Read-Alouds, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and “The Ant and the Pigeon.”

  • In Unit 6,  Week 2, students listen to the Shared Reading selections, “When I Hurry,” “The Ant and the Grasshopper,” and the poem “Friends” as well as the Extended Read When Turtle Grew Feathers by Tim Tingle. 

  • In Unit 6, Week 3, students listen to the Shared Reading selections “Five Brown Bears,” “Stories That Teach,” and the poem “Friends” in addition to the extended read Tall and Small Play Ball by Jerry Craft. 

• In Unit 8, students engage in a volume of reading:

  • In Unit 8, Week 1, students listen to the Shared Reading, “Twinkle, Twinkle, LIttle Star,” “Stars in the Night Sky,” and the poem “The Moon’s the North Wind’s Cookie” by Vachel Lindsay,  in addition to the Mentor Read-Alouds, “Why Sun and Moon Live in the Sky” by Ruth White and “A Walk on the Moon” by Ayala Valle Alba.

  • In Unit 8, Week 2, students listen to the Shared Reading, “Zoom, Zoom, Zoom,” “An Astronaut’s Space Suit,” and the poem “The Moon’s the North Wind’s Cookie” by Vachel Lindsey,  in addition to the Extended Read Night and Day by Hilary Maubaum.

  • In Unit 8, Week 3, students listen to the Shared Reading “April Clouds,” “Tears from the Silver River,” and the poem “The Moon’s the North Wind’s Cookie” by Vachel Lindsay,  in addition to the Extended Read, Night Sky by Joseph Bruchac, 

• In Unit 10, students engage in a volume of reading:

  • In Unit 10, Week 1, students listen to the Shared Reading “Dawn is the Best Time of Day,” “Animal Talk,” and the poem “I Know All the Sounds That the Animals Make” by Jack Prelutsky,  in addition to the Mentor Read-Alouds,  “Sounds I Love” and “Heat is All Around.” 

  • In Unit 10, Week 2, students listen to the Shared Reading “I Clap My Hands,” “Good Vibrations,” and the poem “I Know All the Sounds That the Animals Make” by Jack Prelutsky,  in addition to the Extended Read I Hear with My Ears by Kathleen Long Bostrom. 

  • In Unit 10, Week 3, students listen to the Shared Reading “My Shadow” by Robert Louis Stevenson,  “How Shadows Form,” and the poem “I Know All the Sounds That the Animals Make” by Jack Prelutsky, in addition to the Extended Read The Light Around Us by Kathy Furgang.

• The Additional Resources section includes a document titled Managing an Independent Reading Program. This document lists multiple times that students can independently read during the daily reading block and also mentions the Managing Your Independent Reading Program document.  

There is sufficient teacher guidance to foster independence for all readers (e.g., independent reading procedures, proposed schedule, tracking system for independent reading). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• During independent reading, students keep reading logs and reading response journals. Teachers can conference regularly with individual students to monitor their progress.

• The mini-lesson component of the Managing Your Independent Reading Program document includes guidance on the teacher’s role when selecting a topic based on their observation of student needs, interests, and curriculum goals. The teacher provides mini-lessons on management, literary works, and effective reading strategies using examples from real texts. 

• The Additional Resources section includes a document titled Managing an Independent Reading Program. This document lists multiple times that students can independently read during the daily reading block and also mentions the Managing Your Independent Reading Program document.  

• Every unit contains a Comprehensive Literacy Planner that gives an overview of all mini-lessons for the week. This document includes teacher guidance on providing students with time for independent reading each day and refers the teacher to the Unit Foldout for more information.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria of Indicator 1f.

Materials include standards-aligned, text-specific and text-dependent questions, tasks, and assignments that support students in making meaning of the core understandings of the text being studied and require students to engage with the text directly. Lessons contain multiple questions that include the depth of knowledge necessary to answer the questions and the correct answer, so teachers are supported in planning and implementing the questions and tasks. The Teacher’s Resource System provides text-based questions to ask students and anchor charts to model and support student learning. Materials frequently provide sentence frames, and student tasks include options to draw or speak. 

Text-specific and text-dependent questions and tasks support students in making meaning of the core understandings of the text being studied. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 4, Week 2, Day 3, after rereading Mother Bruce by Ryan T. Higgins, students write one sentence using the word grump to describe Bruce’s perspective at the end of the story. Students also write one sentence using the word migrate or migration to describe the goslings’ perspectives at the end of the story.

• In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 2, students listen to the story Robots At Work by Thalia Fernandez. Afterward, students name key ideas and identify details in the photographs and text that support key ideas by answering the following text-specific questions: “How do robots work in hospitals? How can this help nurses? (Some move patients, others deliver food or medicine. This saves the nurses time and helps with heavy lifting. What do the photos on page 42 show about how technology helps on a farm? How are these helpful? (They show milking machines that milk cows. These machines can milk more cows much more quickly than a farmer would be able to milk by hand.)”

• In Unit 8, Week 3, Day 5, students respond to the following text-based questions using the anchor text Night Sky by Joseph Bruchac: “Which events in the story are major events? How do you know? Which key details can you use to describe them? Why?” Additionally, students identify major events and the key details from the text on a Major Events chart.

Teacher materials provide support for planning and implementation of text-based questions and tasks. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 3, Week 3, Day 3, students read People Who Made Contributions by Margaret McNamara and respond to the text-based question, “Which reasons does the author give to support the point that Frederick Douglass made important contributions?” The margins of the lesson plan support teachers by providing the sample response answer: “The author gives two main reasons to support the point that Frederick Douglass made an important contribution. One reason is that Douglass spoke out against slavery. Another reason is that Douglass helped many people work together to free enslaved people.” 

• In Unit 7, Week 2, Day 1, students use the text Using Time Lines by Margaret McNamara. The Teacher Resource Guide provides the teacher with a few text-dependent questions to ask students to support students with finding key details in the text. Each of these questions includes sample answers that students might give. Supports in this lesson include vocabulary support, pauses for mental images, and sentence frames. Materials suggest various response types, including written and oral responses to the Apply Understanding task during which students create a timeline of the school day with events.

• In Unit 10, Week 2, Day 4, after rereading parts of I Hear with My Ears by Kathleen Long Bostrom, students reread page 12. Students then describe the setting using the illustrations and details from the text. What inferences can you draw about what the narrator sees, hears, and feels in this setting? Materials provide a sample response to support the teacher with implementing this text-dependent question.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria of Indicator 1g.

Materials include regular opportunities for students to engage in text-based discussions with partners. The Speaking and Listening Protocols are embedded in the program and can also be found in the Speaking and Listening Protocols Bank, located in the Additional Materials section. The Foundations and Routines Unit introduces the protocols and provides many opportunities to practice to solidify students’ understanding of the steps in each protocol. Protocols are introduced, practiced, and applied by Unit and students engage in more complex protocols in later units. Think-Speak-Listen tools for language structures are also provided to help students support their ideas with reasons, evidence, and examples. The Teacher Resource System includes facilitation, monitoring, and instructional support for teachers, including extensive information about discussion protocols and constructive conversations.

Materials include protocols to support students’ developing speaking and listening skills across the whole year’s scope of instructional materials. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The Additional Resources section includes a Speaking and Listening Protocols Bank and a Constructive Conversation protocol document. This document defines the protocols and provides information to understand the how and why of the protocol. The Protocol Complexity Table provides a visual overview showing the Protocol use in Each Unit and how protocol complexity build across the year.

• Materials include Think-Speak-Listen protocols that go along with the Constructive Conversation materials. The protocols in the lesson plan contain sentence stems designed to support student conversation during instruction.

• The Turn and Talk Protocol is used frequently throughout the materials, and the instructions are limited to “Ask partners to share responses to the Turn and Talk questions. Remind them to take turns and listen carefully when their partner is speaking.” The teacher provides the topic or questions to the students.

• In Unit 1, Week 1, Day 1, students activate prior knowledge through a Turn and Talk. Students discuss the following questions with their partners: “What do you think would happen to a plant or an animal if it did not get all the things it needs? Turn and Talk with your partner about it.” During shared reading, partners share questions they thought of as they listened. The teacher calls on one or two students to paraphrase what their partners told them. While materials include an opportunity for speaking and listening, there is no evidence of students using specific speaking and listening steps from a protocol.

• In Unit 6, Week 1, Day 2, using the mentor read aloud, The Boy Who Cried Wolf (author not cited), students tell about the events in the story to identify and determine the central message. The teacher poses the following question and asks partners to share ideas during a Turn and Talk: “One of our Enduring Understandings is Stories, such as fables, folktales, and realistic fiction, can teach the reader a moral or lesson. In The Boy Who Cried Wolf, we saw how the boy created problems for the villagers and he learned a lesson at the end of the story. How can you use what you’ve learned from the shepherd boy’s lesson in your own life?” The teacher invites a few pairs to share their thinking. The teacher writes students' responses in a list. The teacher reminds students to use the words in the text and the Build Knowledge words they have learned: moral, cooperation, problem, teamwork. Students will use the foundational Turn and Talk protocol described in the protocol continuum table located in the Speaking and Listening Protocols Bank.

• In Unit 7, Week 1, Day 3, during the shared reading of the text, Long Ago on the Go (author not cited), the teacher reminds students that one of the Enduring Understandings for the unit is: “People use tools, such as timelines and maps, to help organize and understand events of the past.” The teacher poses the following task and asks partners to share ideas during a Turn and Talk: “Time lines can include events that happened a long time ago, as well as events that haven’t happened yet.” The teacher has students turn to page 10 and use their new vocabulary words past, future, and astronauts to describe the timeline. During this activity, students, “Tell a partner something they learned about how transportation has changed since ‘long ago.’ After students share, the teacher is to, ‘Invite one or two students to share what their partners said.” Students will use the foundational Turn and Talk protocol described in the protocol continuum table located in the Speaking and Listening Protocols Bank.

Speaking and listening instruction includes facilitation, monitoring, and instructional supports for teachers. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The Additional Resources section includes a Speaking and Listening Protocols Bank, a Constructive Conversation protocol document, and the Foundations and Routines resource guide includes facilitation, monitoring, and instructional supports for teachers.

• The Turn and Talk Protocol is used frequently throughout the materials. In Foundations and Routine lessons, the teacher models and chunks directions for various types of Turn and Talks so that students are clear on the appropriate expectations. 

• In the Teacher Resource material, under the Additional Materials section for each unit, materials include a document that provides general teacher guidance on “Maximizing the Quality of Classroom Constructive Conversations.” This guidance is the same throughout all units across the year.

  • For example, the resource states, “Teachers and students can better understand how to improve conversations with the tools that accompany the Benchmark Advance program. The first tool, the ‘Conversation Blueprint,’ is a visual guide to help teachers scaffold students’ conversations. This tool shows the structure of the two main types of conversations that should happen during lessons. The tools especially designed for students are the Think-Speak-Listen Bookmarks…” These tools offer sentence systems for various skills within a conversation.”

    • The Conversational Blueprint document is not labeled as such in the materials, but materials include a supporting document that fits the description at the end of the Constructive Conversation guidance.

• In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 4, as students listen to Robots at Work by Thalia Fernandez, materials include teacher guidance to support students with sharing important details that show how Zeff’s world is different from ours. The teacher reminds students of the enduring understandings and asks students to apply the key vocabulary from the story using the Turn and Talk protocol. 

• In Unit 8, Week 2, Day 4, during Guided Practice for the extended read, Night and Day by Hilary Maybaum, materials include the following teacher guidance to support facilitation of students’ text-based discussion: “Use the information on pages 12 and 13 to describe what is pictured on pages 14 and 15.” Students will use the foundational Turn and Talk protocol described in the protocol continuum table located in the Speaking and Listening Protocols Bank.

• In Unit 9, Week 1, Day 2, the teacher uses the Constructive Conversation protocol. The teacher reads a text out loud, poses a question to students, and in their group, they answer the text-based question, “With your group, discuss the text, restate the main topic, and identify key details that support the main topic.” Students will use the foundational Turn and Talk protocol described in the protocol continuum table located in the Speaking and Listening Protocols Bank.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria of Indicator 1h.

Materials provide opportunities for students to engage in partner discussions, after listening to or rereading texts. Students participate in Turn, Talk, and Listen partner activities related to the text, paraphrase partner’s answers, and share their ideas with the class. Materials provide sentence frames to support students’ speaking and listening opportunities. Throughout each unit, students complete a Research and Inquiry and Knowledge Blueprint, during which they create a presentation and engage in Constructive Conversations to discuss the Enduring Understandings. While the majority of speaking and listening opportunities support what students are reading or researching, occasionally speaking and listening opportunities involve students sharing their personal opinions and thoughts. 

Students have multiple opportunities over the school year to demonstrate what they are reading through varied speaking and listening opportunities. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • In Unit 6, Week 3, Day 5, after watching a short video, students turn and talk about “how much more meaningful the video is to them as they view it again, now that they are able to bring more knowledge about lessons in stories and using teamwork to solve problems into the viewing. Students engage in Constructive Conversations with a partner to demonstrate what they have learned. Students are reminded to take turns speaking and to listen carefully when others are sharing ideas. 

• Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • In Unit 5, Week 3, Day 3, the teacher models adding visuals to a text to help a reader better understand the author’s ideas. Students complete a visual planning chart to determine which part of the text they will support with a picture and what the picture will show. Students tell a partner something they might want to find or create for a visual. During independent work time, students gather visuals to support their writing. 

  • In Unit 7, Week 3, Day 3, the teacher models adding drawings, diagrams or other visual aids to help a reader follow and understand steps in a procedure. Students think about their writing and how they can support the ideas in their text with visuals. Students complete a visual planning chart and determine which steps they want to support with a picture and what the picture will show. During independent work time, students gather visuals to support their writing. 

Speaking and listening work requires students to utilize, apply, and incorporate evidence from texts and/or sources. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Build on others' talk in conversations by responding to the comments of others through multiple exchanges. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • In Unit 8, Week 3, Day 3, students “Pose the following questions and ask partners to share ideas” as they discuss the text, Night Sky by Joseph Bruchac. The materials encourage the teacher to access the Build Up an Idea protocol found in the Additional Materials Bank section.

• Ask questions to clear up any confusion about the topics and texts under discussion. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • In Unit 9, Week 3, Day 5, students share their writing in a small group. The teacher directs students to “think about questions you have for the speaker. You can ask the speaker questions in complete sentences to clear up anything that is unclear after the speaker has finished presenting their work.”

• Ask and answer questions about key details in a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • In Unit 3, Week 1, Day 2, students ask and answer questions after reading “Hello, Community Garden!” (author not cited) to help them understand and remember the text. Students work in partner groups to identify the key details that provide information about the topic and respond to text evidence questions. Students turn and talk to connect to the knowledge of the lesson. The teacher reminds students to use vocabulary from the text and the Build Knowledge words they have learned. 

  • In Unit 6, Week 1, Day 3, the teacher models using details to help describe the characters in the story “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” (author not cited). Students complete a character chart using key details they learned about the boy. Students complete a turn and talk with a partner to identify key details that tell us about the shepherd boy. The teacher reminds students to use the words from the text and the Build Knowledge words they have learned. 

• Ask and answer questions about what a speaker says in order to gather additional information or clarify something that is not understood. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • In Unit 2, Week 1, Day 5, after reading “By Myself” by Eloise Greenfield, students verbally respond to the following questions: “How does the repetition of the line ‘I’m a…’ make you feel? How is the structure of the poem different from the structure of a story? How does having one idea in a line help you understand the speaker?” 

• Describe people, places, things, and events with relevant details, expressing ideas and feelings clearly. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • In Unit 7, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher models making connections and drawing inferences to help think deeply and build knowledge about what schools were like in the past, what they are like today, and what they might be like in the future. Students think about how they can make a connection between the text and another text, something you know about the world, or something from your life. Students should use details from the text and their own knowledge to draw an inference about schools of the future. 

  • In Unit 9, Week 3, Day 3, the teacher models using illustrations to help better understand a story. Students turn and talk to explain how you can use details from the text and the illustrations to tell about the actions and feelings of the shoemaker and his wife.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria of Indicator 1i.

As a part of daily instruction, students utilize the My Reading and Writing notebook for text-based, on-demand writing opportunities. Additional on-demand writing opportunities occur as students respond to text-based prompts and complete short, focused projects, such as writing an opinion piece about their favorite character from the text. Materials include opportunities for students to engage in process writing during every unit. Students learn to pre-write, draft, revise, edit and proofread, and publish or present. During the writing portion of the lesson, students complete process writing tasks spanning different genres and content, with writing tasks lasting from five days to fifteen days. Materials include some digital resources and opportunities for students to develop their final drafts. 

Materials include on-demand writing opportunities that cover a year’s worth of instruction. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 3, after listening to Little Red Riding Hood, by Molly Smith. Students draw and write a retelling of the story in their My Reading and Writing Workbook. The Student Self-Check at the bottom of the page supports students using vocabulary from the word bank, using short e words and writing what Little Red saw and did.

• In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 2, after listening to Robots at Work, by Thalia Fernandez, students draw a picture of one of the tasks robots can do at a hospital. Students then write one sentence explaining how that job or task helps the people that created them. 

• In Unit 10, Week 3, Day 5, students demonstrate their comprehension of the Enduring Understanding, “Living things use energy in the form of sounds, light, and heat every day.” They draw a picture of one energy source and write three to four sentences about how living things use the energy shown in their picture. Students must also include the Build Knowledge Vocabulary in their writing.

Materials include process writing opportunities that cover a year’s worth of instruction. Opportunities for students to revise and edit are provided. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 3, Weeks 1–3, students participate in process writing for two weeks to create informative writing. In Week 1, the following prompt is introduced, “This week we’re going to write an informative text about places in our community.” Students read and analyze a mentor text. In Week 1, students brainstorm, choose a topic, identify reasons and evidence, and create a draft. In Week 2, students continue writing, revising, and expanding their draft, while focusing on writer’s craft. In Week 3, students continue to focus on writer’s craft, edit, publish, and share their work afterwards.

• In Unit 6, Weeks 1–3, students write an opinion piece. In Week 1, students read a mentor text, brainstorm, choose a topic, identify reasons and evidence, and draft. In Week 2, students continue writing, revising, and expanding their draft, while focusing on the writer’s craft. In Week 3, students continue to focus on the writer’s craft, and edit, publish, and share their work afterwards.

• In Unit 9, Weeks 1–3, students write an informative research report. In Week 1, students read a mentor text, brainstorm, choose a topic, ask questions to focus on research, gather sources, plan, and organize. In Week 2, students draft, revise, and expand their writing, focusing on the writer’s craft. In Week 3, students continue to focus on the writer’s craft, edit their work, and add visual support. Afterwards, students publish and share their writing.

Materials include digital resources where appropriate. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The Writer’s Universe contains various digital lessons that include videos and interactive graphic organizers that walk students through each step of the writing process. The digital resources include space for students to type their drafts and submit their work to the teacher. Afterward, the teacher unlocks the next step of the writing practice. Materials also include a mentor text and instruction and interactive practice to support writing related to that genre—opinion about a topic, opinion about a text, personal narrative, fable, informative about Science, and informative about Social Studies.

• In Unit 3, Week 3, Day 4, ​​students create their final copy of their writing. Instead of handwriting or typing and printing their work, students have the option to digitally produce their final copy for online sharing.

• In Unit 9, Weeks 1–3, during the Research and Inquiry Project, students create a presentation about the unit topic, Goods and Services, and use the internet to research images and information to make an advertisement about their selected goods and services.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria of Indicator 1j.

Materials contain various opportunities for students to learn, practice, and apply different genres and types of writing by the standards. Materials provide opportunities for students to use both print and video sources in multiple units and include links to online material for teachers to use as they see fit to support student writing. Support includes sentence frames that the teacher can use to support students' writing. 

Materials provide multiple opportunities across the school year for students to learn, practice, and apply different genres/modes/types of writing that reflect the distribution required by the standards. Different genres/modes/types of writing are not evenly distributed throughout the school year. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• Percentage or number of opportunities for opinion writing:

  • Students have 9 out of 30 opportunities to learn, practice, and apply opinion writing across the school year. 

  • In Unit 1, there are no opportunities for opinion writing. 

  • In Unit 2, there are no opportunities for opinion writing

  • In Unit 3, there are no opportunities for opinion writing

  • In Unit 4, there are three opportunities for opinion writing. All writing opportunities for this unit are opinion in nature. 

  • In Unit 5, there are no opportunities for opinion writing

  • In Unit 6, there are three opportunities for opinion writing. All writing opportunities for this unit are opinion in nature.

  • In Unit 7, there are no opportunities for opinion writing

  • In Unit 8, there are three opportunities for opinion writing. All writing opportunities for this unit are opinion in nature. 

  • In Unit 9, there are no opportunities for opinion writing. 

  • In Unit 10, there are no opportunities for opinion writing

• Percentage or number of opportunities for informative/explanatory writing:

  • Students have out 12 of 30 opportunities to learn, practice, and apply informative/explanatory writing across the school year. 

  • In Unit 1, there are no opportunities for informative/explanatory writing.

  • In Unit 2, there are no opportunities for informative/explanatory writing.

  • In Unit 3, there are three opportunities for informative/explanatory writing. All writing opportunities for this unit are informative/explanatory in nature. 

  • In Unit 4, there are no opportunities for informative/explanatory writing.

  • In Unit 5, there are three opportunities for informative/explanatory writing. All writing opportunities for this unit are informative/explanatory in nature.  

  • In Unit 6, there are no opportunities for informative/explanatory writing.

  • In Unit 7, there are three opportunities for informative/explanatory writing. All writing opportunities for this unit are informative/explanatory in nature. 

  • In Unit 8, there are no opportunities for informative/explanatory writing.

  • In Unit 9, there are three opportunities for informative/explanatory writing. All writing opportunities for this unit are informative/explanatory in nature. 

  • In Unit 10, there are no opportunities for informative/explanatory writing.

• Percentage or number of opportunities for narrative writing:

  • Students have out 6 of 30 opportunities to learn, practice, and apply narrative writing across the school year. 

  • In Unit 1, there are three opportunities for narrative writing. All writing opportunities for this unit are narrative in nature. 

  • In Unit 2, there are three opportunities for narrative writing. All writing opportunities for this unit are narrative in nature.

  • In Unit 3, there are no opportunities for narrative writing.

  • In Unit 4, there are no opportunities for narrative writing.

  • In Unit 5, there are no opportunities for narrative writing.

  • In Unit 6, there are no opportunities for narrative writing.

  • In Unit 7, there are no opportunities for narrative writing. 

  • In Unit 8, there are no opportunities for narrative writing.

  • In Unit 9, there are no opportunities for narrative writing.

  • In Unit 10, there are no opportunities for narrative writing.

• Explicit instruction in opinion writing:

  • In Unit 4, Week 1, Day 2, the teacher shows the brainstorming list from Day 1. The teacher models writing their opinion text and orally rehearses each sentence before writing it. The teacher models adding reasons and evidence.

  • In Unit 6, Week 2, Day 1, the teacher models how to add a second reason of support. The teacher refers to the mentor text and orally rehearses each sentence before writing.

  • In Unit 8, Week 1, Day 4, the teacher displays the Writing Opinion Text Anchor Chart. The teacher models filling in a planning chart with reasons to support their opinion. 

• Explicit instruction in informative/explanatory writing:

  • In Unit 3, Week 2, Day 2, the teacher shows Being a Responsible Citizen and reads the first sentence aloud. The teacher explains that the writer started with a topic sentence. The teacher uses the brainstorming list to model writing a topic sentence.

  • In Unit 5, Week 2, Day 2, the teacher displays the mentor text and reviews the conclusion and the title. The teacher shows the explanatory text the teacher drafted on Day 1. The teacher models adding a strong conclusion. Before writing, the teacher orally rehearses the sentence.

  • In Unit 7, Week 2, Day 1, the teacher displays their how-to text from the last lesson. The teacher orally rehearses, adding the remaining steps.

  • In Unit 9, Week 1, Day 5, the teacher displays the mentor text and shows that the text has three key ideas. The teacher refers to the Note-Taking Chart and models creating a Planning Chart.

• Explicit instruction in narrative writing:

  • In Unit 1, Week 2, Day 5, the teacher models generating an idea based on a text. The teacher models orally rehearsing what they will write. The teacher models writing their response.

  • In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 3, the teacher shows an incomplete diary entry. The teacher rereads their shared writing and has students help think of new details to add. The teacher models orally rehearsing before writing.

Different genres/modes/types of writing are distributed throughout the school year, although the distribution is not even. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• Students have opportunities to engage in opinion writing. 

  • Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure.

    • In Unit 4, Week 2, Day 2, students write about their favorite character from Mother Bruce. They tell why they like that particular character and learn about supporting their opinion with two or three reasons for their opinion.  Students write sentences stating their opinion about a character and two or three reasons for their opinions.  

    • In Unit 6, Week 2, Day 3, students review their opinion drafts to ensure they stated their opinion and included reasons and evidence to support their reasons.  Students then write a concluding sentence and add a title to their writing piece.  

    • In Unit 8, Week 2, Day 2, students add reasons and explanations for their reasons to their opinion pieces about how people use goods and services. 

• Students have opportunities to engage in informative/explanatory writing. For example: 

  • Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.

    • In Unit 3, Week 2, Day 2,  students write informative/explanatory pieces about being a good citizen.  Students write sentences to state their topic and add sentences that support their topic. 

    • In Unit 7, Week 2, Day 2, students add conclusions and a title to their procedural text about how to do something they know how to do.  

    • In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 5, students work on a draft of their explanatory process writing task.  Students state their topic and add sentences to explain their key ideas and details to support.  

    • In Unit 9, Weeks 1–3, students complete an informative research report.

• Students have opportunities to engage in narrative writing. For example: 

  • Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened and provide some sense of closure. Students do not use temporal words to signal event order.

• In Unit 1, Week 3, Day 2, students write a personal response to the illustrations in the text, The Ugly Duckling.  Students write about the illustration they like and why they like it.  

• In Unit 2, Week 1, Day 3, after telling what happens in the middle of the story, students add details and events to explain what happens next in their narrative writing piece.

• In Unit 2, Week 1, Day 5, students write an ending to their story about Little Red Riding Hood going to the bus instead of the woods.

Where appropriate, writing opportunities are connected to texts and/or text sets (either as prompts, models, anchors, or supports). For example: 

• In Unit 3, Weeks 2–3, after reading the model text Being a Responsible Citizen, students write an explanatory/informative text about being a good citizen. They add details and develop their drafts based on the model text.

• In Unit 4, Week 1, Day 2, students write an opinion piece about whether they would rather live in the city or the country based on the story “The City Mouse and the Country Mouse”. First, students brainstorm and decide on an opinion. Then, they provide reasons or examples from the text to support whether the city or country is better. Later in the process, students write a first draft and revise it before sharing it with others. 

• In Unit 6, Week 1, Day 4, students provide more reasons and evidence to support their opinions in their opinion essay using the mentor text, Wolfie the Bunny.

• In Unit 9, Week 2, Day 1, students write an informative research report on a topic of their choice. They model their research report after the mentor text about apples. 

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria of Indicator 1k.

The instructional materials for Benchmark Grade 1 include frequent opportunities across the school year for students to learn, practice, and apply evidence-based writing. Lesson plans include models/exemplars, protocols, and rubrics to support student writing. Students use their "My Reading and Writing" book to complete writing related to the Reading mini-lessons. Each week students have "We Read, Draw and Write" tasks and "I Read, Draw, and Write" tasks - shifting the responsibility to the students as they master the content. For the "I Write and Draw" tasks, students self-check sections to monitor their writing/drawing to ensure that it meets standards for the grade level and is aligned with the learning targets of the lesson. Anchor charts assist students with writing on various topics and genres: information, narrative, and opinion. 

Materials provide frequent opportunities across the school year for students to learn, practice, and apply writing using evidence. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 1, after reading Wolfie the Bunny by Ame Dyckman, the teacher models writing a diary entry based on the story from Dot’s point of view.  The teacher models starting writing at the top left side of the page, saying a word and writing the sounds they hear, and using ending punctuation.  

• In Unit 4, Week 2, Day 3, after reading Mother Bruce by Ryan T. Higgins, the teacher models writing about a character from the story and explaining why the character is his/her favorite.  The teacher adds details to the text and restates the opinion.  

• In Unit 10, Week 1, Day 3, after reading “Sounds I Love,” the teacher models drafting a sensory poem.  The teacher orally rehearses each line before writing and models applying print concepts, phonics, high frequency words, and conventions of writing.  

Writing opportunities are focused around students’ recall of information to develop opinions from reading closely and working with evidence from texts and sources. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 1, after listening to the teacher models creating a diary entry based on Wolfie the Bunny by Ame Dyckman, students reread and create their own diary entry about what happens at the Carrot Patch.

• In Unit 4, Week 2, Day 3, after listening to Mother Bruce by Ryan T. Higgins, students draft an opinion text about their favorite character.  

• In Unit 10, Week 1, Day 3, after listening to and rereading “Sounds I Love”, students draft a sensory poem.  

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for 1l. 

Grade 1 materials provide daily explicit grammar and usage instruction and opportunities for student practice and application of all grade-level grammar and usage standards. Students have opportunities to work with the whole group, with partners, as well as independently. Grammar and usage are taught and practiced in explicit, isolated lessons and the context of read alouds, shared and independent writing, and dictation exercises. All grade-level grammar and usage standards are included. Students engage in authentic independent writing activities daily and take a piece of independent writing through the writing process steps in each unit. Explicit opportunities for application in context occur primarily during the editing phase of the writing process. 

Materials include explicit instruction of all grammar and conventions standards for the grade level. For example:

• Print all upper- and lowercase letters.

  • In Unit 4, Week 1, Day 2, students practice writing letters for sounds in Elkonin boxes. Students print a dictated sentence on lines using proper letter formation.

  • In Digital Resources, Grade 1, Handwriting Practice Pages, a ten-page document provides letter formation pathways and practice pages for all uppercase and lowercase letters.

• Use common, proper, and possessive nouns.

  • In Unit 1, Week 1, Day 5, the teacher reads four sentences containing both a common and proper noun and explains the underlined word is called a common noun, and the proper nouns name a specific noun in the sentence. Students create new sentences for each proper noun. Partners make lists of proper nouns and then choose two nouns to create sentences. Partners share their sentences with the class while other students identify the proper nouns and tell whether it is a person, place, animal, thing, or idea.

  • In Unit 7, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher introduces possessive nouns and how to add an apostrophe and the letter s to denote possession. Students use words from a list to create their own oral sentence using a possessive version of the noun.

• Use singular and plural nouns with matching verbs in basic sentences (e.g., He hops; We hop).

  • In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 1, the teacher displays and reads aloud the sentence: The ant works. The teacher circles the word works and explains that it is a verb. The teacher displays and reads another sentence: The bugs work. The teacher guides students to identify the noun and verb. The teacher points out the plural noun bugs and explains that the verb changes to match the noun. Partners tell each other a sentence about what animals do and identify the noun and verb, then the partner changes the sentence from singular to plural. Students take turns while the teacher circulates, listens, and provides corrective feedback as needed.

  • In Unit 7, Week 2, Day 2, the teacher reviews the definition of singular and plural nouns and indicates the nouns should match the verb form. The teacher displays eight nouns and asks students to help write the plural form for each noun. Students work in partners to generate sentences for the singular and plural forms of each word.

• Use personal, possessive, and indefinite pronouns (e.g., I, me, my; they, them, their, anyone, everything).

  • In Unit 3, Week 3, Day 2, the teacher reminds students that indefinite pronouns do not replace a specific noun, like personal and possessive nouns do, but stand-in for unknown or unnamed people or things. The teacher displays sentences and guides students to complete sentences with the correct indefinite pronoun. Partners work together to create sentences using indefinite pronouns that were not used during guided practice. 

  • In Unit 8, Week 3, Day 4, following a review of personal, possessive, and indefinite pronouns, the teacher displays five sentence frames with missing pronouns, e.g., Jenny gazes at the stars. ____ wants to explore space. Students supply the missing pronoun, identify the pronoun as personal, possessive, or indefinite, and explain why they chose that pronoun. 

• Use verbs to convey a sense of past, present, and future (e.g., Yesterday I walked home; Today I walk home; Tomorrow I will walk home).

  • In Unit 1, Week 3, Day 3, the teacher reminds students they have used present-tense and past-tense verbs and introduces verbs in the future tense to tell about things that will happen in the future. The teacher and students create a chart for the three verb tenses, and the teacher points out the word will is used before future-tense verbs. Using the lists of verbs, students select verbs and say all three forms. Then, students use the different forms in sentences that indicate time. The teacher circulates, listens, and provides corrective feedback as needed. Volunteers share sentences with the whole class and add the three forms of the verb to the chart.

  • In Unit 1, Week 3, Day 5, the teacher reminds students that verbs are words that represent action and show time and reviews the use of past-, present-, and future-tense verbs, and students provide examples. The teacher displays sentences and asks students to identify the verb in each sentence and tell whether each verb is past, present, or future. Partners use the verbs to make new sentences using the verb in other tenses.

• Use frequently occurring adjectives.

  • In Unit 4, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher tells students that adjectives are words that describe a noun. The teacher displays the words city and country. Students generate adjectives to describe both nouns, and the teacher records them. In partners, students point at classroom objects and use adjectives to describe them. 

  • In Unit 9, Week 3, Day 1, during guided shared writing, the teacher points out adjectives used to describe things vividly. The teacher guides students to add adjectives to shared writing. Students work with partners to edit each other’s writing for the correct use of elements of grammar, including adjectives.

• Use frequently occurring conjunctions (e.g., and, but, or, so, because).

  • In Unit 6, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher explains that conjunctions show how ideas in a sentence are related, and sometimes we use them to connect lists or parts of a sentence. The teacher shares a chart of conjunction descriptions and example sentences; Partners tell how each conjunction was used in each sentence in the chart and then take turns using them in new sentences.

  • In Unit 6, Week 3, Day 1, the teacher reviews the conjunctions and, but, or, so, because. The teacher displays five sentences and asks students to choose the correct conjunction for each sentence. Students work with partners to create new sentences using conjunctions.

• Use determiners (e.g., articles, demonstratives).

  • In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 4, the teacher displays the demonstratives this, that, these, and those and explains which words are used with singular and plural nouns and with things that are near or far. The teacher displays four sentences (e.g., Carry (those/this) basket), and students choose the correct demonstrative word. In partners, students say each demonstrative word and use it in a sentence. 

  • In Unit 2, Week 3, Day 1, the teacher explains correct usage for articles and demonstratives. The teacher displays and reads sentences, underlining the article/demonstrative in each sentence, and circles the noun that follows. Students tell what the article/demonstrative used in the sentence tells about the noun. Using a word bank, partners generate other sentences to tell about the nouns. 

• Use frequently occurring prepositions (e.g., during, beyond, toward).

  • In Unit 2, Week 3, Day 2, the teacher reminds students they have learned how to use propositions to add to sentences to tell when or where things happen. The teacher displays sentence stems and prepositional phrases and asks students to identify the preposition. The teacher models combining a prepositional phrase and a sentence stem to create a sentence. Partners use the displayed list of sentence parts to create five more sentences. Volunteers share sentences with the class. 

  • In Unit 5, Week 3, Day 2, the teacher reminds students that prepositions can add to sentences or tell when and where things happen. The teacher displays six sentence stems (e.g., We play baseball) and six prepositional phrases (e.g., into the woods). The teacher models combining a sentence stem with a prepositional phrase to create a new sentence. In partners, students use the sentence stems and prepositional phrases to create at least five new sentences. 

• Produce and expand complete simple and compound declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences in response to prompts.

  • In Unit 5, Week 3, Day 4, the teacher reminds students that they previously learned the different kinds of sentences and different ending marks for different types of sentences. Partners take turns asking each other questions about the other’s explanatory writing. Partners answer with declarative sentences. Students tell one great thing about the writing using an exclamatory sentence. 

  • In Unit 6, Week 3, Day 3, students tell what they know about simple and compound sentences. The teacher displays sentences from the book Tall and Small Play Ball and asks students to identify whether the sentence is simple or compound and how they know. The teacher shows illustrations from Tall and Small Play Ball. Partners work together to write one simple and one compound sentence about the illustrations. Partners share their sentences.

• Capitalize dates and names of people.

  • In Unit 1, Week 1, Day 4, the teacher tells students that most of the words we use every day are common nouns. The teacher tells students that proper nouns name specific people, places, animals, things, and events and that proper nouns begin with a capital letter. The teacher tells students that their names are proper nouns, and names always start with a capital letter. The teacher displays a chart of four matching common and proper nouns (e.g., girl/Maria) and uses the common and proper nouns in the same sentence (e,g. The girl is my friend. Maria is my friend.) In partners, students list another proper noun to match each common noun in the chart. Students use the new pairs to generate sentences. 

  • In Unit 9, Week 1, Day 2, the teacher explains, “When we write down the date, we use commas to separate the parts of dates. Remember, a date uses proper nouns. Names of the days of the week and the names of months begin with uppercase letters.” 

• Use end punctuation for sentences.

  • In Unit 2, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher discusses ending punctuation in the context of reading. The teacher calls students’ attention to the word treat at the end of the second line of a poem and explains that there is a dot called a period which shows that it is the end of a sentence. The teacher points out the word meet at the end of the fourth line and explains that this is a question mark used at the end of a sentence that asks a question. To reinforce matching spoken words to written words, students place post-its on the punctuation. 

  • In Unit 8, Week 2, Day 1, the teacher refers to a mentor text as a model for writing an opinion piece. Included in the suggested think-aloud, the teacher is prompted to say, “I’ll also be sure that I write a period at the end of both sentences because they make statements. They are declarative sentences.”

• Use commas in dates and to separate single words in a series.

  • In Unit 4, Week 2, Day 1, the teacher explains that commas are not ending marks and are usually found in the middle of sentences and can be used in many different ways. The teacher uses a chart to explain that commas are used in dates and circles the commas and explains their function in the sentence. The teacher explains that commas can also be used to separate items in a series. The teacher displays sentences without commas. Students work with partners to discuss where a comma or commas should be used and added in the sentences. Partners mark where a comma should be added and explain why it is needed. Then students create their own sentences talking about what they like to play and their birthdays. Students share their sentences with the whole group.

  • In Unit 9, Week 1, Day 5, the teacher reminds students that commas are used for different purposes, including separating words in a series and separating parts of dates. The teacher displays four sentences containing series or dates with missing commas. Students place the commas in the sentences. 

• Use conventional spelling for words with common spelling patterns and for frequently occurring irregular words.

  • In Unit 1, Week 3, Day 5, the teacher displays high-frequency words: for, no, jump, one, have, and has. Students read and spell each word as a whole group. Students review the words: play, little, with, you and build them with Letter Cards. Students write each word. 

  • In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 3, the teacher displays Elkonin boxes and models segmenting the word name into phonemes, moving a marker into a box for each sound. The teacher models matching a letter to each sound and writing the correct letter under each box. The teacher writes the final e under a blank box and reminds students how e and a work together in the word to make a long a sound. Students repeat the process with the words game, frame, take, fake, brake, shame, and shake. 

• Spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on phonemic awareness and spelling conventions.

  • In Unit 1, Week 1, Day 4, the teacher invites students to write sentences about the beginning of the decodable story they just read. In partners, students discuss the story and suggest sentences for the class to write. The teacher supports students to apply phonics skills and high-frequency word knowledge to encode the sentences in an interactive writing format. 

  • In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 4, the teacher invites students to write sentences about the decodable story they just read, At the Lake. In partners, students discuss what the children in the story want to see at the lake and suggest sentences for the class to write. The teacher supports students to apply phonics skills and high-frequency word knowledge to encode the words in the sentences in an interactive writing format. 

• Materials include authentic opportunities for students to demonstrate application of skills in context, including applying grammar and convention skills to writing. For example:

  • In Unit 2, Week 3, Day 5, the teacher guides a shared writing activity about four treasures to put in a backpack asking questions: Where should I start writing? Which end punctuation mark should I use? During independent writing time, students write the endings for their narratives. 

  • In Unit 4, Week 3, Day 3, the teacher models how to edit a piece of shared writing. The teacher uses a think-aloud to model checking spelling. Students review and edit their writing, focusing on spelling and the elements of grammar taught in the current unit, including past, present, and future tense verbs of being. Students share their edits with a partner.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria of Indicator 1m.

Materials include a year-long vocabulary development plan, which lists all Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary words. The Year-Long Vocabulary Plan is organized by Unit and Weeks. The plan includes a key that outlines which vocabulary words are explicitly taught in the unit and which week the words repeat in. If the vocabulary words were previously taught, the key also notes where in the previous unit the words were taught. Vocabulary words are underlined in the daily lesson guide for teachers. Materials include defined routines for teachers to follow and multiple graphic organizers for students to record vocabulary words in various ways. Students read, write, illustrate, manipulate, and complete fill-in-the-blank prompts for practice to gain competency with vocabulary words throughout each unit. 

Materials provide teacher guidance outlining a cohesive year-long vocabulary development component. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Materials include a Define/Example/Ask routine to introduce new vocabulary words for each unit. The teacher provides the definition of the word and an example of the word used in a sentence within the context of the unit. Then students complete a Turn and Talk for each word to answer a question that uses the vocabulary word. 

• In the Program Support Guide, Building Knowledge and Vocabulary, materials include Building Vocabulary Year-long Plans that address Tier 2 General Academic and Tier 3 Domain-Specific Oral Vocabulary, and My Reading and Writing Vocabulary. 

• In the Whole Group Teacher Resources section, materials include a Vocabulary Development Tools document. The resource contains five different graphic organizers, such as Frayer Model, Concept Map, and Analogy, that can introduce new vocabulary in different ways.

Vocabulary is repeated in contexts (before texts, in texts) and across multiple texts. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 1, the teacher introduces students to the vocabulary term little by circling the word in the shared reading poem, “Little Kittens.” The teacher explains what little means and students add to the Unit 2 My Reading and Writing Words chart.  Students reread all words on the chart.  Students are reminded to use the words on their chart when they talk, read, and write about characters in different stories. In Unit 3, Week 2, Day 1, students turn to page 14 in their Reading and Writing book and read the high-frequency word little in context.

• In Unit 7, Week 3, Day 1, the teacher uses the Define/Example/Ask Vocabulary Routine to introduce new vocabulary when previewing the text, Statues and Monuments by Sarah Albee. One of the vocabulary words discussed is honor. Students previously encountered this word in Unit 3 when listening to the read-aloud text, “The Free and the Brave: Volunteer Firefighters” by Ariella Tievsky. 

• In Unit 8, Week 3, Day 1, the teacher uses the Define/Example/Ask Vocabulary Routine to introduce the term observe when previewing the text, Night Sky by Joseph Bruhac. Students first encountered this term during the Unit 1 anchor text, An Oak Tree Has a Life Cycle by Debra Castor. The word observe is repeated in Unit 10, as students read the anchor text The Light Around Us by Kathy Furgang. 

 Attention is paid to vocabulary essential to understanding the text and to high-value academic words. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher introduces the vocabulary words robots, computer, technology, and equipment using the Define/Example/Ask routine. These words are essential to understanding the text Technology at Work.

• In Unit 6, Week 3, Day 4, the teacher poses questions to the students and asks partners to share their responses.  The teacher reminds students to use the vocabulary words cooperation, problem, and teamwork. 

• In Unit 9, Week 2, Day 1, students learn new vocabulary words and phrases: energy, save lives, make life easier, and succeed. These words are essential to understanding the unit topic, How People Use Goods and Services. The teacher and students use these words in daily lessons and the Turn and Talk routines.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for 1n.i.

The Grade 1 materials include systematic and explicit instruction in phonological awareness and phonics. Each lesson includes both teacher modeling and examples for student practice. The materials support teachers with explicit examples for modeling and with examples to use for further student practice. The teacher explicitly models and instructs students on phonemes, substitution and deletion, syllables, onset and rime, as well as rhyming words. The materials include sound-spelling cards, letter cards, word building routines and phonemic awareness activities which are used consistently throughout each unit. The lessons are structured to give students explicit opportunities to hear, say, encode, and read words with each newly-taught pattern through repeating routines in each week of every unit. 

Materials provide the teacher with systematic, explicit modeling for instruction in syllables, sounds (phonemes), and spoken words. For example:

• Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words:

  • In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher says the words face, take, and mat and explains that mat does not belong because it has the short a sound, and face and take have the long a sound. The teacher repeats with the words shade, had, and rake.

  • In Unit 5, Week 2, Day 1, the teacher says the words code, stop, and bone and explains that stop does not belong because it has the short o sound, and code and bone have the long o sound. The teacher repeats the words home stove, and spot.

• Orally produce single-syllable words by blending sounds (phonemes), including consonant blends:

  • In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 2, the teacher models blending the word run, stretching out the sounds in the word, and then modeling how to blend the sounds together to say the whole word. The teacher models how to blend words with short /u/: hug, bug, but, nut, cut, cub, sun, fun, bun, bug. The teacher models using Elkonin boxes and separating words into phonemes, moving a marker into a box for each sound, and then practices blending the sounds together. 

  • In Unit 3, Week 1, Day 2, the teacher says, “Listen as I say the sounds in a word: /f/ /r/ /o/ /g/ and then models blending the word together. The teacher asks the students to say the word frog. The teacher says individual sounds in the words crack, drip, grape, press, grill, trip, dress, truck and asks students to “blend the sounds together to say the word.”

• Isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable words:

  • In Unit 3, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher models words with final consonant blends: plant, want, best. Students identify the word that does not belong. The teacher models with three more words: bump, lamp, band, asking students to identify the word that does not belong and explain why. 

  • In Unit 4, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher says the words thing, thumb, and teeth. The teacher tells students that all three words have the /th/ and asks students where in the word they hear the sound. The teacher models identifying the location of the /th/ in the words. The teacher repeats with /sh/ in shape, shark, and bush. 

  • In Unit 7, Week 2, Day 1, the teacher models saying, “Listen carefully as I say three words: heat, pen, seem. Two of these have a sound in common, one does not belong. The words heat and seem have the long e /e/ in the middle the word pen has the short e /e/ in the middle. It does not belong.” The teacher repeats the process with words chief, leak, rest. Students identify the word that does not belong and explain why for the word sets: send/meet/piece, beach/tent/sneak, seal/clean/check.

• Segment spoken single-syllable words into their complete sequence of individual sounds (phonemes):

• In Unit 1, Week 2, Day 3, the teacher models segmenting the word zip into individual sounds saying, “How many sounds are in the word zip? What are the sounds? Listen carefully as I say each sound in the word zip: /z/ /i/ /p/. The word zip has three sounds. Say the sounds and the word with me: /z/ /i/ /p/.” The teacher repeats the routine having students supply the phonemes and counting how many phonemes are in each word: sit, win, bit, lips, hops, kits, thin, chip, whip, cribs, frills, twins, flips, twist, skips, crisp.

• In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 3, the teacher models segmenting the word bugs into phonemes and tells students that the word bugs has four sounds. Students say the sounds and the word. The teacher says the following words, and students segment each word into phonemes: us, bus, dug, rug, tubs, tugs. 

Materials provide the teacher with examples for instruction in syllables, sounds (phonemes), and spoken words called for in grade level standards. For example:

• In Unit 8, Week 2, Day 2, the materials provide the teacher with a script to model blending sounds in the word north. The materials provide the following words for students’ blending practice: fork, horn, born, shore, chore, boar. 

• In Unit 10, Week 1, Day 1, the materials provide the teacher with the following examples to model identifying and categorizing beginning sounds: too/know/knee, wrap/call/wrong. The materials provide explicit text for the teacher to use in modeling. The materials provide the following words to use for student practice: gnarl/gnash/melt, write/sign/wreck. 

Materials contain explicit instructions for systematic and repeated teacher modeling of all grade-level phonics standards. For example:

• Know the spelling-sound correspondences for common consonant digraphs:

  • In Unit 4, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher models digraphs: th, sh, ng, listening carefully to the words thing, thumb, and teeth and asks students to identify where they hear the /th/ sound. The teacher introduces spelling-sound correspondence by using the word swing, displaying the picture card and explaining the digraph at the end: /ng/, repeating with the Picture Word Card for shirt, and then modeling with Sound-Spelling Cards for digraphs th, sh, and ng. The teacher models and practices with shop, fish, thin, that, bring, sang, saying the consonant digraph words one at a time. Students listen for the consonant digraph at the beginning of each word and write the letters on their work mat. 

  • In Unit 4, Week 2, Day 3, the teacher models adding a beginning sound to a word to make a new word saying, “Listen as I say a word with three sounds: /i/ /n/ /ch/, inch. Now I am going to add /p/ to the beginning: /p/ /i/ /n/ /ch/. What is the new word? The new word is pinch.” The teacher repeats the routine with itch/stitch, eel/wheel. During spelling, teacher models spelling each word, and students encode the letters as they hear each sound: check, which, match, clutch, pitch, chop, chill, whim.

• Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words:

  • In Unit 1, Week 1, Day 2, the teacher models how to blend decodable words and asks students to reread sentences. Decodable words include at, pond, an, egg, grows, can.

  • In Unit 4, Week 2, Day 5, the teacher displays the words ship and fish with letter cards. The materials provide the following explicit script for the teacher to review decoding one-syllable words: “Which sounds do these letters stand for? Let’s blend the sounds: /ship/. Let’s read the word together: ship.” 

• Know final -e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds:

  • In Unit 6, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher models how to make long /i/ by adding final -e. Students identify which word does not belong: like, nice, fit. The teacher displays the word card for hid, and modes blending hid. Next, the teacher adds -e and blends the sounds for the new word. The process repeats for wide, bike, line, time, five. 

  • In Unit 7, Week 3, Day 1, the teacher displays a picture card of a light and a sound spelling card for the long /i/. The spellings include i, _y, i_e, igh, ie. The teacher states “the middle sound in the word light is [long] /i/.” The teacher indicates the letters igh stand for the long i sound. The teacher shows the sound-spelling card and explains the additional vowel team patterns and that “the long i sound can be spelled i, ie, igh, or y.”

• Use knowledge that every syllable must have a vowel sound to determine the number of syllables in a printed word:

  • In Unit 1, Week 1, Day 4, the teacher reviews syllables with students. The materials provide the following teacher script: “The word caterpillar has four syllables or word parts. What is the vowel sound in the first syllable of ca/ter/pil/lar? The first syllable has /a/. The word caterpillar has a short a sound in the first syllable: ca.”

  • In Unit 6, Week 1, Day 2, the teacher explains that VCe syllables are one syllable with two vowels. The materials provide the following text for teacher modeling: “Display the word mistake. Remind students that each syllable has one vowel sound. Have them identify how many syllables are in the word and where to divide it. Draw a line between the s and t. Point out the word part take is one syllable, even though it has two vowels. The e does not make a separate sound. It changes the sound of the a.”

• Decode two-syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables:

  • In Unit 9, Week 3, Day 4, the teacher reviews previously learned vowel teams and explains that every syllable has one vowel sound, and some vowel sounds are made by a team of letters. The teacher reminds students that when breaking multisyllabic words into syllables, vowel teams must stay in the same syllable. The teacher points out the word maybe in the poem “The Animal Store.” 

  • In Unit 10, Week 3, Day 2, the teacher reviews the definition of a syllable. The teacher explains, “when a word ends in -le, the consonant before it and the -le form the last syllable.” Students divide the words table and apple into syllables. 

• Read words with inflectional endings:

  • In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 2, the teacher guides students to find high-frequency words they recognize and discuss verbs with the inflectional ending -s. The teacher uses the word found in the text and explains this is past tense, which means it already happened. The teacher models adding -s to verbs to make them present-tense: the boy finds, the girl finds; they find, we find. 

  • In Unit 6, Week 2, Day 2, the teacher discusses inflectional endings -ing and -ed. The materials provide the teacher with the following script: “We know that -ing can be added to the end of a verb to show an action that is happening right now. We know that -ed can be added to the end of a verb to show action that happened in the past. This is true of most verbs. However, sometimes, we have to adjust the spelling of the verb before we can add the ending. [Display the word race.] When adding -ed or -ing to a word that ends in e, like race, drop the e before adding the ending.”

Lessons provide teachers with systematic and repeated instruction for students to hear, say, encode, and read each newly taught grade-level phonics pattern. For example:

• In Unit 7, Week 2, Day 2, the materials provide a sequence of instructional and practice opportunities for the long e sound, including using long e syllables in compound words, blending and building long e words, word study and spelling of long e words, and reading decodable text including long e words. 

• In Unit 9, Week 1, Day 2, the materials provide a sequence of instructional and practice opportunities for the /ou/ sound, including orally blending /ou/ words, blending and building /ou/ words, word study and spelling of /ou/ words, and reading decodable text including /ou/ words. 

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for 1n.ii.

The Grade 1 materials include both explicit instruction and student practice of phonological awareness. The materials contain a cohesive sequence of phonemic awareness instruction based on the expected hierarchy to build toward students’ application of foundational skills. There are phonological awareness lessons four days each week, and the lessons follow a cohesive sequence. Students have opportunities to work with the whole group as well as independently. Students engage in activities to practice syllables, onset and rime, phoneme substitution, and rhyming words. Materials include a spiral review of previously taught phonological awareness skills. The materials include a spiral review of previously taught phonological awareness skills and provide multiple opportunities for student to practice through activities in rhyme routines, oral blending routines, oral segmentation routines, phonemic manipulation routines, and shared poems or rhymes. The Benchmark Advance: Phonological Awareness Overview provides an evidence-based explanation and rationale for the progression of phonological awareness skills.

Materials have a cohesive sequence of phonemic awareness instruction based on the expected hierarchy to build toward students’ application of the skills. For example:

• In the Program Support Guide, the Grade 1 Scope and Sequence outlines a sequence of phonological awareness that begins with rhyming and phoneme blending and segmenting and gradually increases in complexity to focus on phoneme addition, substitution, and categorization. 

• In the Program Support Guide, the 10-Unit View of Skills & Strategies lists foundational skills, i.e., Print Concepts, Phonological Awareness, Phonics & Word Study, Fluency, and indicates which unit and week those activities can be found for both introduction and mastery. 

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

• The Benchmark Advance: Phonological Awareness Overview guide provides the evidence-based explanation and rationale for the progression of phonological awareness skills.

Materials include a variety of activities for phonological awareness. 

• In Foundations & Routines, Mini-Lessons at a Glance includes a chart that lists six activities per day. The lessons are: Establishing Routines, Phonological Awareness, Shared Reading, Phonics, Shared Writing & Print Concepts, and Independent Reading. There are 20 days of lessons in this section of the materials.

• In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 1, students practice recognizing and producing alliteration. Later in the lesson, students listen to and sing the Letter Song U. 

• In Unit 3, Week 3, Day 3, the teacher says two words and asks the students to clap their hands if the word pairs rhyme. 

• In Unit 7, Week 2, Day 2, the teacher orally states two syllables and asks students to blend the syllables to make a whole word and to state the number of syllables in the word. 

There are frequent opportunities for students to practice phonological awareness. 

• In Unit 3, Strategies and Skills to Build Knowledge, foundational skills for the unit are listed per week. Each week lists 7-10 skills to practice. 

• In Unit 4, Week 1, Days 1-3, opportunities for practicing phonemic awareness occur on three out of five days of whole group instruction during the week. 

• In Unit 9, Week 3, Days 1-3, opportunities for practicing phonemic awareness occur on three out of five days of whole group instruction during the week. 

Materials provide ample opportunities for students to practice each new sound and sound pattern. For example:

• Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words.

  • In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher says the words face, take, and mat and explains that mat does not belong because it has the short a sound, and face and take have the long a sound. The teacher repeats the words shade, had, and rake. Students identify the word that does not belong in the following word sets: ram/tape/date, whale/hat/wave, gate/man/game. 

  • In Unit 6, Week 2, Day 1, students listen to a list of words and determine which words have long /e/ in the middle. The teacher asks about another set of words, and students listen to the middle vowel sound to select the word that does not belong, 

• Orally produce single-syllable words by blending sounds (phonemes), including consonant blends.

  • In Unit 2, Week 1, Day 2, students listen as the teacher says the sounds in a word. The teacher says /m/ /e/ /s/ and models blending the sounds into the word mess. The students repeat the word mess. The teacher and students continue with the words net, tell, less, bed, and yes. The teacher says the sounds in each word, and students blend the sounds into a word. 

  • In Unit 3, Week 2, Day 2, students practice blending phonemes. The teacher says /s/ /t/ /o/ /p/ and blends them together. The teacher says more words sound by sound and asks students to blend them to say the word: snap, spot, spill, smock, skit, slid.

  • In Unit 4, Week 1, Day 2, the teacher says the sounds in the word ship, /sh/ /iii/ /p/, models blending the sounds, and then students say the word ship. The teacher says individual sounds in words, and students blend the sounds for the words think, shark, wish, bath, wrong.

• Isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable words.

  • In Unit 3, Week 1, Day 1, students practice phoneme categorization. The teacher says three words: frog, front, fish, and identifies that fish does not belong because it does not begin with fr. The teacher repeats the process with sets of words, asking students to listen to each word’s beginning sound and distinguish which word does not belong: brain/bat/brick, tree/train/tan, crash/clap/crib, pencil/pretzel/press.

  • In Unit 4, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher says the words thing, thumb, and teeth. The teacher tells students that all three words have /th/ and asks students where they hear the sound in the word. The teacher models identifying the location of /th/ in the words. The teacher repeats with /sh/ in shape, shark, and bush. The teacher says the following word sets, and students identify the sound that is the same and the location of the sound in each word: thump/thick/path, shirt/shell/wish, cash/ship/wash, thing/ring/sang. 

  • In Unit 6, Week 1, Day 1,the teacher models long /i/i_e using like, nice, fit, asking students to identify the word that does not belong. The teacher models with another set of words prize, ship, white, explaining that prize and white both have long /i/i_e in the middle, and ship has short /i/ so it does not belong. The teacher continues to model with bike, sip, ride (sip); dime, side, pin (pin), asking students to identity the words that do not have the long /i/i_e sound in the middle and to discuss the difference between the short /i/ and long /i/ sounds. 

• Segment spoken single-syllable words into their complete sequence of individual sounds (phonemes).

  • In Unit 1, Week 2, Day 3, the teacher models segmenting the word zip into individual sounds: /z/ /i/ /p/ and asking students how many sounds they hear in the word. The teacher continues to practice with the words: sit, win, bit, lips, hips, kits, thin, chip, whip, cribs, frills, twins, flips, twist, skips, crisp, having students supply the phonemes and tell how many sounds in each word. 

  • In Unit 2, Week 1, Day 3, students practice phoneme segmentation using short e words. The teacher models using the word legs. Students practice orally segmenting using words: net, sell, pens, mess, ten.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for 1n.iii.

The Grade 1 materials include research foundations to explain guiding principles for phonics instruction and practice. The skills follow a cohesive, research-based scope and sequence that introduces letters and sounds based on utility and increasing complexity. The Scope and Sequence delineate primary, secondary, and spiral review patterns for each unit. There are opportunities for students to apply new phonics skills as well as previously taught phonics skills. Students have various ways to manipulate individual phonemes and spell words using new spelling patterns as well as many opportunities to apply these skills to context, e.g., decodable readers. Phonics skills are taught and practiced both in isolation and in the context of decoding and encoding words, sentences, and texts. 

Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to decode (phonemes, onset and rime, and/or syllables) phonetically spelled words. For example:

• Know the spelling-sound correspondences for common consonant digraphs.

  • In Unit 4, Week 2, Day 2, students build, blend and read the words chip, ship, whip, match, batch, catch, bunch, lunch, punch. 

  • In Unit 4, Week 3, Day 2, following an introduction to the digraphs ch and wh, the teacher guides students through a whisper read of the decodable text I Saw It. The teacher models blending decodable words. The teacher leads students in a choral reading of the text, then students read the text again with partners.

• Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words.

  • In Unit 3, Week 2, Day 1, students practice decoding the words swell, spot, snag, slip, sniff, and short u words fun, rub, fluff, slug.

  • In Unit 3, Week 2, Day 2, students complete a word sort with s blends. The students write words: skin, skill, skip, smell, smug, smock, swell, swim in random order on cards and sort them according to their word’s s blend. Partners read aloud the words with each spelling pattern.

  • In Unit 9, Week 3, Day 2, the teacher guides students through a whisper read of the decodable text Jack’s Jobs. The teacher models blending decodable words. The teacher leads students in a choral reading of the text. Then students reread the text with partners. 

• Know final -e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds.

  • In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 2, students practice blending and building words with long a made by final -e. The teacher reminds students that the vowel a and final -e work together to make the a say its name and models blending the word cake. Students read the words wake and wade. Students practice using Letter Cards a-z to spell: male, tale, whale, gate, late, slate, brave, brake, rake, shake.

  • In Unit 7, Week 3, Day 2, after learning and practicing long i patterns, the teacher guides students through a whisper read of the decodable text, Our Flag, which contains words with long i patterns. The teacher models blending decodable words. The teacher leads students in a choral reading of the text, then students read the text again with partners. 

• Use knowledge that every syllable must have a vowel sound to determine the number of syllables in a printed word.

  • In Unit 6, Week 1, Day 3, the teacher explains that when a word ends with silent final -e, the e does not make a vowel sound and that those letters stay together in one syllable. Students use a poem to find words with VCe and compound words with home as a base word and divide the words into syllables, e.g., home/work.

  • In Unit 8, Week 1, Day 5, students review compound words using the poem The Moon’s the North Wind’s Cookie. The teacher reminds students that they must follow syllabication rules for the smaller words and that a syllable can only have one vowel sound. The teacher displays the words moonbeam and starlight and has students divide each word into smaller words. 

• Decode two-syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables.

  • In Unit 7, Week 1, Day 2, the teacher models adding sail and boat to make the word sailboat, which has two syllables. Students repeat the routine with the words: rain/coat, door/way, sun/shine, on/to, pop/corn, rail/road.

  • In Unit 7, Week 3, Day 3, the teacher reviews open and closed syllables. The teacher displays the word ago and models dividing the word into syllables. Students divide the word today into syllables. 

• Read words with inflectional endings.

  • In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 3, students identify and read words with inflectional ending -s in a shared reading of the text, The Turtle and the Hare. 

  • In Unit 6, Week 2, Day 3, the teacher points out the verb coming in the text, The Ant and the Grasshopper. Students say and spell the base word. Students find past-tense verbs in the text with the dropped final -e (danced, stored, dined).

Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to read complete words by saying the entire word as a unit using newly taught phonics skills. For example:

• In Unit 1, Week 2, Day 1, partners read and sort word cards with spelling patterns for short e: -en, -et, -ed. 

• In Unit 7, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher displays the sound-spelling card for the long o. The teacher explains the “long o sound can be spelled o, oa, oe, or ow.” The teacher models building, blending, and reading the words fold, loaf. Students blend and read the words toe, go mow, scold, toast, throw, goes.

Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to decode words in a sentence. For example:

• In Unit 2, Week 1, Day 3, students whisper read the decodable text Little Red. The teacher reminds students that they know the high-frequency words said, two, look, and my that appear in the book, and they have practiced reading words with the short e sound, so they will know how to read the words in the book. 

• In Unit 9, Week 2, Day 3, students practice decoding diphthongs oi and oy in the decodable text Good Boy, Scruffs. 

Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to build/manipulate/spell and encode words using common and newly-taught sound and spelling patterns phonics. For example:

• In Unit 6, Week 2, Day 2, students practice blending and building words using Letter Cards a-z. The teacher dictates words for students to build and manipulate: cube/cute/cut/hut/but/bun/tun/tune/hem/them/theme. Spiral review words and challenge words are included. Spiral Review: ride/side/hide/hid/him/Tim/time, hope/hop/mop/map/tap/tape Challenge: use/fuse/muse/mute/cute/cube/cub.

• In Unit 9, Week 1, Day 2, the teacher models building, blending, and reading the words brow, brown, clown. Students use letter cards to build the words ouch, pouch, rowdy, brow. The teacher dictates the words mouth, clown gown, pout, and students spell the words on paper. The teacher dictates the sentence “The clown put down the mouse and shouted”, and students write the sentence. 

Materials contain a variety of methods to promote students’ practice of previously taught grade level phonics. For example:

• In Unit 5, Week 2, Day 2, students complete a word sort to review spelling words with long and short o sounds. Students sort words such as hope, rope, hop, hot.

• In Unit 6, Week 3, Day 3, the teacher uses the Big Book of Shared Readings and prompts students to find and read previously learned decodable words to add to the word wall. Students find words with long vowel spelling patterns: home, tales, place, these, life, take, time.

Materials clearly delineate a scope and sequence with a cohesive, intentional sequence of phonics instruction and practice to build toward application of skills. For example:

• In the Program Support Guide, the Scope and Sequence outlines a sequence of phonics instruction that moves from short vowels to consonant blends and digraphs to long vowel sounds with final -e, then long vowel sounds with vowel teams, r-controlled vowels, diphthongs, and silent letters. 

• In Unit 8, Strategies and Skills to Build Knowledge, phonics skills are introduced in the following progression: r- controlled vowel /ar/, compound words, to r- controlled vowels /or/, approximate Sounds (Schwa) to r- controlled vowel /ur/, r- controlled syllables.

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

• In the Program Support Guide, the Phonics Overview document uses Scarborough’s Reading Rope and A Fresh Look at Phonics by Wiley Blevins to explain how the “12 Elements of Phonics Success” are built into the program. 

• In the Program Support Guide, Wiley Blevins’ Phonics and the Way to Meaning document provides research-based support for the materials’ phonics approach, emphasizing blending sounds to sound out words rather than memorizing sight words and story patterns. 

• In the Program Support Guide, Phonics/Word Study Research Foundations & Scope and Sequences, the explanation includes guiding principles including teaching short-vowel sounds before long-vowel sounds, teaching consonants and short vowels in combination, and teaching higher-utility letters early in order for more words to be made, read, and spelled.

Materials provide sufficient opportunities for students to develop orthographic and phonological processing. For example:

• In Unit 1, Week 3, Day 3, the teacher displays Elkonin boxes and segments the word rock, moving a marker for each sound. Students write a letter for each sound. The teacher reminds students that sometimes two letters (ck) make just one sound and models the correct sound/spelling correspondence. 

• In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 2, the teacher models building, blending, and reading the words cake, wake wade with a long a spelling. The teacher gives students letter cards and asks students to build the words male, tale, whale, and seven additional words. Students practice writing the words lake, wave, fake, game. The teacher says the words, and the students write and spell the words on paper.

• In Unit 9, Week 2, Day 2, the teacher displays Elkonin boxes and segments the word join, moving a marker for each sound. Students write a letter for each sound. The teacher models the correct sound/spelling correspondence and repeats the process with the word joy. Students practice using the following words: boy, foil, coil, soil, coin, join. 

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for 1o.

The Grade 1 materials provide explicit instruction and practice identifying and using print concepts, including parts of a sentence, text features, and text structures. Instruction and practice occurs in the context of shared reading, mentor reads to build knowledge, and when analyzing mentor texts before writing. Review of previously-taught print concepts occurs frequently. The materials provide guidance for the teacher to create text feature anchor charts, and students refer to the anchor charts. The materials include frequent and adequate opportunities to identify text structure and text features. 

Materials include frequent, adequate lessons and tasks/questions about the organization of print concepts (e.g., recognize features of a sentence). For example:

• Recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence (e.g., first word, capitalization, ending punctuation).

  • In Unit 3, Week 3, Day 1, the teacher uses the poem, “Firefighter,” to discuss the features of a sentence, pointing out that the first three sentences in the first four lines of the poem are The, Somewhere, and It’s. The teacher explains that those are the first words because they have uppercase letters and explains there are periods at the end of the sentences. Students turn and talk with partners to determine the number of sentences in the remaining stanzas and share their reasoning with the whole group. 

  • In Unit 6, Week 2, Day 3, after reading The Ant and the Grasshopper, the teacher tells students that there are five sentences in the first paragraph and that the first words of the sentences are A, He, He, He, and He. The teacher explains that they know these are the first word of a sentence because they begin with an uppercase letter. The teacher tells students that they also see periods at the end of each sentence. Students determine the number of sentences in the remaining paragraphs. 

Students have frequent opportunities to identify text structures (e.g., main idea and details, sequence of events, problem and solution, compare and contrast, cause and effect). For example:

• In Unit 7, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher reads the mentor text, How to Send a Letter. The teacher tells students that a good how-to text writes the steps in the sequence they happen. Students use the text to identify the steps in order. 

• In Unit 9, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher reads the mentor text, “Sea Turtle Hatchlings.” The teacher tells students that a strong research report text states the main topic, then uses facts to support the main topic. Students identify the main topic and supporting details. 

Materials include lessons and activities about text features (e.g., title, byline, headings, table of contents, glossary, pictures, illustrations). For example:

• In Unit 1, Week 2, Day 1, students identify features found in informational text such as “title, photos, [or] diagram.”

• In Unit 3, Week 2, Day 4, the teacher points out the table of contents and explains how to use the table to identify page numbers, headings, and sections. The teacher points out the glossary and index and defines their use. Students refer to the table of contents to identify where they should find a chapter on responsible citizens. 

• In Unit 7, Week 2, Day 3, the teacher reviews a text feature anchor chart and models using a glossary to check the meaning of a word. The teacher guides students through practice using a glossary and asks students about the process of finding the glossary, looking up a word, and finding the word’s definition.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for 1p.

The Grade 1 materials include frequent opportunities for students to gain automaticity in decoding and recognition of high-frequency words. Each week, students engage in repeat readings of grade-level texts, and materials link decoding of these texts to comprehension. Materials include weekly explicit instruction and practice recognizing high-frequency words, introducing 120 words throughout ten units. The materials provide students frequent opportunities to hear fluent reading of shared and mentor texts and to practice fluent reading of grade-level texts. The materials contain an instructional routine that includes all areas of reading fluency and instructions for regular modeling and student practice. Materials provide whole group instruction regarding reading with accuracy, appropriate rate, expression. 

Multiple opportunities are provided over the course of the year in core materials for students to purposefully read on-level text. For example:

• Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding.

  • In Unit 1, Week 1, Day 2, the teacher guides students through reading the emergent level text “At the Pond” from pages 8-11 in My Reading and Writing while connecting phonics to comprehension.

  • In Unit 2, Week 3, Day 2, the teacher guides students through a reading of “What Is It? Riddles.” The teacher reads the title, and students whisper read the text while the teacher circulates and supports students as needed. The teacher leads students through a choral reading of the text. Students answer comprehension questions about the text. Students reread the text with a partner during independent reading time. 

  • In Unit 5, Components at a Glance, students read one I Read text each week: “Make a Robot,” “You Can Find It,” “Dear Family”, one decodable reader each week:m“At the Lake,” “Around the Globe,” “Mole City”, and one text for additional decoding practice each week: “Blake and Shane Play,” “All Kinds of Holes,” “We Live in Space”. Each I Read text includes a first read with a focus on decoding and word recognition, and a second choral read that is followed by a Connect Phonics to Comprehension exercise. The teacher asks comprehension questions, and students use the text to answer the questions.

Materials support students’ development of automaticity and accuracy of grade-level decodable words over the course of the year. For example:

• In Unit 1, Week 1, Day 3, students reread the decodable text “Let’s Plant Seeds”. The teacher reminds students that they know the words for, no, jump, one, have, and the and that they know how to decode words with the short o sound. Students whisper-read the text. 

• In Unit 8, Week 2, Day 3, students reread the decodable text “The Sun and Moon”. The teacher reminds students that they know the words after, have, and play and that they know how to decode words with or sounds. Students whisper-read the text. 

• In Unit 9, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher uses the Blend and Build Words routine, asking students to blend and read decodable words proud, gown. The teacher uses the same routine to review an additional nine previously introduced decodable words.

Multiple opportunities are provided over the course of the year in core materials for students to demonstrate sufficient accuracy, rate, and expression in oral reading with on-level text and decodable words. For example:

• Read grade-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings.

  • In Unit 2, Week 1, Day 2, the teacher displays the poem, “Look in a Book!” and models the fluency skill of phrasing. The teacher models how to read in phrases rather than word-by-word. Students read the phrases together, repeating for “Who knows/what will happen/or whom will you meet?” Students join in a rereading of the poem, focusing on fluent phrasing while the teacher reminds them to chunk the words into meaningful groups. The students read the remaining lines with proper phrasing, swooping their hands under each phrase. 

  • In Unit 4, Week 3, Day 2, the teacher discusses the skill of expression with students and reads the quotations in “The Fox and the Hen”. Students join in on a complete reading of the story, trying to sound like the different characters. The teacher uses echo reading if necessary.

  • In Unit 8, Week 1, Day 2, the teacher uses “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” as a model for discussing the fluency skill of rate. The teacher explains that rate is speed or how fast or slow a person reads. The teacher explains the importance of reading with a not too fast or slow rate throughout the poem. The teacher models reading the first stanza quickly and slowly and then models reading at an appropriate rate, asking the students to notice the differences between the readings. The teacher asks students to reread the poem together at a natural and consistent rate.

Materials provide opportunities for students to hear fluent reading of grade-level text by a model reader. For example:

• In Unit 2, Week 3, Day 2, the teacher models reading with expression as they try to express the characters’ feelings in the text by changing their voice while reading “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”.

• In Unit 10, Week 2, Day 2, the teacher displays the poem “I Clap My Hands.” The teacher says, “When I read, I group words together in phrases. This makes the reading sound more natural, and it makes the poem more understandable. Sometimes, I use punctuation marks to help me group words in phrases.” The teacher reads the poem word-by-word, then rereads the poem fluently, grouping phrases. Students discuss the differences between the two readings. 

Materials include systematic and explicit instruction of irregularly spelled words. For example:

• In Unit 2, Week 3, Day 1, the teacher introduces high-frequency words: what, put, want, this, saw using the Read, Spell, Write, Apply routine. The teacher displays, points to, and says the high-frequency word. Students repeat the word. The teacher spells the word as they point to each letter, and students repeat. Students write the word as they spell it aloud. Partners take turns using the word in an oral sentence. The routine is repeated for each high-frequency word.

• In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 1, the teacher introduces high-frequency words why, many, right, start. The teacher displays the words, says the word, asks students to read the word, and points out the sounds, both regular and irregular, in the words. The students then spell and write each word. 

Students have opportunities to practice and read irregularly spelled words in isolation. For example:

• Recognize and read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words.

  • In Unit 6, Week 1, Day 3, the teacher displays the words after, call, her, and large. Students read and spell each word. The teacher dictates each word without showing it, and students visualize then spell the words. The teacher displays the word cards, and students self-correct their spelling. Partners build each word with letter cards, then read the words, write the words, and use them in a sentence. 

  • In Unit 8, Week 3, Day 3, the teacher displays the words earth, every, near, and school. Students read and spell each word. The teacher dictates each word without showing it, and students visualize then spell the words. The teacher displays the word cards, and students self-correct their spelling. Partners build each word with letter cards, then read the words, write the words, and use them in a sentence. 

Materials include a sufficient quantity of new grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words for students to make reading progress. For example:

• In the Scope and Sequence, materials list High-Frequency Words that are introduced at a rate of 4 to 5 words per week for a total of 120 words.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for 1q.

Grade 1 materials provide daily opportunities for students to practice word recognition and analysis skills in connected reading and writing tasks. The materials include a variety of decodable texts and shared texts that have newly taught phonics skills and high-frequency words. A scope and sequence delineate when phonics skills and high-frequency words occur over the course of the year. Students both decode and encode words in the context of reading and writing about connected text.

Materials support students’ development learn grade-level word recognition and analysis skills (e.g., spelling-sound correspondences of digraphs, decode one-syllable words, syllable and vowel relationship, decode two-syllable words, read words with inflectional endings) in connected text and tasks. For example:

• Know the spelling-sound correspondences for common consonant digraphs.

  • In Unit 4, Week 2, Day 3, the teacher reminds students about reading words with a consonant digraph, such as chick, whale, lunch, stretch that they need to use the sound-spelling pattern knowledge during decoding. Students read a decodable text which includes the words chick, when, whale, swish, splash.

  • In Unit 4, Week 3, Day 4, students read the decodable text, “Splat and Sprat”, which includes words with the digraphs th, sh, and ng. 

  • In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 3, students point to words that contain consonant digraphs in the shared reading text, “Robots: Big and Small.” 

• Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words.

  • In Unit 2, Week 3, Day 2, the teacher displays and reads, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” The teacher points to the word boy in the text and reads the word with students. Students read the other one-syllable words they have learned in Unit 2 as they continue reading the shared text: girl, wolf, old, fast, slow. 

  • In Unit 3, Week 2, Day 3, students participate in a rereading of “Tim Can Clean.” The teacher reminds students about their work decoding words with s-blends and that when they come to a word with an s-blend, they should use what they know to read the word. 

• Know final –e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds.

  • In Unit 5, Week 2, Day 3, students decode words with long o final -e in “You Can Find It” located in My Reading and Writing.

  • In Unit 6, Week 1, Day 1, students circle and read words with a long sound spelled with final -e in the shared reading text, “Lunch.”

• Use knowledge that every syllable must have a vowel sound to determine the number of syllables in a printed word.

  • In Unit 8, Week 1, Day 2, students practice reading compound words in “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”.  The teacher explains that compound words are always multisyllabic, reminding them of syllabication rules and that each syllable has only one vowel sound.

  •  In Unit 10, Week 1, Day 1, students identify words with the /ou/ sound in the shared text, “Dawn is the Best Time of Day.” Students identify the number of syllables in each word and explain why some syllables have two vowels. 

• Decode two-syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables.

  • In Unit 7, Week 3, Day 3, students practice decoding words by dividing words into syllables using Big Book of Shared Readings and Poetry, Vol 4, pages 12-13 “Who Was Harriet Tubman?”

  • In Unit 9, Week 2, Day 3, students identify a compound word in the shared reading text “Rat-a-Tat-Tat” and identify the two smaller words combined to make the compound word.

• Read words with inflectional endings.

  • In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 2, the teacher discusses verbs with inflectional ending -s. The teacher uses a pointer to call attention to the words kittens and mittens in the text and explains the story is about more than one kitten and a pair of mittens. The teacher explains that -s can be added to the ends of verbs, and s on the end of a verb changes the verb so that only one person, place, or thing is doing the action. The teacher points to the word found in the text and explains this is past tense which means it already happened. The teacher challenges the students to tell the present-tense form of the word (find). The teacher writes the word on the board and demonstrates how to add -s and is based on the subject (singular) the boy finds the girl, the girl finds (plural); they find, we find. 

  • In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 3, students identify present-tense verbs with the inflectional ending -s in “The Turtle and the Hare.” Students read the word and identify the noun that is doing the action. 

  • In Unit 3, Week 3, Day 3, students practice reading words with inflectional ending -ed during a shared reading of “Fire Fighters to the Rescue.” Words include:  sounded, zoomed, plugged, aimed, worked.

Materials provide frequent opportunities to read irregularly spelled words in connected text and tasks. For example:

• Recognize and read grade-level appropriate irregularly spelled words.

  • In Unit 3, Week 3, Day 4, page 145, students read the decodable text, “Grant’s Coat” during independent reading time, practicing high-frequency words who, good, by, them, was, there, then, our.

  • In Unit 10, Week 1, Day 4, Page 205, students read the decodable text, “All About Storms,” containing words with silent letters. 

Lessons and activities provide students many opportunities to learn grade-level word recognition and analysis skills while encoding (writing) in context and decoding words (reading) in connected text and tasks. For example:

• In Unit 1, Week 3, Day 4, the teacher guides students in shared writing about the text, “Crops for Us.” The teacher supports students to apply phonics understandings and high-frequency word knowledge during interactive writing. The teacher ensures that the writing includes current high-frequency words and the short o sound students have been practicing. 

• In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 4, students write about the text, “Big Bus Gets Stuck.” The teacher models writing sentences, supporting the application of phonics knowledge of short u words students have been practicing.

• In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 3, the teacher reviews the long a, final e spelling. The teacher reminds students about the “sound a makes when it teams with final e” when reading. Students read a decodable text that includes the word make in several sentences.

Materials include decodable texts that contain grade-level phonics skills aligned to the program’s scope and sequence. For example:

• In Unit 3, Week 1, Day 3, students read the decodable text, “Bag and Grab It,” which contains the newly-taught phonics skill of decoding words with r-blends. 

• In Unit 3, Week 1, Day 4, students decode words with r-blends, s-blends, and final consonant blends in decodable text, “Mr. Drake’s Plan.” The scope & sequence lists the focus for Unit 3, Week 1 as r-blends with l-blends as review.

• In Unit 4, Week 1, Day 3, students read the decodable text, “The King’s Wish,” which contains the newly-taught phonics skill of decoding consonant digraphs. 

• In Unit 9, Week 1, Day 2, students practice decoding words with /ow/ /ou/ patterns in “Trading Then and Now” from pages 8-11 of My Reading and Writing.  The scope & sequence lists vowel diphthong sound-spellings ou, ow (house, clown) as the primary skill.

Materials include decodable texts that contain grade-level high-frequency/irregularly spelled words aligned to the program’s scope and sequence. For example;

• In Unit 5, Week 2, Day 3, students practice reading high frequency: find, how, under “You Can Find It” from My Reading and Writing. The Scope & Sequence lists high-frequency words find, how, over, under.

• In Unit 6, Week 3, Day 3, students read a decodable text which includes the word work. The  Scope and Sequence indicates a focus on the high-frequency words brown, work, your, live.

• In Unit 7, Week 1, Day 4, students read a decodable text that includes always, know, your. The Scope and Sequence indicates a Unit 7, Week 1 focus on the high-frequency words found, your, know, always. 

•  In Unit 7, Week 2, Day 3, students read the decodable text “Fun and Games.” The teacher reminds students that they know the high-frequency words people and year and should read these words fluently. 

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for 1r.

Grade 1 materials contain assessment opportunities over the course of the year for students to demonstrate mastery of print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics and decoding, and word recognition and analysis. The materials include formal and informal assessments, weekly and unit assessments, interim assessments, Quick Checks, and foundational skills screeners. The materials include a guide to planning yearly assessments that contains an overview of the different assessments and guidelines for the timing and frequency of use. Materials include information for teachers to use scores to determine current levels of student proficiency. While all necessary assessment components are present, navigation of the multitude of related but separate assessment pieces is not streamlined.

Multiple assessment opportunities are provided over the course of the year in core materials for students to demonstrate progress toward mastery and independence of foundational skills. For example:

• Materials include assessment opportunities that measure student progress of print concepts. 

  • In Assessment, Planning Your Yearly Assessments, materials indicate that Grade K-2 Print Concepts Quick Checks may be administered at the beginning, middle, and end of the year, or as needed to monitor progress and inform instruction or intervention. 

  • In Assessments, Grade K-2 Print Concepts Quick Checks, materials provide a series of 12 one-on-one assessments of increasing complexity that assess student understanding of the following print concepts skills: identifying front and back cover, book orientation, Identifying words and pictures, directionality and page sequencing, letter, word and sentence identification, identifying punctuation. 

• Materials include assessment opportunities that measure student progress of phonological awareness. For example:

  • In Assessments, Grades K - 3 Phonological Awareness Assessment, the Phonological Awareness Assessment Schedule for Grade 1 indicates the order of subtest administration:

    • Beginning of the year: identifying rhyme, syllable awareness, initial sounds, final sounds, medial sounds, differentiating sounds, phoneme segmentation, blending phonemes, initial sound substitution. 

    • Middle of the year: medial sounds, phoneme segmentation, initial sound substitution, differentiating sounds (advanced), manipulating sounds. blending phonemes.

    • End of the year: differentiating sounds (advanced), manipulating sounds, blending phonemes (advanced), segmenting phonemes (advanced). 

  • In Assessment, Grades K-2 Phonological Awareness Quick Checks, provides assessment for the skills of recognizing and producing rhymes; phoneme isolation, segmentation, and blending; and initial, medial, and final sound substitution. 

• Materials include assessment opportunities that measure student progress of phonics and decoding. For example:

  • In Informal Assessments Grades K-6, Supporting Reading Development, an Individual Reading Observation Checklist includes: chunking, blending, ending sounds.

  • In Assessments, Phonics and Word Recognition, the Skills Quick Checks include subtests to measure students’ ability to identify sounds and decode and encode words. The subtests include: initial and final consonants, consonant blends and digraphs, silent letters, short and long vowels, r-controlled vowels, vowel teams, contractions, compound words, plural nouns, inflectional endings, prefixes, suffixes. 

  • In Assessments, Weekly and Unit Assessments, the materials provide weekly assessments and end of unit assessments that measure student progress on recently-taught skills. These assessments include opportunities to identify and match sounds and to decode words in passages for Units 7-10. 

  • In Weekly and Unit Assessments, Unit 4, Week 1, the teacher asks students to find the word with the same beginning sound as shoe; multiple choice selection includes snip, skip, ship.

  • In Weekly and Unit Assessments, Unit 8, Week 1, the teacher asks students to choose words with the same vowel sound as far; multiple choice selections include park, poke, pray.

• Materials include assessment opportunities that measure student progress of word recognition and analysis. For example:

  • In Informal Assessments, Grades K-6, Supporting Reading Development, an Individual Reading Observation Checklistlocated includes: analyzes words using graphophonic patterns, reads high-frequency words fluently.

  • In Assessments, Phonics and Word Recognition, the Skills Quick Checks include ten subtests to measure students’ ability to read high-frequency words. The subtests follow the sequence of high-frequency word instruction. 

  • In Assessments, Weekly and Unit Assessments, the materials provide weekly assessments and end of unit assessments that measure student progress in recently-taught skills. Assessments include opportunities to identify recently-taught high-frequency words in a sentence and to read high-frequency words in a passage for Units 7-10. 

Materials include assessment opportunities that measure student progress of fluency. For example:

• In Informal Assessments, Grades K-6, Supporting Reading Development an Individual Reading Observation Checklist located includes: Recognizes errors when reading and initiates problem solving actions, reads fluently.

• In Assessments, Fluency Quick Checks, the materials include 15 K-1 assessment passages starting with a Lexile level of 100L-230L that can be used to assess oral reading accuracy, reading rate, and fluency (phrasing, intonation, and expression). The passages are identified by Lexile, and students read passages at their instructional reading level. 

• In Grade K-6 Fluency Quick Checks, students read grade level passages while the teacher records running record, calculating Oral Reading Accuracy (%), Reading Rate, Comprehension # Correct, and Fluency Rating of 1-4.

  • In Assessments, Fluency Quick Checks, the Additional Teacher Resources section contains alternate fluency assessments, including fluency rubrics, fluency self assessments, Reader’s Theater self-assessments and performance assessments, and oral presentation assessments. 

Assessment materials provide teachers and students with information of students’ current skills/level of understanding. For example:

• In Assessments, Foundational Skills Screeners, the Introduction indicates how to use screener assessment data to determine current levels. The materials indicate that if students score between 81-100% overall, those students are at or above grade level. If students score between 65-80%, those students are meeting grade level expectations. If students score under 65%, those students are below grade-level expectations. 

• In Interim Assessments, Overview, the materials indicate teachers use interim assessments to monitor student progress and results “used in a general way to help plan instruction.”

• In Assessment, Weekly and Unit Assessments, the Overview explains that the Benchmark Education online platform organizes student scores on unit assessments into the following percentage bands to help teachers evaluate how well students understand recently-taught skills: 0-39%, 40-59%, 60-79%, 80-100%. The Answer Key and Rationales provide more detailed analyses of student scores, as each assessment item indicated the tested standard or skill. 

• In Assessments, Weekly and Unit Assessments, Answer Keys and Item Rationales, materials provide correlated ELA standards to each multiple choice question for each weekly and each unit assessment. The materials provide rationales for each correct and incorrect answer as well as a scoring rubric for written assessment tasks. 

• In Unit 5, Week 1, Day 5, the teacher selects five to six students to assess using the week’s assessment for accuracy and fluency of students’ phonics skills. The teacher should note fluency issues and delayed learning. The findings will be used to form small groups. 

Materials support teachers with instructional adjustments to help students make progress toward mastery in foundational skills.

• In Phonological Awareness Assessment Grades K-3, Phonological Awareness Assessment, Next Steps: Using the Assessment Results, “Based on your phonological awareness assessment results, adjust pacing as some students might have difficulties maintaining the pace of skills introduced during the Tier1 instruction…”

• In Assessments, Quick Check to Intervention Resource Map Grades K-2, a correlation chart provides one lesson per grade level that corresponds to the assessed skill to be used in Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2.

• In Assessments, Print Concepts Quick Check to Intervention Resource Map Grades K-2, the materials provide a resource map that identifies intervention lessons for the following print concepts skills: identifying front and back cover, book orientation, Identifying words and pictures, directionality and page sequencing, letter and word identification. The map provides teachers with the page numbers of intervention lessons directly matched to Quick Check assessment items. 

• In Assessments, Phonics and Word Recognition Quick Check to Intervention Resource Map Grades K-2, the materials provide a resource map that identifies intervention lessons for the following phonics skills: initial and final consonants, consonant blends and digraphs, silent letters, short and long vowels, r-controlled vowels, vowel teams, contractions, compound words, plural nouns, inflectional endings, prefixes, suffixes. The map provides teachers with the page numbers of intervention lessons directly matched to Quick Check assessment items. 

• In Assessments, Fluency, the Fluency Quick Check Resource Map Grades K-2 provides a map of fluency intervention lessons that match each fluency skill and quick check. The directions for assessment outline how to assess each skill and determine whether a student is in need of intervention lessons. 

• In Assessment, Assessment, Quick Checks Grades K-2, materials indicate the lesson for intervention if a student is unable to perform the skill of the quick check (e.g., print concepts, phonological awareness). 

• In Unit 10, Intervention and Reteaching Resources, a correlation chart provides reteaching lessons and practice activities for the unit's phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition, fluency, and print concepts skills. The materials indicate that the reteaching and practice activities should be based on weekly and unit assessment results and observations. The chart indicates which Quick Check assessment(s) teachers should use to monitor student progress.

The materials reviewed for Grade 1 meet the criteria for 1s.

Grade 1 materials include foundational skills supports for English language learners, students in special populations, and above-grade-level students. Materials include a master program support document “Supports for Exceptional Learners” that outlines the variety of supports built into the program for all three groups of students. While the chart provides suggestions, the suggestions are general and offer strategies rather than providing access to specific activities to further skills in individual standards. The chart provides strategies for each component in the program and contains the same general recommendations for Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2. Intervention supports for students in special populations are both embedded in small-group lessons and included in separate, comprehensive intervention materials. ELL and above-grade-level supports are built into whole-group and small-group lessons. The materials provide extensions or advanced opportunities to apply foundational skills through knowledge-based writing and challenge word study. The Above-Level Student Supports for Phonics: 30-Week Plan provides guidance on extensions and/or advanced opportunities to engage with foundational skills at greater depth for students who read, write, speak, and/or listen above grade level.

Materials provide general strategies and supports for students who read, write, and/or speak in a language other than English to meet or exceed grade-level standards. For example:

• In the Program Support Guide, Supports for Exceptional Learners outlines the variety of supports built into the program for English learners that includes “Language Transfer Support” in phonics lessons and grammar in context lessons and a Contrastive Analysis of Nine World Languages

• In the Whole Group Teacher Resources, Multilingual Glossary, the materials provide definitions, a photograph, the spoken English word, and the corresponding written word in ten languages.

• In Unit 4, Week 2, Day 1, Language Transfer Support, the teacher checks for transferability of phonemes and graphemes. The teacher models, points out the position and shape of the mouth, has students make the sound, and uses mirrors or partners. The teacher continues prompting students and providing corrective feedback.

• In Unit 8, Week 1, Day 2, the materials include integrated English Language Development (ELD) scaffolding for light, moderate, and substantial support. Strategies include using sentence frames, pre-reading strategies of introducing vocabulary, and pausing to “restate ideas in simpler sentences,”

Materials provide general strategies and supports for students in special populations to work with grade-level foundational skills and to meet or exceed grade-level standards. For example:

• In the Program Support Guide, Supports for Exceptional Learners outlines the variety of supports built into the program for students with special needs that includes intervention and reteaching resources, blend and build words spiral review, access features in reading and writing lessons, phonics manipulative and e-pocket chart, phonics alternate learning paths, and interactive audio-assisted e-books. 

• In the Intervention Materials, the materials include sets of intervention lessons for fluency (12 lessons), phonics and word recognition (87 lessons), phonological awareness (20 lessons), and print concepts (10 lessons).

• In Intervention, Fluency, Lesson 2b, the teacher reminds students to read with appropriate pacing and fluency. The teacher models reading a text. Students read the text line by line, then reread it with appropriate pacing and fluency. Students reread the text to a partner. The lesson includes a formative assessment and follow-up interventions to use in response to specific student misconceptions. 

• In Additional Resources, Access and Equity, materials recommend getting to know the students, utilizing the IEP or 504 plan, and working collaboratively with the special education teachers. Materials also provide research-based suggestions for students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and a chart outlining the program components alongside suggestions, if applicable, regarding modifying lesson components to support students with challenges in oral language, decoding, comprehension, and written language. 

Materials provide extensions and/or advanced opportunities to engage with foundational skills at greater depth for students who read, write, speak, and/or listen above grade level. For example:

• The Above-Level Student Supports for Phonics: 30-Week Plan provides guidance on acceleration and enrichment and daily skill-specific extension activities for each week of the explicit, systematic Grade 1 phonics instruction. Activities include blending, spelling/dictation, blending and building words, word sorts, and writing extensions.

• The Program Support Guide, Supports for Exceptional Learners outlines the variety of foundational skills supports built into the program for high-ability learners, including blend and build words challenge practice, small-group acceleration prompts, and classroom book clubs. 

• In Additional Resources, Access and Equity, Phonics, suggestions for accommodations include “provide more complex words and sound combinations.”

• In Unit 1, Week 3, Day 1, students practice blending “challenge” words: stop, flock, clock.