The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria of Indicator 1b.

Throughout the Kindergarten materials, there is not a balance of informational and literary texts. There are roughly 60% literary texts and 40% informational texts. The anchor texts do, however, reflect a variety of literary genres, such as realistic fiction, fantasy, folktale, poetry, and historical fiction. There is also a variety of informational subgenres throughout the materials, including narrative nonfiction, biographies, and science and social studies texts. 

Materials reflect the distribution of text types/genres required by the grade level standards. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Students listen to several fantasy texts, such as Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten by Joseph Slate in Shared Reading, Module 1, Unit 1 and Hi! Fly Guy by Tedd Arnold in Shared Reading, Module 2, Unit 1.

• Students listen to several poems, including “Thanksgiving” in ELA, Module 2. 

• Students listen to historical fiction texts, such as Sarah Morton’s Day by Kate Waters in Shared Reading, Module 2, Unit 2. 

• Students listen to realistic fiction stories, such as Building with Dad by Carol Nevius in ELA Module 2, Unit 1 and Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats in Shared Reading Module 3, Unit 2. 

• Students listen to folktales, including Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina in ELA Module 1, Unit 1 and Fry Bread by Kevin Noble Maillard in ELA, Module 2, Unit 2. 

• Students listen to texts about science, including From Tadpole to Frog by Wendy Pfeffe and Caterpillar to Butterfly by Karen Marsh in Shared Reading, Module 3, Unit 3.

• Students listen to texts about social studies, such as Can we Ring the Liberty Bell? by Martha E.H. Rustad in ELA, Module 2, Unit 2 and George Washington: Our First President by Garnet Jackson in ELA Module 3, Unit 2. 

• Students listen to biographies, including Darling Amelia by Barbara Lowel and Harriet Tubman: Follow the North Star by Violet Findley in Shared Reading, Module 4, Unit 1. 

Materials do not reflect a 50/50 balance of informational and literary texts. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• 117 texts or 80% of the texts used throughout Kindergarten are literary, while 30 texts or 20% are informational. 

• Module 1 contains 39 core texts with 13% being informational and 87% being literary.

• Module 2 contains 37 core texts, with 24% being informational and 76% being literary.

• Module 3 contains 36 core texts, with 17% being informational and 83% being literary.

• Module 4 contains 35 core texts, with 29% being informational and 71% being literary.

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for Indicator 1c.

The majority of core/anchor texts have the appropriate level of complexity for the grade. Most of the texts have an appropriate Lexile level, though almost all of the texts are considered qualitatively low. Many reader and task measures are moderate or challenging, though some do not relate to the text and are considered accessible. The Bookworms K–1 Teacher Manual, Shared Reading Lesson Plans, and ELA Lesson Plans outline the rationale for the educational purpose and placement of the texts included in the program. Although the Shared Reading and ELA Lesson Plans include Lexile levels and genres for each text, materials do not provide qualitative or reader and task complexity information. 

Texts have a variety of complexity levels 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 the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 25, students listen to Biscuit Loves the Library by Alyssa Satin, which has a quantitative level of 230L. It has a qualitative measure of low; however, the reader and task level is moderate because students draw a picture of their favorite thing that Biscuit does at the library and they must include the setting in a drawing. 

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 20, students read and listen to Sarah Morton’s Day by Kate Waters, which is considered complex. The quantitative level is 700L and the qualitative measure is low. The reader and task is moderately complex as students retell story events and use illustrations to describe story events.

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 45, students read and listen to How Plants Grow by Donna Herwek Rice, which is considered complex. The quantitative level is 210L and the qualitative measure is low; however, the reader and task is considered challenging because students draw their favorite life cycle from the past few texts and write about why it is most interesting to them and why. 

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 40, students read and listen to Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion, which is considered complex. The Lexile is AD520, but the text is considered qualitatively low. The reader and task is considered challenging since students independently orally retell the story. 

• In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 7, students listen to Frederick by Leo Lionni, which has an overall complexity level of complex. Its Lexile is 590L, but the qualitative measure is low. The reader and task is considered moderate because students draw a picture of Frederick gathering sun rays, pictures, or words. 

• In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 30, students listen to Sammy the Seal by Syd Hoff, which has an overall complexity rating of moderate. While the quantitative feature is low for a read aloud with a Lexile of 380L and the qualitative level is low, the reader and task is considered moderate since the students retell story events and use illustrations to describe story events. 

• In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 28, students listen to Grandfather’s Wrinkle’s by Kathryn England, which is considered a complex text. The Lexile is AD600 but the qualitative measure is low. The reader and task is considered moderately complex because students write an opinion sentence about the book. 

• In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 18, students listen to Career Day by Anne Rockwell, which has a Lexile of 600AD. The qualitative features are low and the task is accessible since students draw a picture of themself in a career they would want. The text has an overall complexity level of moderate. 

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.

• The provided text complexity documentation is limited to Lexile levels. Materials do not provide qualitative or associated task complexity information. The accuracy of the provided quantitative measures was verified using MetaMetrics on The Lexile Framework for Reading site.

• The Bookworms 2–5 Teacher Manual includes a Choosing and Using Books section. Within this section of the manual, the Building A Culturally Responsive Text Collection and a Culturally-Sustaining Curriculum portion gives an overview of the changes the publisher made with regard to the texts included in the program: “We adopted a style guide in the curriculum to capitalize both Black  and White to represent the importance of racial identity and avoid the implication that white was the standard and Black an outlier. We adopted the  term multilingual to replace English language learner to celebrate home language as an asset.” Then, the manual explains grade-specific text selection changes or replacements. Rationales for text selection include choosing texts that fit the grade level themes, are engaging to students, and help build a more culturally responsive text collection. 

• The Module Overview page for the Shared Reading and ELA Lesson Plans explains how the selected unit texts work together. For example, in the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, the Module Overview page contains the following information: “Unit 3: Funny Animal Characters will help students learn how authors use fantasy characters to create humor and funny situations by reading fantasy texts and writing a narrative featuring a silly animal character. The books and tasks in the unit work together to help students learn about the traits and behavior of funny animal characters, how authors use those traits and behaviors to create humor in books, and how they can create humor in their writing by including funny characters.”

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria of Indicator 1d.

In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, the overall text complexity and the associated task measure generally increases throughout the year in order to support students’ literacy growth. In the beginning of the year, the quantitative complexity measure ranges from 230L–650L and ranges from 450L–1260L by the end of the year. While the qualitative measure remains relatively the same in Shared Reading, the reader and task measure increases in complexity; however, in ELA, there is no significant increase in overall complexity across the school year with texts remaining relatively low qualitatively. End-of-reading tasks do progress slightly in ELA with tasks beginning with drawing, progressing to drawing and writing one word, and ending with drawing and writing sentences; however, these tasks are also open to the use of teacher discretion on whether the teacher models, co-constructs the writing task, or students complete it themselves. Scaffolds do not increase throughout the year as texts become more complex, and students engage in the same structure and routine for Shared Reading throughout the year. 

The complexity of some anchor texts students listen to provides an opportunity for students’ literacy skills to increase across the year, encompassing an entire year’s worth of growth. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, the quantitative complexity measure ranges from 230L–650L. The qualitative complexity ranges are all considered low. The associated task measure ranges from accessible to moderate and the overall text complexity rating ranges from accessible to complex, with most being moderate. For example, students listen to Miss Bindergarten gets Ready for Kindergarten by Joseph Slate, which has a Lexile of AD590, an appropriate Lexile level for a read-aloud. The qualitative complexity rating is low and the associated task rating is considered moderate, as students retell story events in pictures. 

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 2, the quantitative complexity measure ranges from 200L–700L and the qualitative complexity measure ranges from low to medium, though most are considered low. The associated task measure is rated moderate and the overall complexity range for the texts is accessible to complex, with most being moderate. For example, students listen to Little Lucy by Ilene Cooper, which has a Lexile of 350L, which falls below the Lexile Stretch Band for a read aloud. The qualitative complexity rating is also low. The associated task complexity rating is considered moderate as students continue to draw pictures of events and discuss the main character.

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, the quantitative complexity measure ranges from 210L–810L and the qualitative complexity measure is considered low. Associated task complexity ratings range from moderate to challenging, and the overall complexity rating is complex for all nine texts in the module. For example, students listen to The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, which has a Lexile of 500NC, which is appropriate for a read aloud. Though the qualitative complexity rating is low, the associated task complexity rating is challenging. Students continue to retell in pictures and also discuss their favorite part of the text. Students draw a picture of their favorite part and write a sentence to explain why.

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, the quantitative complexity measure ranges from 450L–1260L. The qualitative complexity measure ranges are low to moderate, with most texts being rated as low. The associated task measure is rated accessible to challenging and the overall text complexity is between moderate and complex, with most texts being complex. For example, students listen to Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion, which has a Lexile of 520AD, which is appropriate for a read-aloud text, though the qualitative complexity rating is low. Students continue retelling, progressing to retelling with transition words in this module. Students also discuss whether a character in the text was a sidekick and explain why in both drawing and writing.

• In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 1, the quantitative complexity measure ranges from 340L–900L. The qualitative complexity measure of the texts are low and moderate. Associated task measures range from accessible to challenging. Overall, the text complexity rating ranges from moderate to complex. For example, students listen to What Magnets Can Do by Allan Fowler, which has a Lexile of 580L, an appropriate Lexile level for a read-aloud text in Kindergarten. The qualitative complexity measure of this text is low. The reader and task complexity measure is considered moderate, as students draw items that a magnet would attract.

• In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 2, the quantitative complexity measure ranges from 480L–830L. The qualitative complexity measure ranges between low and moderate and the associated task measure is moderate. The overall complexity level for texts in this module ranges from complex to very complex, with most of the texts being complex. For example, students listen to Sheila Rae, the Brave by Kevin Henkes, which has a Lexile of 500L, an appropriate Lexile level for read-aloud text in this gradel. The qualitative complexity measure is low and the associated task complexity is considered moderate, as students either watch the teacher model the writing or complete a co-constructed writing response.

• In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 3, the quantitative complexity measure ranges from AD470–AD620. The qualitative complexity ranges are all considered low and the associated task complexity ranges from accessible to challenging. The overall complexity rating of texts ranges from moderate to complex, with most being complex. For example, students listen to Grandfather’s Wrinkles by Kathryn England, which has a Lexile of AD600, an appropriate Lexile level for a read-aloud text in Kindergarten. The qualitative complexity measure of this text is low and the associated task complexity is accessible, as the task is either modeled or procured through shared writing and is not text-dependent. Students draw a picture of themselves now and what they think they may look like when they are older. Students also write a sentence about their picture.

• In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 4, the quantitative complexity measure ranges from 120L–1080L. The qualitative complexity of the texts ranges from low to moderate and the associated task complexity ranges from accessible to challenging. The overall complexity for texts ranges from moderate to very complex, with most being complex. For example, students listen to A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon, which has a Lexile of AD610, an appropriate Lexile for a read-aloud text in Kindergarten. The qualitative complexity of the text is low and the associated task complexity rating is accessible, as the task can be modeled or produced through shared writing and is not text-dependent. Students draw a picture of themselves and draw things that they like about themselves inside or around the picture. Students label the things they like and write a sentence. 

As texts become more complex, some scaffolds and/or materials are provided in the Teacher Edition (i.e., spending more time on texts, more questions, repeated readings).  Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Materials spend the same amount of time on each text, regardless of complexity, with the same five day routine of questions in Shared Reading.

• In the ELA Lesson Plans, students learn how to retell. In Module 1, the teacher scaffolds heavily by modeling how to construct a retelling with a beginning-middle-ending structure. Students participate by echoing the teacher’s language. By the end of the year, scaffolds are removed and students retell by first rehearsing orally with a partner and then generating their own retelling. 

• The Bookworms K–1 Teacher Manual states that the Response Together prompts happen at the end of the Interactive Read Aloud, though there is no modeled language for teachers to use to support students as tasks and texts become more complex.

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the expectations of Indicator 1e.

Students engage in a range and volume of texts in the Shared Reading and ELA Blocks through teacher read aloud and choral reading. Students have the opportunity to read, listen to, and collaborate on approximately 75 literary and informational texts. The program includes many books including picture books and informational texts. Most of the texts are trade picture books, as well as poems and rhymes.  Informational texts include a variety of topics that are “commonly taught in science and social studies across the nation” according to the publisher. The informational texts also include a variety of text structures. 

Students spend 45 minutes in each Block interacting with either a shared text or a read aloud text, plus 15 minutes of independent reading during the Differentiated Instruction Block. During Shared Reading, students engage in Dialogic Reading, which includes choral reading or echo reading. During ELA, students engage in an interactive read aloud. For independent reading, the program provides a curated list of suggested titles for the 15 minutes of free reading during the Differentiated Instruction Block; however, materials do not include guidance for implementing independent reading in the classroom or a structure for accountability. 

Instructional materials clearly identify opportunities and supports for students to engage in reading a variety of texts. For example:

• Across the nine Shared Reading units, students listen to and read 34 full-length texts from a variety of text types and genres. The texts are read aloud by the teacher and chorally read by the class. For example: 

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, students listen to Fred and Ted go Camping by Peter Eastmen, which is a fictional story.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 2, students listen to the informational text, A Bee’s Life by Dona Herweck Rice.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, students listen to the Yiddish Folktale, Good Night, Wind: A Yiddish Folktale by Linda Elovitz Marshall. 

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, students listen to The World is not a Rectangle: A Portrait of Architect Zaha Hadid by Jeanette Winter, which is a biography. 

• Across the 14 ELA units, students listen to 39 full-length texts from a variety of text types and genres. For example:

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 1, students listen to the science informational text, What Lives in a Shell? by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld.

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 2, students listen to Fry Bead by Kevin Noble Maillard, which is a Native American story.

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 3, students listen to Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes which is a literary fantasy text. 

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 4, students listen to the science informational text Follow the Water from Book to Ocean by Arthur Dorros in Lessons 6 and 7. 

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

• The Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, contains one unit and a total of 45 lessons. Throughout this module, students listen to a total of nine texts including Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins, Fred and Ted Go Camping by Peter Eastman, and My trip to the Hospital by Mercer Mayer. Students listen to each text over the course of five days. The students engage in the same routine each day. On the first day of reading the text, the teacher shows the illustrations and asks the students what is happening. On the second day of reading the text, the teacher reads one page aloud and shows the illustration and then provides students with a sentence frame to prompt discussion. On the third day of reading, the teacher reads the text again, and stops every few pages to ask a question to prompt retell. On the fourth day of reading, the teacher reads the text again and asks text-specific questions. On the final day of the text, students “read” the book by telling what is happening on each page. 

• The Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, contains three units, with a total of 45 lessons. Throughout the module, students listen to nine texts, including Good Night, Wind by Linda Elovitz Marshall, Peter’s Chair by Ezra Jack Keats, and Caterpillar to Butterfly by Laura Marsh. Students listen to the text over the course of five days and engage in the same routine each day. On the first day of reading the text, the teacher shows the illustrations and asks the students what is happening. On the second day of reading the text, the teacher reads one page aloud and shows the illustration and then provides students with a sentence frame to prompt discussion. On the third day of reading, the teacher reads the text again, and stops every few pages to ask a question to prompt retell. On the fourth day of reading, the teacher reads the text again and asks text-specific questions. On the final day of the text, students “read” the book by telling what is happening on each page.

• The ELA Lesson Plans, Module 2, contains four units and a total of 45 lessons. Throughout the module, students listen to a total of nine texts. In Lesson 1, the teacher reads aloud A Log’s Life by Wendy Pfeffer over the course of three lessons. The teacher pauses every page or so to ask comprehension questions. In Lesson 6, the teacher reads Building with Dad by Carol Nevius for three lessons and the teacher pauses every page or so to answer questions. In Lesson 11, students listen to Can we Ring the Liberty Bell? by Martha E.H. Rustad. The teacher spends three days on this text. In Lessons 14 and 15, the students listen to Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Fevin Noble Maillard. Beginning in Lesson 16, students listen to Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to my Daughters by Barack Obama and engage in the text for fo9ur days. Then in Lessons 21 and 22, students listen to America is…  by Louise Borden and continue having a discussion about the text every page or so. In Lesson 26, students begin listening to Giggle, Giggle, Quack by Doreen Cronin and spend two days listening to this text. Beginning in Lesson 31, students spend five days listening to Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. By the end of this module, students listen to Sheila Rae, the Brave by  for three days and Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King by Jean Marzollo for three days. 

• The ELA Lesson Plans, Module 4 contains two units, and a total of 45 lessons. Throughout the module, students listen to a total of eight texts. Students begin the module by listening to Actual Size by Steven Jenkins for two days and discuss the size of various animals. Students spend three days listening to Follow the Water from Brook to Ocean by Arthur Dorris beginning in Lesson 6. In Lesson 11, students begin listening to Clouds by Anne Rockwell, and spend four lessons on this text. The first three days students read a new section of the text and on the last day, students repeat certain pages to have a discussion about the text. Beginning in Lesson 16, students listen to Career Day by Anne Rockwell for two days and then spend the final day revisiting the text. Students listen to Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman for two days in Lessons 21 and 22. Beginning in Lesson 31, students listen to A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon for two days and then spend another day listening to the text again. Students listen to Ada’s Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay by Susan Hood for three days, with the final day being a reread of the entire text. In Lesson 41, the teacher reads aloud Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus. 

There is insufficient 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:

• The program materials include an extensive curated list of recommended titles for classroom libraries. The purpose of this list is for students to free read during a 15 minute rotation during the Differentiated Instruction Nlock. The amount of time does not increase over the course of the year as students build reading stamina. 

• There are no protocols or explicit instructions for how to implement independent reading, including procedures and tracking. The materials include a Book Recommendation form that is an optional way to share whether or not students think others should read the book. The sentence stem for completing the form is the same across K–2. 

• Students do not have the opportunity to independently read any book during the English Language Arts block or the Shared Reading Block. 

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

Although students have opportunities for text-based discussions every day during the Shared Reading Lesson Plans and during the Interactive Read-Alouds in the ELA Lesson Plans, materials include limited speaking and listening protocols. In Shared Reading, students follow the CROWD protocol, which is a five-day pattern of question sets during the lessons. In ELA, students have many opportunities for turn and talks; however, materials do not provide a protocol for this type of discussion. Some of the turn-and-talks include guidance, such as the amount of time students talk. Teacher support is minimal but includes “Teaching Tips” boxes in the lesson plans, which offer suggestions for including all students or creating visuals to aid discussion. Additionally, the Teacher Manual provides guidance around “Building and Using Norms for Participation in Discussion; however, instructional lessons and student speaking and listening opportunities do not reference the accountable talk measures outlined in the document.

Materials include limited 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 Bookworms K-1 Teacher Manual includes a section called “Building and Using Norms for Participation in Discussion” that is based on the norms for Accountable Talk. This section provides teachers with prompts and sentence stems to use in various group discussion structures, but these guidelines are not referenced within the instructional lessons to support students’ speaking and listening skill development.

• Shared Reading includes the Dialogic Reading Routine, which includes opportunities for evidence-based discussions. The teacher begins the week by sharing the book and each day has a different focus for students to talk about the book. For example, in Lesson 2 of the week, the teacher reads the text utilizing the embedded framing questions and on day 5, students retell the story using provided scaffolds. 

• The Bookworms K–1 Teacher Manual explains the CROWD protocol, a five-day pattern of questions students respond to during Shared Reading. This protocol supports evidence-based discussions, as it “identifies question types that should be included in a dialogic reading session:

  • C: Completion

  • R: Recall

  • O: Open-Ended

  • W: Wh- (who, what, where)

  • D: Distancing” 

• During the Interactive Read Aloud, the teacher reads the text and stops frequently to ask questions. Students answer individually or in pairs. Materials do not include specific protocols for partner sharing. For example, in Module 2, Lesson 36, while listening to Sheila Rae, the Brave by Kevin Henkes, the teacher says ,”Why is she saying that to herself? Talk to your partner about it.” Materials do not provide teacher guidance on what partner talk looks like. 

• In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 21, during the read-aloud of Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman, students turn and talk about an event in the text, but materials do not provide a protocol for this opportunity. 

• After the Interactive Read Aloud, materials include a final question to bring closure to the day. This question “can be answered by an individual, but it can also be answered individually between partners;” however, materials do not provide a protocol for this opportunity nor is direct teacher guidance provided. 

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

• The Bookworms K–1 Teacher Manual provides background information on the Dialogic Reading routine. The manual states, “as we designed the lessons, we viewed talk as requiring a topic to talk about, specific words to use, growing confidence with the grammar of spoken English, and an audience for practicing listening and speaking in conversational turns.” The manual further states that the purpose of Dialogic Reading is to “maximize student talk.” 

• The Bookworms K–1 Teacher Manual suggests using a speaking and listening rubric once per month. 

• In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 10, after listening to Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins, the students turn and talk to a partner about what they are going to draw. The facilitation support includes, “Give students 1–2 minutes to discuss. Summarize what you heard your students say and send them back to their seats.”  

• Materials provide some Teaching Tips during Shared Reading to support speaking and/or listening such as in Module 2, Lesson 20, after reading Sarah Morton’s Day by Kate Waters: “This is an oral language activity and it is not necessary to write the retelling down. Instead, use the frame to prompt an oral retelling.” 

• Materials provide some Teaching Tips during ELA to support speaking and/or listening such as in Module 3, Lesson 32, after listening to The Pain and the Great One by Judy Blume: “Consider listing students' responses on a chart similar to the one below.” 

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

Materials include opportunities for students to participate in speaking and listening activities related to what they are reading and  listening to; however, there are minimal opportunities for students to share what they are researching. Additionally, speaking and listening opportunities are not varied and materials do not address all speaking and listening standards. In both the Shared Reading and ELA blocks, students have opportunities to discuss what they are reading in a whole group or with a partner; however, the materials do not include opportunities for students to engage in a range of conversation types or collaborations. In Shared Reading lessons, a five-day cycle of questioning, from most literal to analytical, accompanies each read-aloud text. In ELA, discussion is part of each Interactive Read Aloud. Throughout the program, there is no formal instruction provided to explicitly teach the Speaking and Listening standards. 

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 and taking turns speaking about the topics and texts under discussion). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • No evidence found in the Shared Reading Lesson Plans

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 2, after listening to Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina, students talk with a partner and discuss what they remember about the main characters. The task does not include agreed-upon rules for students to follow during their partner discussion. 

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 35, students write a sentence that matches an illustration and then share it with a partner. The teacher reminds students how to do this by saying, “You’ll listen to your friend’s sentence and look at their illustration and give a compliment. Then you can switch roles.” 

• Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions as desired to provide additional detail. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • No evidence found in the Shared Reading Lesson Plans

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 21, after listening to the text A Tree for all Seasons by Robin Bernard, students draw and color a leaf to represent their favorite season. Students then share their work.

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:

• Continue a conversation through multiple exchanges. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • No evidence found

• While materials include opportunities for students to confirm understanding of a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media by asking and answering questions about key details, materials do not include opportunities for students to request clarification if something is not understood. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 18, after listening to Lola at the Library by Anna McQuinn, students answer questions about the text such as, “Why does Lola like Tuesdays?” and “What does she need her library card for?” 

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 21, after listening to Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman, students have a discussion about how the character Grace and her family reacted to the characters Natalie and Raj. 

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Lessons 18 and 19, students prepare for a short research project during which they list facts about famous Americans. Students create a chart with the teacher about interesting facts and then students retell the information they learned about the famous Americans listed. 

• Ask and answer questions in order to seek help, get information, or clarify something that is not understood. 

  • No evidence found

• Describe familiar people, places, things, and events and, with prompting and support, provide additional detail. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • In Shared Reading Module 1, Lesson 19, after listening to the text Lola at the Library by Anna McQuinn, students respond to several personal questions such as, “What’s your favorite day? Why?” and “What do you do when you go to a library?”

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 21, after listening to the text A Tree for all Seasons by Robin Bernard, students share their favorite season. Students respond using the sentence frame, “My favorite season is ______ because _______.”

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for 1l.

Materials include explicit instruction of many grammar and language conventions standards, and students have opportunities for authentic application of these standards. Throughout the materials, instruction in grammar and conventions of language along with opportunities for application, which are integrated into writing activities. The use of authentic text for reading and writing is present; however, some grammar skills are referenced or embedded in the lesson instead of being taught explicitly. Materials do not include explicit instruction in punctuation, prepositions, capitalizing the pronoun I, or capitalization.

Materials include explicit instruction of most grammar and conventions standards for the grade level. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Print many upper- and lowercase letters.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 22, the teacher demonstrates how to form a capital and lowercase M. The teacher tells students how to form each letter and shows students how to make each letter by skywriting. The teacher models writing the letter, and students skywrite at least five times for the new letter.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 28, the teacher demonstrates how to form each letter (Bb, Mm, Ss) by telling students how to form each letter and by showing them how to write each letter on a whiteboard. The teacher models once and then writes the letters along with students five more times for each new letter and three times for each review letter.

• Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs.

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 2, the teacher shares a sentence with students. The teacher tells the students that this is a good sentence because it has two parts: the subject and predicate. The teacher explains what both subject and predicate mean. The teacher models changing the subject and predicate to create new sentences.

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 1 Lesson 7, the teacher displays the sentence “The mice work hard.” The teacher explains that the mice is what the sentence is about and works hard is what they do. The teacher and students practice changing the subject and the predicate with new nouns and verbs.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 14, the teacher shows a card with the word knocked and a picture. The teacher says, “This word is knocked. Let’s say that together: knocked. Knocked means to bump into.” Then, the teacher instructs the students to turn to a partner and tell what they know about the word knocked. The teacher further instructs students to raise their hands when they hear the word knocked when the book is read aloud.

• Form regular plural nouns orally by adding /s/ or /es/ (e.g., dog, dogs; wish, wishes).

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 22, the teacher reads the sentence “Grace loved stories.” Students are asked to generate a list of other things Grace might love. The teacher says, “We can use those words in our sentence frame. We will decide if we need to add s or es.”

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans Module 2, Lesson 9, the teacher shows a card with the word pests and a picture of this word. The teacher says, “This word is pests. Let’s say that together: pests. A pest is an annoying person or animal.” Students are instructed to turn to a partner and tell what they know about the word pests. Then, students are instructed to raise their hands when they hear the word pests in the book being read aloud.

• Understand and use question words (interrogatives) (e.g., who, what, where, when, why, how).

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 15, the teacher reviews the question words they have been working with and adds how. The teacher models the question “How do you make fry bread?” The students then work with the teacher to compose more “How do you make _____?” questions.

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 27, the teacher reminds students that sentences need a subject and predicate. The teacher tells students they have been working on questions and questions start with a question word and end with a question mark. The teacher tells students they have used four question words: what, why, where, and how. In this lesson, the teacher introduces the question word who.

• Use the most frequently occurring prepositions (e.g., to, from, in, out, on, off, for, of, by, with). 

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 19, the teacher displays the sentence “People made bright lights shine.” The students work with the teacher to compose sentences which add to the predicate using the words by, to, in, or on.

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 41, the teacher displays the sentence “And every night Leo’s father watched him for signs of blooming.” The students work with the teacher to add to the predicate using to, from, in, out, on, for, by, or with.

• Produce and expand complete sentences in shared language activities.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 4, the teacher shows students a card with the word pouch and a picture for this word. The teacher and students say the word together and then discuss the meaning. The teacher asks students to turn to a partner and use the word pouch in a sentence. This process is repeated for the word cycle.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 10, the teacher shows students the words drift, permission, pounding, and cave. The teacher and students say the words together and then discuss the meanings. The teacher asks students to turn to a partner and use each word in a sentence.

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 8, the teacher provides students with a list of subjects and predicates drawn from the day’s literature. The teacher and students work together to create sentences by choosing a subject and a predicate to put together to form a sentence.

• Capitalize the first word in a sentence and the pronoun I.

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 19, the teacher tells students that, to make a sentence perfect, they should add a capital letter to the first word and a punctuation mark at the end of each sentence. The teacher shows students how to make a period. The teacher models adding a capital letter and punctuation to a sentence. Students return to their seats to practice writing a sentence with a capital letter and punctuation.

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 45, the students work with a partner to fix any sentences that do not start with a capital letter or end with punctuation.

• Recognize and name end punctuation.

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 19, the teacher models adding a period at the end of the sentence. The teacher tells the students that it is a period and that a period is “just a dot.”

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 28, the teacher reads the title of the book Who Lives In A Shell?. The teacher points out that the title is a sentence, and the sentence does not end in a period. The teacher tells the students that the sentence ends with a question mark. The students work with the teacher to compose more questions that end in a question mark.

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 33, the teacher shares a question and reminds students that “a question is a kind of sentence.” This kind of sentence does not start with a subject; rather, it starts with a question word. The teacher tells students that this sentence ends with a question mark instead of a period.

• Write a letter or letters for most consonant and short-vowel sounds (phonemes).

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 4, the teacher models writing a word by writing the sounds you hear. The teacher tells students to think about the sounds in the word queen and share how many sounds they hear. The teacher then models writing a letter for each of the four sounds heard.

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 3 Lesson 39, the teacher leads the lesson “Sound and Blend” with students. The teacher states, “Now we are going to sound and blend each word. The way you do that is to look at each letter, make each sound, and then say the sounds fast to make a word. I’ll sound and blend each one, and then you’ll do it. Point to each letter as you say each sound out loud. Listen and watch me. /b/ /i/ /n/, bin.” The teacher points to each letter as students say the sounds. Then the teacher and students repeat the procedure for the remaining word cards for the words kin, pin, tin, pig,wig, fig, and gig.

• Spell simple words phonetically, drawing on knowledge of sound-letter relationships.

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 14, the teacher models how to write a word using the number of sounds they hear in the word. The teacher writes a letter for each sound heard in the word. Students practice doing this with the teacher and on their own.

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 8, students draw a picture of a river delta, and write a sentence to tell about the picture. The teacher reminds students to “find the sounds in each word and write them down.”

  • In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 39, the teacher writes the sentence “I stood on stage.”The teacher thinks aloud as they stretch out words to spell. The teacher instructs the students to “find the sounds in each word you want to write down” as the students are writing.

Materials include authentic opportunities for students to demonstrate application of skills in context, including applying grammar and convention skills to writing. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 19, students write facts about someone they know well. The teacher models writing sentences. Students write sentences about someone they know. The teacher reminds students that each sentence should have a subject and predicate.

• In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 9, after reading two books as a class, students write a book review for the book they like the best. The teacher provides a sentence checklist for students to use. The teacher reminds students that sentences should have a subject and predicate, start with a capital letter, end with punctuation, use appropriate spacing between words, and stretch and spell words.

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for 1n.i.

Materials include explicit instruction of most grade-level phonological awareness and phonics standards. Materials provide the teacher with systematic and explicit modeling for syllables, sounds, and spoken words instruction. However, activities include blending phonemes, but there are no examples of blending syllables. Phonics skills, such as associating the long and short sounds with the common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels and blending of CVC words, are referenced but are not taught explicitly and systematically. There is no evidence that students are taught to distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.

Materials provide the teacher with some systematic, explicit modeling for instruction in syllables, sounds (phonemes), and spoken words. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Recognize and produce rhyming words:

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 3, the teacher tells students they will find or make rhyming words. The teacher and students chorally read a poem. After reading, students tell a partner what the poem is about. The teacher tells students that “words rhyme when they sound the same at the end.” The teacher reads rhyming words and emphasizes the rhyme when saying each word. The teacher reads words that do not rhyme and points out that these words do not sound the same at the end. The teacher rereads a portion of the poem, pointing out rhyming words. The teacher repeats this procedure for all stanzas of the poem.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 13, the teacher tells students they find or make rhyming words. The class chorally reads a poem, and students say to their partners what they read. The teacher reminds students what it means to rhyme and provides examples and non-examples of rhyming words. The teacher reads a stanza from the poem and asks the class if they heard any rhyming words. The teacher invites students to make more rhyming words for high and fly. The same procedure is followed for you, play, make, go, and boat.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 43, the teacher explains that words rhyme when they sound the same at the end. The teacher uses the words weeks, cheeks, and seeks, and they ask, “Do these words rhyme? How do you know?” Students respond, “Yes, because they sound the same at the end. They all end with (/eeks/).” The teacher also asks students to listen to the following words: cat, kitten, clouds, kept. The teacher asks, “Do they rhyme? How do you know?” The teacher continues to have the students listen to words from the poem and explain why they rhyme. The materials provide a teacher tip as a scaffold: “If needed, prompt by reading the two phrases that include the rhyming words rather than the entire lines.”

• Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words:

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 4, the teacher tells students they will learn how to count words and syllables. The teacher and students chorally read a poem. The teacher models counting the number of words in the first line of the poem and tells students that the way to do this is to touch the first letter of each word as they count. The teacher reminds students that the first letter comes after a space. Students practice counting words with sentences from the poem. The teacher models how to count syllables in words. The teacher tells students, “Syllables are parts or chunks of words. All words have syllables. Words can have one, two, three, or more syllables. We can count syllables by clapping our hands for each syllable.” The teacher says the word bucket and claps hands for each syllable, telling students that bucket has two syllables. The teacher repeats with the word cup.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 14, the teacher tells students to count words and syllables in words. The class chorally reads a poem. The teacher models counting the number of words in a sentence. After telling students that they will count syllables in words, the teacher reviews what syllables are and how to count syllables. The teacher models counting syllables with the word watch, clapping for each syllable.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 5, the teacher instructs students to hold up one finger for each phoneme as they say the sounds slowly. The teacher guides students to say the individual sounds in the word heels, then blends the sounds to say the complete word. The teacher repeats this process for fresh, bloom, and black.

• Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words:

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 8, the teacher shares rhyming words with students and tells students the words rhyme because they all end with -orn. The teacher presents pie and die and tells students they rhyme because they end with /igh/ sound at the end.

• Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three-phoneme (consonant-vowel-consonant, or CVC) words.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 30, the teacher chooses four pictures from the Word Study Chart, making sure to represent each of the letter-sound categories. The teacher calls out the name of the pictures without segmenting the initial sounds.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 14, the teacher says the word cat and holds up a finger for each phoneme /c/ /a/ /t/, cat. The teacher uses Elkonin Boxes and moves a marker for each sound. The class repeats this procedure for mat, fat, sat, can, man, pan, and van. 

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 35, the teacher presents the sounds or phonemes of a word, holding up a finger for each phoneme. The teacher says the word fast to blend all sounds. This process is repeated for the words gleam, twirl, and spin. Next, the teacher says a word and then says the word slowly. This process is repeated for lift, bleam, twirl, and spin.

  • In How to Plan for Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, Using Letter Sounds: Generic Lesson Plan, page 78, the teacher says a word, repeats the word slowly and moves a marker for each sound of the word. Students repeat the process.

• Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words:

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 13, the teacher takes the word jack and models changing /j/ to /b/. The teacher discusses the new word back. The teacher changes /b/ to /t/ to create the word tack. The teacher repeats this process with the word beams, changing /b/ to /s/ and then to /h/.

Materials provide the teacher with examples for instruction in syllables, sounds (phonemes), and spoken words called for in grade-level standards. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the ELA Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 19, there is an example of counting words in a sentence. In the example, there is guidance to help the teacher use sounds to write the words in the sentence. For example: “The sentence has five words. The first word is My. I will write My at the beginning of the line and I will start with a capital M. I will leave a space and write mom. I can find the sounds in mom: /m/ /o/ /m/. Mom starts with /m/ like moon. Turn and tell your partner what letter makes the /m/ sound. Yes! M. I will write m. /m/ /o/ /m/. The next sound I hear is /o/ like octopus. Turn and tell your partner what letter makes the /o/ sound. Yes! O. I will write the letter o. The last sound is /m/. We already know that the letter is m. I will write it down.”

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 33, there are examples of changing rhyming words by changing initial sounds. The following example demonstrates this: “Let’s try something different. I see May. What if we change the /m/ to /w/? What word would we have? Yes, way. May, way. Do they rhyme? Yes, because they sound the same at the end. What if we change the /w/ to /j/? Yes, jay. May, way, jay. Do they rhyme? Yes, because they  (sound the same at the end). They end with /ay/.”

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, Basic Alphabet Knowledge Sample Script for Lesson 4, there are the following examples to help students practice initial sound sorting: “Now let’s think about sounds. You have a picture of ball and rope and tape and net. Point to the ball. The word ball starts with the sound /b/. Point to the rope. The word rope starts with the sound /r/. Point to the tape. The word tape starts with the sound /t/. Point to the net. The word net starts with the sound /n/. Now let’s use some other words. Say the word tip. Tip/ball, tip/rope, tip/tape, or tip/net? Point to the picture with the same starting sound. Right. Tip/tape. They both start with /t/. Say the word nest. nest/ball, nest/rope, nest/tape, or nest/net? Point to the picture with the same starting sound. Right. Nest/net. They both start with /n/.”

Materials contain explicit instructions for systematic and repeated teacher modeling of most grade-level phonics standards. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary sound or many of the most frequent sounds for each consonant:

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 38, the teacher presents picture cards and models identifying the initial sound. The teacher places the picture card under the appropriate heading. For example, the teacher presents a picture card for the word nest. The teacher says this is /n/ nest and places the card under the appropriate header. This process is repeated for toys, tools, turkey, nut, needle, girl, game, and gorilla. 

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 25, the teacher chooses four pictures from the Word Study Chart, representing each of the letter sound categories. The teacher calls out the name of the pictures without segmenting the initial sounds. The teacher instructs to write the correct initial sound.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 36, the teacher provides one-to-one letter-sound correspondence by producing the primary sound for /k/, /f/, /w/, and /e/. The teacher shows students each header card one by one. This week’s header cards are /k/ king, /f/ feet, /w/ whale, and /e/ egg. To introduce each header card, the teacher names the sound associated with each letter by stating the initial sound in each word, followed by the word.

• Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels:

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 32, the teacher reviews short /u/. The teacher states, “This week we will work on reading and spelling three vowel patterns. The /ut/ pattern is at the end of the word nut, and it is spelled u-t.” The teacher repeats this procedure for the remaining header cards.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 41, the teacher reviews short /e/ by naming the sound associated with each letter pattern and telling how it is spelled. The teacher says, “This week we will work on reading and spelling three vowel patterns. The /et/ pattern is at the end of the word net and it is spelled e-t.” The teacher repeats this procedure for the remaining header cards.

• Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ:

  • No evidence was found.

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

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 19, the teacher chooses three to five word-study words for students to practice writing on paper. The teacher models writing the word, and students practice writing individually on their paper.

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 36, the lesson provides the teacher with systematic and repeated instruction for students to hear, say, encode, and read each newly taught grade-level phonics pattern.

  • Hear: The teacher introduces sounds associated with letters such as /t/ teeth, /t/ teeth, /t/ teeth by articulating the initial sound and saying the entire word three times.

  • Say: The teacher asks the students to say the word introduced, teeth.

  • Hear: After reading and discussing the poem, the teacher says that words rhyme when they sound the same at the end of a word. The teacher emphasizes the rhyme as they say each word: Were, her, sir. The teacher explains they all sound the same at the end because they all end with /ir/. The teacher also gives non-examples by providing words that do not rhyme and explaining that they do not sound alike at the end. Scarf, gown, old-fashioned. The teacher reads four lines from a poem read earlier and emphasizes the words that rhyme. The teacher explains that brown and town rhyme because they both have /own/ at the end. For students who struggle, the teacher reads phrases that include the rhymes only instead of entire lines.

  • Say: The teacher asks for examples of words that rhyme with words from the poem, such as brown and town. Encode: The teacher reminds students of the letters they are focusing on for the week: t, n, and g. The teacher has the students look for the letters in the poem. The teacher marks the letters in different colors and then has students identify more and mark them.

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for 1n.ii.

Materials include repeated instruction with frequent opportunities for students to practice phonological awareness skills throughout each lesson. Students chorally read poems and sing songs to practice phonological awareness skills. Students use Elkonin Boxes for phonemic awareness activities. Though the materials share a general sequence of instruction, the materials lack a clear, evidence-based explanation for the sequence of phonological awareness used in the program. Materials do not include opportunities for students to pronounce, blend, or segment syllables; however, there is evidence of these skills with phonemes. No evidence was found of isolating the initial, medial, or final sounds in three phoneme words.

Materials have a cohesive sequence of phonemic awareness instruction based on the expected hierarchy to build toward students’ application of the skills. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, Building Phonological Awareness, page 48, the authors detail the hierarchy for the instruction of phonological awareness skills within the program. First, students learn to identify words in a sentence. Next, students learn to identify syllables within words. After that, students focus on onset-rime. Finally, students focus on the awareness of individual speech sounds by segmenting words into individual phonemes.

Materials do not contain a clear, evidence-based explanation for the expected hierarchy for teaching phonological awareness skills.

Materials include a variety of activities for phonological awareness. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, Building Phonological Awareness, page 49, the authors explain how they apply the development of phonological awareness skills into their daily lessons through poems and songs. The text states, “Inclusive group language play allows students to build proficiency gradually in a low-risk environment. Students hear their peers participate, and they have age-appropriate models for each task until they, too, can accomplish the task.”

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, Building Phonological Awareness, page 49, the authors present the five-day sequence to build phonological awareness skills. The first two days focus on understanding and memorizing the poem. On the third day, students recite the poem and focus on rhyming words. On the fourth day, students recite the poem and count words and syllables. On the fifth day, students search for specific letters or topics related to the word study focus.

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, Understanding the Differentiated Instruction Block, page 150, the authors explain how to use the Differentiated Instruction Block manual to support phonemic and phonological awareness. Phonemic awareness lessons include printed letters. There are four sets of lessons included in the manual: basic alphabet knowledge, using letter sounds, using letter patterns, and dedicated sentences. Basic alphabetic knowledge lessons include singing, saying, and/or pointing to the alphabet, initial sound sorting, letter names and sounds, high-frequency words, and tracking memorized text. Lessons on using letter sounds include “Say It and Move It,” sounding and blending, and high-frequency words. Lessons on using letter patterns include oral blending and segmenting, teaching letter patterns, decoding practice, spelling, and high-frequency words. Lessons on dedicated sentences include building knowledge, co-constructing a sentence, independent writing, and closure.

There are frequent opportunities for students to practice phonological awareness. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Phonological awareness practice is in all lessons in the Kindergarten Shared Reading materials. Most lessons are teacher-directed with guided practice and supported student practice.

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, students practice generic activities that include opportunities for using letter sounds such as sound matching, segmentation and blending, and sounding out and blending phonemes, onsets, and rimes.

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, modules provide opportunities to practice phonological awareness in activities such as teaching poems and songs, making rhyming words, and counting words and syllables. Each lesson has a phonological awareness component.

Materials provide ample opportunities for students to practice each new sound and sound pattern. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Recognize and produce rhyming words:

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 8, the teacher and students chorally read a poem. The teacher reviews what rhyming words are and models identifying rhyming words. The teacher presents rhyming words from the poem (kite, night) and asks students to identify more words that rhyme. Students follow the same procedure for tip, that, dark, green,and June.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 18, the teacher and students chorally read a poem. The teacher reviews rhyming words and models rhyming words with examples and non-examples. The teacher presents rhyming words from the poem (sound and ground) and asks students to identify more rhyme words. Students follow the same procedure for fall, tree, light, and sweet.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 33, the teacher reads two lines of a poem and says, “Did you hear two words that rhyme?” The students respond, “Yes, _____ and _____ rhyme, because they _____ (sound the same at the end).” The teacher states, “Let’s make more rhyming words. Let’s think of words that rhyme with tree, be.” Students call out words.

• Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words:

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 9, the teacher and students chorally read a poem. The teacher reviews how to count words in a sentence and syllables in a word. Students practice counting words in a sentence. Students practice counting syllables in given words by clapping their hands for each syllable. Students count the number of syllables in the following words: flame, summer, night, firefly, nose. 

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 4, the teacher states, “Now I’m going to show you how to count syllables in words. Syllables are the parts or chunks of words. All words have syllables. Words can have one, two, three, or more syllables. We can count syllables by clapping our hands for each syllable. Listen: bucket. What word? Watch as I count the syllables in bucket.” The teacher claps his/her hands for each syllable. Then the teacher says, “How many times did I clap? Yes, two. Bucket has two syllables. Listen again.” Students clap and say the syllables in the word bucket.

  • There is no evidence of pronouncing, blending, or segmenting syllables. There is evidence of these skills with phonemes.

• Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words:

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 33, the teacher presents words that rhyme. Students identify words that rhyme and share the rime at the end of the word. For example, the teacher presents the words pan and man, and students share that these words rhyme because they end in /an/.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 8, the teacher demonstrates how to change onsets to change rhyming words. This allows students to practice onsets and rimes with rhymes. For example, the teacher states, “Let’s try something different. I see top. What if we change the /t/ to /b/? What word would we have? Yes, bop. Bop, top. Do they rhyme?” The students respond, “Yes, because they sound the same at the end.” The teacher says, “What if we change the /b/ to /m/? Yes, mop. Top, bop, mop. Do they rhyme?” The students respond, “Yes, because they _____ (sound the same at the end). The teacher explains, “They end with /op/. Let’s try another one. I see why. What if we change the /w/ to /s/? What word would we have? Yes, sigh. Let’s change the /s/ to /t/. What word now? Yes, tie. Why, sigh, tie? Do they rhyme? Yes, because they _____ (sound the same at the end). They end with /igh/.”

• Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three-phoneme (consonant-vowel-consonant, or CVC) words. (This does not include CVCs ending with /l/, /r/, or /x/.):

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 28, the teacher models the word ran, holding up a finger for each phoneme. The teacher says the word and moves a marker for each sound, using an Elkonin Box. Students practice using the word ran. This procedure is repeated for pan, tan, gag, lag, zag, cap, tap, and nap.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 9, the teacher reviews “Say it and Move It” activities as they work on sounds within words, holding up a finger for each phoneme. The teacher states, “Today we will work with sounds. I am going to say a word. Then I am going to say the word slowly. Then I am going to say it and move it. Then you are going to say it and move it. The first word is hop. What word? I am going to say it slowly: Hold up a finger for each phoneme. /h/ /o/ /p/, hop. Now I am going to say it and move it.” Using the Elkonin box, the teacher moves a marker for each sound and says, “/h/ /o/ /p/, hop. Now it is your turn.” There is a teacher tip that suggests students can use manipulatives or fingers.

  • In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, Using Letter Sounds Generic Lesson Plans, students have the opportunity to say and blend sounds in the activity “Sounding and Blending.” For example, the teacher says, “Now we will work with words. I want you to sound and blend each word. The way that you do that is you look at each letter, make each sound out loud, and then say the sounds fast to make a word. I’ll sound and blend each one, and then you’ll do it.” The teacher models how to sound out letters and then blend the sounds into words. Then students can sound out words on their own.

  • No evidence of isolating the initial, medial, or final sounds was found.

• Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words:

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 18, the teacher models changing the beginning sound in words using pot as an example and changing /p/ to /d/ and /k/. The teacher again models the word hears, changing /h/ to /g/ and /t/. Students respond to teacher prompts.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 33, the teacher guides the students to start with an, add /m/ to the beginning to get man, then change the /p/ to /r/ to get pan.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 8, the teacher uses rhyming words, bop and top, and substitutes the initial sounds, /b/ and /t/ to have students make new words.

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for 1n.iii.

Materials include opportunities for students to practice and apply some grade-level phonics skills. Students have multiple opportunities to practice working with phonemes, substituting onsets and rime, and counting syllables. Some phonics skills, such as associating long and short vowel sounds with common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels and blending of CVC words, are referenced within the materials, but there are limited opportunities for students to practice these skills with written words and sentences. Students work with syllables and identify onsets and rimes within a syllable. Students practice identifying individual sounds using Elkonin boxes and structures to say and move sounds and blend words. There is limited instruction and practice about building, manipulating, spelling, and encoding in lessons. Additionally, there are minimal opportunities for students to practice distinguishing between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ. Students may have opportunities to apply grade-level phonics if the teacher uses activities from How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3; however, it is not guaranteed that all students will receive this instruction. Materials delineate a scope and sequence with a cohesive sequence of phonics instruction and practice. The materials cite research studies to support the sequence.

Lessons provide students with opportunities to decode some (phonemes, onset and rime, and/or syllables) phonetically spelled words. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary sound or many of the most frequent sounds for each consonant.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 26, the teacher shows students the following header cards: Ff feet, Jj jar, Ww whale. The teacher introduces each header card, names the sound associated with each letter, and places the card in the pocket chart. The teacher presents picture cards, and students identify the beginning sound and put the picture card under the appropriate header card.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 33, the teacher points to each letter in a word and says each sound aloud. The students follow this procedure for the remaining words.

  • In_ How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3,_ the teacher uses initial sound sorting to have students say each word, compare it quickly with the pictures, and then touch the picture with the same initial sound.

• Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 32, the teacher introduces the week’s header cards: -ut, nut; -un, sun; -ug, bug. The teacher names the sound associated with each letter pattern and how it is spelled. The teacher introduces the sort word cards and reads each word. The teacher asks students which pattern they hear and places the card under that pattern. Students share how that pattern is spelled. Students practice with the remaining word cards and chorally read each word card, beginning with the header and each word with the pattern.

  • In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, the teacher associates the patterns for long and short sounds with graphemes by teaching letter patterns. The teacher introduces the three patterns for the day. The teacher says each word and has students point to the word with the same pattern. The teacher says, “The pattern is ___, and I spell it with a/an ___.”

• Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 38, the teacher guides students to change the first phoneme to make new words. Students change lost to_ cost, then to gost._

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 41, the teacher guides students to identify the last phoneme and categorize words under red or set.

Lessons provide students with frequent, yet often guided, opportunities to read complete words by saying the entire word as a unit using newly taught phonics skills. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 1, the teacher shows students cards with words and pictures. The teacher tells the students the word, then the teacher and students say the word together. The teacher uses the word in a sentence, and students and the teacher say the sentence together. While students are presented with words and read the word, students have no opportunity for independent practice without prompts or guidance.

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 44, the teacher guides students through reading the word _set /s/ /e/ /t/, _then other short e words.

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, the five-minute initial sound starter lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to read complete words as they look at pictures and name them. Students also discuss other picture words that start with the same sound.

Lessons provide students with guided opportunities to decode words in a sentence. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 38, the teacher and students chorally read a poem together. The teacher points to each word. Students read the poem chorally with the teacher and do not have an opportunity to practice independently.

• No other opportunities for students to decode words in a sentence are present in the materials.

Lessons provide students with limited opportunities to build/manipulate/spell and encode words using common and newly-taught sound and spelling patterns phonics. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 25, the teacher presents students with four pictures from the word study chart. The teacher says the picture’s name, and the teacher asks students to think about the first sound. Students write the first sound and any other sounds they hear.

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 19, the teacher uses the word study activity “Sound and Blend” to have students practice the _-op _pattern. They say it, move it, and blend it.

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, the teacher uses the five-minute instructional routines of initial sound sorting to look at pictures and name the letters in which those pictures begin.

Materials contain a variety of methods to promote students’ practice of previously taught grade-level phonics. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The Shared Reading Lesson Plans include methods to promote students’ practice of grade-level phonics skills. Methods include word sorts with picture and word cards and choral reading of poems.

• The teaching resource How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3 includes the following instructional methods: choral echo responses, finger-pointing, physical gestures, Elkonin boxes, oral choral spelling, and spelling on dry erase boards.

Materials delineate a scope and sequence with a cohesive, intentional sequence of phonics instruction and practice to build toward the application of skills. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, Kindergarten Word Study, page 58, the materials stats that word study begins with students learning what specific words mean and establishing them as part of the students’ receptive vocabulary. Students use words in oral language to build vocabulary. Students learn to “decode and eventually recognize automatically to establish a reading vocabulary.” Then, students learn to spell patterns and individual words to establish a writing vocabulary.

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, Kindergarten Word Study, page 58, the materials state that “our basic decoding instruction and practice will be accomplished during small-group differentiation.” In the kindergarten materials, “these opportunities will be enhanced systematically in word study.”

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, Appendix E, there is the following word study sequence:

  • Module 3, Unit 1, Lessons 11-15: _-at, -an _

  • Module 3/Unit 2:

    • Lessons 16-20: -at, -ag

    • Lessons 21-25:_ -at, -an, -ag_

    • Lessons 26-30: -ag, -an, -ap

  • Module 3/Unit 3:

    • Lessons 31-35: -it, -in

    • Lessons 36-40:_ -in, -ig_

    • Lessons 41-45:_ -it, -in, -ig_

  • Module 4/Unit 1

    • Lessons 1-5: -it, -in, -ip

    • Lessons 6-10: -ot, -op

    • Lessons 11-15: -op, -og

    • Lessons 16-20:_ -ot, -og, -op_

    • Lessons 21-25:_ -ut, -ug_

  • Module 4/Unit 2:

    • Lessons 26-30: -ut, -un

    • Lessons 31-35: -ut, -un, -ug

    • Lessons 36-40: -et, -ed

    • Lessons 41-45: -et, -en, -ed

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, activities progress from Phonological Awareness and Word Recognition to Word Recognition and Fluency, then to fluency and comprehension.

Materials have a clear research-based explanation for the order of the phonics sequence. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, Chapter 4, the materials include background knowledge on research involving word study. When talking about the importance of invented spelling, the text cites the work of developmental spelling researchers at the University of Virginia (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, and Johnston) and Senechal, Ouellette Pagan, and Lever, and Lee and Scanlon.

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, each Module begins with an overview that explains the progression for the order of sequence and how students move from phonological awareness to word study and spelling.

Materials provide sufficient opportunities for students to develop orthographic and phonological processing. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, the teacher begins with oral segmenting and blending to teaching letter patterns, then progresses to decoding and spelling, then to writing high-frequency words. Students have opportunities to develop their phonological and orthographic processing skills, as evidenced in the sample lessons.

• No other evidence was found for students to develop orthographic and phonological processing.

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for 1o.

Materials include tasks that provide some explicit instruction and practice in concepts about print. Letters are reviewed and presented to students in the lessons with teacher support. The materials lack opportunities for students to identify letters independently, and there is also a lack of explicit instruction in teaching all letters of the alphabet. Print concepts are modeled frequently with student practice in whole-class lessons, except for moving from page to page. Additional support in letter naming and print concepts can be found in the Differentiated Instruction materials; however, there is no guarantee that these lessons are taught to all students.

Materials provide students with some opportunities to engage in practice identifying all 26 letters (uppercase and lowercase). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 38, the text details the Word Study portion of the Kindergarten Shared Reading Lesson Plans. The word study procedure is: “The teacher teaches letter names and sounds present in the sequence. Early in the year, students practice reciting the entire alphabet. Then they learn letters and sounds in sets, and engage with the teacher to sort pictures by initial sound to develop phonemic awareness. Teachers model handwriting for target letters.”

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 57, the manual states that the first four weeks of Kindergarten focuses on the alphabet. Teachers engage students by singing and reciting the whole alphabet. First, the teacher and students sing the entire alphabet. Next, the teacher and students recite the whole alphabet. After that, the teacher and students recite the whole alphabet while the teacher tracks it on a chart.

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, the students review the entire alphabet for the first 20 lessons. Then they are introduced to individual letters with repetition.

• In the Shared Reading Lessons, Module 1, Lesson 24, Teaching Upper and Lowercase Letter Formation, the teacher demonstrates how to form each letter by telling students how to form each letter and how to write each letter on paper. The teacher models once and then works alongside students five more times for each new letter and three times for each review letter. The letters focused on are B, b, M, and m.

Materials provide opportunities to engage in practice locating all 26 letters (uppercase and lowercase). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 1, the class chorally sings the alphabet song without referencing an alphabet chart or list. The teacher asks students to repeat the letter names after the teacher says each letter. The teacher echo reads the letter names, referencing an alphabet strip/chart. Students then point to the letter on the alphabet strip/chart. The teacher displays a student’s name on a sentence strip. The teacher shows the sentence strip with the name and says the name. The class completes an echo reading of each letter while the teacher points to each letter. The teacher cuts the name into individual letters and matches the letters to the alphabet chart. The class completed another echo reading of each letter while pointing to the letters on the chart. The teacher organizes the letters, so they spell the student’s name. The class echo reads the letters while pointing. The class chorally reads the student’s name.

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 25, the teacher tells students they will teach them how to find letters in the poem. The class chorally reads the poem, and students turn and tell a partner about the poem. The teacher reads the first four lines of the poem with students and touches the first letter of each word. The teacher tells students they will look for letters in the poem. The teacher asks the class to look through the poem and find the letters b and m, marking the letters when they are found. The teacher models looking for the letter b first. Students work to find the letter b and mark when found. The exact process is used for the letter m.

Materials provide opportunities to engage in naming all 26 letters (uppercase and lowercase). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 155, the manual details the basic alphabet knowledge in the Differentiated Instruction lessons. For Kindergarten students, these lessons are for learning grade-level content. The lessons follow the format: sing/say/point alphabet, initial sound sorting, letter names and sounds, high-frequency words, and tracking memorized text. In the sing/say/point alphabet portion, students spend three minutes singing the alphabet, echoing the letter names, echoing the letter names with alphabet shapes. For five minutes, the students complete initial sound sorting by saying each word, comparing it with the pictures, and touching pictures with the same sound. For the last two minutes, the teacher uses direct instruction to say the letter names and has students point to the letter. For three minutes, students practice high-frequency words. Finally, the students spend two minutes tracking memorized text and pointing to initial letters in each word.

• In the Shared Reading Lessons, Module 1, Lesson 2, the teacher uses the students’ names to have them recognize their names and practice letters. Students are given their names on a sentence strip. The strip is cut into the letters. They match the letters to an alphabet strip and echo read them while pointing to each letter. Then in Module 1, Lesson 3, the teacher and students echo-read the letter names with reference to an alphabet chart, strip, or list. Then students point to the letter on the strip. This routine occurs in Lessons 1-10 of Module 1.

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, the teacher uses direct instruction to maximize the number of items completed in one or two minutes. The teacher first says the letter names and gives students points. Students should be able to do as many as 20 in a minute. Then the routine repeats with the letter sounds.

Materials contain some isolated, systematic, and explicit instruction for all 26 letters (recognize and name uppercase and lowercase). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 57, the manual states, “Alphabet activities are made more concrete by focusing on the names of the children in the class. For an individual child, the letters in their own name are the first to be learned.”

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, the first four weeks focus on the alphabet as a whole. Teachers engage the class in singing and then reciting the whole alphabet. Alphabet activities are made more concrete by focusing on the names of the children in the class. The teacher writes each child’s name on a sentence strip or piece of card stock. The teacher cuts the name into letters as a puzzle that can be reconstructed. Teachers introduce the letter puzzles to the whole class, highlighting two each day.

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, Planning Lessons to Develop Basic Alphabet Knowledge, the teacher facilitates two-minute drills with letter names and sounds. The teacher says the letter names and has students point to the letters.

There is a defined sequence for letter instruction to be completed in a reasonable time frame over the school year. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, Appendix E, there is a defined sequence for letter instruction to be completed in a reasonable time frame over the school year. The following word study scope and sequence is included:

  • Module 1, Unit 1:

    • Lessons 1-25: b, m

    • Lessons 26-30: b, m, s

    • Lessons 31-35: m, s, r, a

    • Lessons 36-40: t, n, g

    • Lessons 41-45: n, p, i

  • Module 2, Unit 1:

    • Lessons 1-5: n, t, i, g

    • Lessons 6-10: m, b, t, a

    • Lessons 11-15: d, h, l

  • Module 2, Unit 2

    • Lessons 16-20: d, c, o

    • Lessons 21-25: l, h, c, o

    • Lessons 26-30: f, j, w

    • Lessons 31-35: f, w, k, e

  • Module 2, Unit 3

    • Lessons 36-40: f, w, k, e

    • Lessons 41-45: d, f, l, o, e

  • Module 3, Unit 1

    • Lessons 1-5: y, v, u

    • Lessons 6-10: y, v, u, z

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 59, the text states, “The scope and sequence distributes letters in sets to minimize confusion.” For example, b, d, and p are not taught at the same time. The authors considered “the utility of letters in reading and spelling. We teach the letter y late in the sequence, not because it comes at the end of the alphabet, but because it is not used as often as r and s.”

Materials include frequent and adequate tasks and questions about the organization of print concepts (e.g., follow words left to right, spoken words correlate sequences of letters, letter spacing, upper- and lowercase letters). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.

  • In the Shared Reading Lessons Plans, Module 1, during Print Concepts instruction, students read nursery rhymes from the Mother Goose anthology that are selected for their complicated vocabulary and syntax and then used for a final specific purpose, rounding out the attention to emergent literacy. These rhymes are easy for students to memorize and use to practice their concepts of print. With teacher support, students practice finger-pointing, left to right, top to bottom, and return sweep. The work with nursery rhymes aims to have a full concept of words in print for all students by the end of the year.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 2, the teacher reads a poem while tracking under the words. The students echo-read the entire poem, following the teacher’s tracking left to right.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 4, the teacher asks the student to show where to start reading and demonstrates left to right progression.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 19, the teacher tells students they will be learning how to read text. The teacher reads a poem to students and asks students to talk about the poem. The teacher tells students that when reading, we start at the top of the page, and they point to the top line. The teacher tells students, “We find the first word by looking all the way to the left,” and they model pointing to the word Jack and telling students the first word is Jack. The teacher tells students, “We read across the top line from left to right,” and touches the first letter of each word to model how to do this. When the teacher gets to the end of the first line, the teacher tells students they have run out of words to read, so they should go to the next line and return all the way to the left. The teacher models moving to the next line and reading the second line of the text by finger-pointing. Students are invited up to the board to point to the top line, point to the second line, point to the next line, point to the last line, point to where you start reading on the last line and how to read this line and point to where you start reading on the top line and show with your finger how to read this line. The class chorally reads, “Jack and Jill,” and the teacher reminds students to start at the top and read from left to right.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 23, the teacher prepares the class to read a poem together. The teacher reads the poem to the class, finger-pointing while reading. Students turn and tell a partner about the poem. The class echo-reads the poem line by line. The teacher reads and tracks the first line with a finger, and students echo-read while the teacher tracks. This procedure is repeated for each line. The teacher moves to echo-reading two lines at a time. The class chorally reads the poem several times while the teacher tracks the print.

  • In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, Phonological Awareness and Word Recognition, Basic Alphabet Knowledge, Figure 4.5 instructs teachers to use two minutes to track memorized text. The teacher uses either the provided sentences or a short, predictable book, teaches students the words, and has students say the words while pointing to the initial letter. Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters. In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 3, the teacher states, “The first word is little. I read across the top line from left to right. I can touch the first letter of each word as I read.” Students use alphabet strips and a cut-up of their names to match the letters and see how their names consist of letters and sounds.

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 2, Lesson 4, the teacher tells students they will learn how to count words and syllables. The teacher chorally reads a poem, and students tell a partner about the poem. The teacher models counting the number of words in the first line of the poem. The teacher tells students they should do this by touching the first letter of each word when counting - the first letter comes after a space. The teacher models counting the first letter of each word and tells the students there are ___ words in the first line. The teacher follows the same procedure for several lines. Students are invited to the board to count the number of words in a line. Understand that words are separated by spaces in print.

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 39, the manual details the concepts of print lesson structure for shared reading in Kindergarten. The structure is as follows:

  • The teacher shares a rhyme or poem, displayed for all students to see.

  • Lesson 1: The teacher reads the rhyme at least twice and discusses ideas with the students.

  • Lesson 2: The teacher engages students in echo reading and choral reading to memorize the rhyme.

  • Lesson 3: The teacher engages the children to recite the rhyme and teaches print concepts (finger-pointing, left to right, top to bottom, return sweep). Several students demonstrate.

  • Lesson 4: The teacher engages the children to recite the rhyme and teaches print concepts (finger-pointing, left to right, top to bottom, return sweep). Several students demonstrate.

  • Lesson 5: The teachers allow students to choose previous rhymes to demonstrate their fingerpoint reading.

• In Shared Reading Lesson, Module 1, Lesson 4, the teacher counts the number of words in the first line of the poem. The teacher touches the first letter of each word and counts. The teacher identifies the space after each word. The teacher uses the spaces and first letters of each word to count and show the students the number of words.

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 5, the teacher explains how to know when it is a new word: “It is a new word because of the space.”

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 10, the teacher chorally reads “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.” The teacher reminds the students to remember that when we read, we start at the top, read from left to right, and pay attention to the spaces.

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for 1p.

Materials provide limited opportunities for students to practice automaticity and accuracy of grade-level decodable words through reading poems, sorting, and reading words with common letter patterns. Texts are often read first by the teacher, with echo or choral reading following; however, texts do not match the order of skills that are being taught. Students are not provided opportunities to read texts independently as part of the materials. The differentiated instruction lessons provide explicit teaching and student practice of high-frequency words; however, it is not certain that all students will receive this instruction. Not all students have multiple opportunities to read emergent-reader texts purposefully. Emergent level text is only available in the optional differentiation lessons, and these texts do not always closely match the sight words or word patterns that have been taught.

Some opportunities are provided over the course of the year in core materials for students to purposefully read emergent-reader texts. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 1, the teacher starts the reading by having students look at the pictures. The teacher asks questions as students examine the pictures. For example, the teacher asks: “What are all these animals doing? Where is she going?”

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 12, the teacher introduces a poem and reads the poem to students. The students turn and tell a partner about the poem. The teacher and student echo read the poem line by line. The class chorally reads the poem several times. The teacher checks for understanding by asking, “What do papa and mama want to be for New Year’s?” The class chorally reads the poem one or two more times.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 28, the teacher states, “Today I am going to teach you how to read text. First, we will chorally read the poem, and then you will turn and tell your partner what this poem is about.”

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 41, the teacher introduces the poem, “When Irish Eyes are Smiling.” The teacher reads the poem to students. The teacher reads lines 1-2 of stanza 2 two times to the students to teach meaning and memory. The teacher discusses unfamiliar ideas. The teacher reads the poem to the students, fingerpointing while reading. The teacher checks for understanding by asking, “What is your smile a part of? Where do you feel love? What does the poet say your smile does to the sunshine?” The teacher reads the poem to students.

  • In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, students who are assigned small group instruction for Targeting Word Recognition and Fluency read decodable text that includes a variety of decodable words, including words with short vowels and at least some words with blends and digraphs or r-controlled vowels, and VCe words. Not all students receive this instruction.

Materials provide limited support students’ development of automaticity and accuracy of grade-level decodable words over the course of the year. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 15, the manual states, “We also chose a poem and a song for each week, drawing from two different anthologies. One of these texts would be used for phonological language play and the other for teaching concepts about print. We chose those selections so that students could memorize them, but we selected for complex academic language rather than decodable words, further enhancing sensitivity to English grammar. The difference between typical practice in kindergarten and Bookworms kindergarten shared reading texts is that each text is used to develop a specific competency, helping the teacher and students focus their attention.”

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 47, the manual states, “The poems and rhymes we use were not written to teach any specific decoding skill, so the authors had free choice in their language.”

Materials include some systematic and explicit instruction of high-frequency words (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• No evidence was found for the instruction of high-frequency words for all students. Instruction of high-frequency words is found only in the differentiated instruction lessons in How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3.

  • In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 70, the manual states, “One area of difference between Bookworms kindergarten and traditional practice is that we do not target memorization of high frequency words in kindergarten word study. You will see that we assess and teach high frequency word reading in our DI lessons, but we neither teach nor practice it in kindergarten spelling lessons. We do this so that our kindergarten students learn to spell from sound and because high frequency word spelling can be learned much more quickly and easily when students have stronger phonemic awareness and alphabetic knowledge. Addition of drill and practice of high frequency words will waste valuable time and derail the writing practice children do in ELA. They will spend all of their writing time asking the teacher how to spell specific words instead of applying their growing word knowledge and seeing themselves as writers.”

Students have some opportunities to read and practice high-frequency words in isolation. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Read common high-frequency words by sight (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).

  • No evidence was found for the instruction of high-frequency words for all students. Instruction of high-frequency words is found only in the differentiated instruction lessons in How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3.

Materials do not include a sufficient quantity of new grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words for all students to make reading progress.

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for 1q.

The Kindergarten Bookworms materials include some systematic and explicit instruction in word recognition and analysis in connected texts and tasks. However, lessons with connected texts are only included in the Differentiated Instruction materials; therefore, it is not certain that all students will receive instruction in these materials or lessons. While connected texts are included in the Shared Reading and ELA Lesson Plans, the texts do not directly relate to the word recognition and analysis skills being taught and do not contain words related to that focus. There is no evidence that these skills or words are taught in a research-based progression.

Materials provide some support to students’ development to learn grade-level word recognition and analysis skills (e.g., one-to-one correspondences, syllable segmentation, rime and onset recognition, long and short sounds with common spellings and distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying sounds of the letters) in connected text and tasks. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one correspondences by producing the primary sound or many of the most frequent sounds for each consonant.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 11, the class learns two vowel patterns, the /at/ in cat, spelled a-t and /an/ in pan, spelled a-n. As the teacher introduces students to word cards, the teacher reads each word card aloud, without showing the students the word. They repeat the word and decide how to sort the words: hat/cat, hat/pan. hat/cat. Using a mixed order, the students repeat the process using the following words: mat, fat, sat, can, man, pan, van.

• Associate the long and short sounds with common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels. Evidence was not found for all five vowels. Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.

  • No evidence was found.

Materials provide minimal opportunities to read high-frequency words in connected text and tasks. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following: Evidence of instruction in high-frequency words is found only in Differentiated Instruction lessons. It is not certain that all students will receive this instruction. No evidence is found for instruction for all students in these skills.

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, Basic Alphabet Knowledge Generic Lesson Plan, page 51, the lesson begins with an alphabet review where students sing and point to letters of the alphabet. The second part of the lesson focuses on initial sound sorting. Next, the students practice letter names and sounds and high-frequency words. The lesson ends with students tracking memorized text. Using sentences or a short predictable book, the teacher teaches students the words, and students say the words while pointing to the initial letter in each.

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, Basic Alphabet Knowledge Generic Lesson Plan, Lesson 9, the students identify letters i, p, r, and a. The students identify high-frequency words in, is, you, that, and it. The students read the sentence, “That crayon is mine.”

Lessons and activities provide students with opportunities to learn grade-level word recognition and analysis skills while encoding (writing) in context and decoding words (reading) in connected text and tasks. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the Student Workbook, page 197, the teacher instructs students to write a written response. The directions in the workbook say, “Draw a picture of the life cycle you think is the most interesting. Use your sounds to help you write some words that tell why you think that one is the most interesting.” The Shared Reading Lesson Plans do not specify when to use this workbook page.

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 4, the teacher instructs students to count the number of words and determine the number of syllables in specific words using the weekly poem.

• In the ELA Lesson Plans Module 2, Lesson 30, students write sentences independently to create a four-sentence story. The teacher teaches word recognition and analysis strategies, including one-to-one correspondence for spelling sounds and common spelling patterns for long and short vowels to encode.

Materials include decodable texts that contain grade-level phonics skills aligned to the program’s scope and sequence. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Evidence of decodable texts is found only in differentiated instruction lessons. There is no certainty that every student will receive grade-level phonics instruction.

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, materials include decodable texts for the following:

  • Blends and Digraphs: 29 passages

  • R Controlled Vowels: 29 passages

  • Vowel Consonant e: 14 passages

  • Long Vowel Teams: 29 passages

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, Word Recognition and Fluency, Blends and Digraphs, students read the words tip, map, fin, shin, lag, bad, pig, kid, sham, mix, tap, rat, pin, bat, had. Students read a decodable text: “I saw a pig. The pig was big. It had a pink tail. It had a pink nose.”

Materials do not include decodable texts that contain grade-level high-frequency/irregularly spelled words aligned to the program’s scope and sequence.

• Evidence of decodable text was found in Differentiated Instruction, but no evidence was found for whole-class instruction. Further, there is no certainty that these texts align to high-frequency/irregularly spelled words or a scope and sequence.

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, page 102, it states, “We do not match our decodable text to our decodable instruction with much precision.”

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for 1r.

The Kindergarten materials provide opportunities to assess students on most foundational skills. Assessments include the Informal Decoding Inventory, a test on letter names, a test on letter sounds, and a test on Fry Instant Words. However, except for a rubric that is available for teacher use, there are minimal opportunities to assess concepts about print. While the materials provide an Assessment Plan for each grade level, teacher guidance for assessment protocols are not clear or specific. While there are multiple assessments for a teacher to use over the course of the year, many are in the Differentiated Reading Instruction materials, and it is not certain that these assessments will be administered to all students. There are instructional supports and lessons in the Differentiated Reading Instruction materials.

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; however, there are minimal assessments on concepts of print. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

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

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, Lesson 5, what to look for in an informal assessment is included in a teacher tip. “Students may use different props to finger point. We do not expect students to finger point accurately at this time of the year. We are just looking for top to bottom, left to right movement of the finger.”

  • In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 31, the materials state that Concepts of Print should be assessed using a rubric to rate students during rhymes. This rubric should be used once a month until the student reaches proficiency. The rubric was not located.

  • In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 67, the materials include a Kindergarten foundational skills rubric to “describe an individual student and a group of students across these skills.” Areas addressed related to print concepts include concepts about print and concepts of words.

    • For concepts of print, students receive “Excellent” if they can demonstrate top to bottom, left to right, and return sweep; “Good” if the student can demonstrate that top to bottom text organization; “Developing” if the student demonstrates book handling and can identify words as different from illustrations; “Emerging” if the student is inconsistent in book handling.

    • For concepts of words, students receive “Excellent” if with a memorized text, the student can locate any word by checking for initial consonant sound; “Good” if with a memorized text, the student can locate any word by pretend reading and fingerprinting; “Developing” if with a memorized text, the student can recite and fingerpoint accurately; “Emerging” if with a memorized text, the student demonstrates inconsistent tracking.

  • In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 68, there is a rubric designed to measure students’ progress and mastery of print concepts. The concepts include book handling, differentiating between illustrations and words, and text organization from top to bottom, left to right, and return sweep.

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

  • In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 31, the materials state that Phonological Awareness should be assessed once a month until the student reaches proficiency using a rubric to rate students during poetry reading. The rubric was not located.

  • In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 67, the materials include a Kindergarten foundational skills rubric to “describe an individual student and a group of students across these skills.” Areas related to phonological awareness include syllables, onset-rime awareness, and phoneme awareness.

    • For syllable awareness, a student is “Excellent” if with an orally-presented multisyllabic word, the student can segment the first syllable; “Good” if with an orally presented multisyllable word, then the student can count syllables; “Developing” if with an orally presented two-syllable word, the student can count syllables; “Emerging” if with an orally presented multisyllabic word, the student cannot yet demonstrate any syllable awareness.

    • For onset-rime awareness, a student is “Excellent” if with an orally presented single syllable word, the student can substitute the onset to generate a rhyming word; “Good” with an orally presented single syllable word, the student can segment an onset from a rime; “Developing” if with an orally presented single syllable word, the student can blend an onset and a rime; “Emerging” if with an orally presented single syllable word, the student cannot yet demonstrate any onset-rime awareness.

    • For phoneme awareness, a student is “Excellent” if with an orally presented word or set of phonemes, the student can segment and blend; “Good” if the student can blend three phonemes presented as separate phonemes; “Developing” if with an orally presented three phoneme word, the student can segment an initial phoneme; “Emerging” if with an orally presented three phoneme word, the student cannot yet demonstrate any phoneme awareness.

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

  • In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, page 22, the assessments include Informal Decoding Inventory: Short Vowels through Vowel Teams; Informal Decoding Inventory: Multisyllabic Words; and Test of Oral Reading Fluency.

  • In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, the materials include the Test of Letter Names, page 31. The test presents students with 26 upper letters and 28 lower case letters (two forms of a and g).

  • In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, page 32, the materials include a Test of Letter Sounds. The directions instruct the teacher to tell students the letters are upper- and lowercase letters and point to each letter set (capital/lower case letter) and ask, “What sound do these letters say?” Students may say either the hard or soft sound for c and g. The teacher records the student’s responses on a separate copy of the form. The assessment directions note that x and q are left out of the assessment as they are “difficult sounds to identify in isolation.”

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 1, page 10, the materials state, Word study assessments begin during Lesson 25. The teacher presents picture cards from the week’s Word Study lessons, name the picture, and ask the students to write the beginning sound they hear. The assessment is designed to assess how accurately students can represent initial sounds in words.

  • In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 3, Lesson 45, the word study assessment has the teacher call out seven words from the weekly list of -it, -in, and -ig words. Some of the words are pit, wit, kit, pin, sin, bin, win, pig, big, dig, and jig.

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

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, page 33, the text includes the Test of Fry Instant Words. The assessment assesses “a student’s ability to recognize 300 frequently occurring words, as selected by Edward B. Fry. The words are grouped into three sets of 100 by relative difficulty, and each group of 100 words is, in turn, grouped into sets of 25.” Scoring and interpretation notes that there is “no cumulative score. Each word is actually a separate skill, which means that there is a direct link between testing and teaching. Any word that is not pronounceable automatically simply requires more practice!”

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, the assessment plan has word study assessments every five days beginning in Lesson 25.

• The K-1 Teacher Manual, page 15, states, “We made that design choice to enhance knowledge- and language-building opportunities while we were building expressive language in kindergarten and beginning reading fluency in first grade.” Therefore, there is no word recognition fluency assessed in Kindergarten.

Assessment materials provide teachers and students with information of students’ current skills/level of understanding. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, page 21, the manual includes the assessment cycle for small group instruction. Screening assessments are completed for initial group placement. Diagnostic assessments for specific planning are completed as well as unit assessments to gauge learning and reevaluate group placement.

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, page 22, the manual lists the following tests for Kindergarten students to be given depending on their reading ability:

  • Test of Letter Names - to determine which letters can be named when viewed in isolation.

  • Test of Letter Sounds - to determine which letters can be associated with the phonemes they represent.

  • K–1 Test of Fry Instant Words - to determine which high-frequency words can be pronounced quickly when they are viewed in isolation.

  • K–3 Informal Decoding Inventory:

    • Short Vowels through Vowel Teams: to determine the highest decoding skill set the student has attained in pronouncing one-syllable words of progressively more difficult patterns.

    • Multisyllabic Words: to determine proficiency in pronouncing two-syllable words of progressively more difficult patterns.

  • Test of Oral Reading Fluency - to determine speed and accuracy of reading aloud grade-level text.

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, there is a rubric to assess students’ progress toward and mastery of concepts of print, concepts of word, syllable awareness, onset-rime awareness, phoneme awareness and retelling. This rubric is designed to use over time and for teachers to determine current skills/level of understanding and guide instruction to lead students toward mastery.

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, the letter name assessment occurs in Module 1, Lesson 30. The assessment is individually administered to determine placement for future differentiated instruction lessons.

Materials support teachers with instructional adjustments to help students make progress toward mastery in foundational skills. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, page 23, the text illustrates strategies for forming groups in Kindergarten and half of Grade 1 based on assessments. If the student passed the vowel teams subtest of the Informal Decoding Inventory (IDI), the student should work on handwriting and spelling. If the student passed any lower subtest of the IDI, the student should be placed in the group for the lowest subtest they failed. If the student passed the test of letter sounds, the student should be placed in the using letter patterns group. If the student scored greater than 20 on the test of letter sounds, the student should be placed in the “Using Letter Sounds” group.

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, page 28, materials state that after forming groups based on assessment data, the teacher should begin a 3-6 week instructional plan. Informal assessments should be completed during the last 15 minutes of the instruction. The last day of the cycle is for formal assessment in the areas being supported. If the student passes the assessment, the teacher advances the student to the next skill. If the student does not pass the assessment, the cycle repeats. If the student fails a second time, it is suggested that the cycle is repeated with a different teacher. If the student continues to struggle, it may be an appropriate time for an intervention.

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, the manual includes information on how to plan for various small, flexible reading groups that are created based on assessment data. An example is on pages 106-107. This section describes in detail how to plan for the “Blends and Digraphs Group and the R-Controlled Vowels Group.” Figure 5.5 on page 107 details the parts of the lessons, the rationale for the instructional items, and the actual instructional items.

• In the Shared Reading Lesson Plans, Module 4, Lesson 25, the materials include a Teaching Tip that states, “For any student who scores six correct or fewer on the assessment (spelling test of CVC words), consider using the Spelling Tool, Grades K-2 to analyze the student’s spelling performance and determine skill progression.”

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for 1s.

The materials provide some suggestions for differentiating instructional materials, questions, and tasks when teaching foundational skills. In the K-1 Teacher Manual, there are several broad suggestions regarding how to scaffold the materials to meet the needs of students who struggle, students who are high-achieving, and English learners. While the K-1 Teacher Manual provides overall suggestions, teacher instructions are not specific or explicit in providing differentiated supports. The materials, questions, and tasks in the ELA or Shared Reading Lesson Plans do not support differentiation during core instruction or provide specific supports for students who read, write or speak a language other than English or who may otherwise struggle. The Differentiated Instruction Block provides targeted instruction for small groups, including students who struggle.

Materials provide some strategies and supports for students who read, write, and/or speak in a language other than English to meet or exceed grade-level standards. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 72, the materials state, “Some students will struggle because they are multilingual. Shared reading is a time multilingual students will benefit because of the intense language exposure and opportunity. These students will benefit from the structures we have built into dialogic reading: word walk vocabulary instruction and scaffolded retellings with sentence frames. We built Shared Reading for language development, so multilingual learners will be well served.”

• In the K-1 Teachers Manual, page 104, the text states that it is really different to engage the whole class in a group reading of the same trade book, rather than reserving books for guided reading matched to global instructional levels. Rather than changing the text level for students with weaker word knowledge, they use repeated reading and oral discussion to make text accessible.

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 105, materials state that multilingual learners will have their foundational skills needs addressed during word study and the Differentiation Block. Shared Reading is a time of day with intense language exposure and opportunity. Multilingual learners may be able to track and read silently while the teacher reads chorally, and they will benefit from being partnered with a peer who will do the reading for them (while they track again) until they can begin to read chorally. Since Bookworms is not designed with a standards-mastery timeline, these students can be fully included in Shared Reading and increase their participation in practicing all standards as their language skills improve.

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 126, the text states, “If you are serving a large number of newcomer multilingual learners, some may require a basic oral language intervention, one that cannot be provided by the classroom teacher. It may be wiser to schedule that intervention during ELA time rather than during Shared Reading. Shared Reading texts are slightly less complex and read more than one. Substituting a portion of grade-level instruction with intervention will always have implications, though. This substitution can only be possible if there are additional teachers to provide the oral language intervention.”

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, Chapter 4: Targeting Phonological Awareness and Word Recognition, pages 45-48, the text describes methods for grouping students and strategies for teaching phonics, decoding, and spelling skills in small, targeted groups. There are lesson plans and assessments. This instruction exists for all struggling students, but it is not specific to students learning English.

Materials provide some strategies and supports for students in special populations to work with grade-level foundational skills and to meet or exceed grade-level standards. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 31, the text states that Kindergarten shared reading will provide ample opportunities to document student attainment of additional foundational skills. The materials provide a reporting sheet for teachers to use during instruction.

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 71, the text addresses how to support students who struggle. The text states, “Teachers have to first get all the Shared Reading teaching procedures down pat, then let students get accustomed to a new way of spending time and energy, and then see who is struggling. When the students are identified, it is worth the time it takes to consider the source of the struggle before planning a support system.” The text lists the following as reasons why students may struggle:

  • All students will struggle if they don’t feel respected and supported by their teacher.

  • Some students will struggle because they lack reading stamina.

  • Some students will struggle because they enter the grade level with foundational skills deficits.

  • Some students will struggle because they have disabilities related to language and literacy.

  • Some students will struggle because they are adding English to their knowledge of a home language.

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 72, the text states, “What our strategies for supporting students have in common is that they ask teachers to consider how a student who needs additional support can still participate as fully as possible. We don’t substitute a different, easier text or task. We don’t change pacing. We create a community where all students can thrive.”

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 105, the text states, “Some students will struggle because they enter the grade level with foundational skills deficits. We anticipate that there will be some students in a first-grade class with very weak alphabet knowledge. You will know who these students are, and you will address their needs directly during word study and during the DI Block. It will not help to try to modify the goals or structures of Shared Reading for them. They will still benefit from Shared Reading, though, because they will be building concepts of print, background knowledge, specific vocabulary knowledge, grammatical knowledge, and story structure knowledge. Decide what is the most challenging task they can do during repeated reading (e.g., track the text with a finger as the teacher reads, or whisper read at a pace slightly behind the teacher, as an echo). Then decide how to release slightly more responsibility to them during partner rereading.” The text further states that “if students are weak, use the same goal-setting strategies that you use for other students building stamina, always identifying a participation strategy that is appropriate during the initial reading segment and during the rereading. Students may have to listen during the echo or choral reading and then listen again and fingerpoint during rereading. Some students may have to take breaks during shared and partner reading; work with them to make those breaks routine and unobtrusive to the rest of the students.”

• In How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction: Resources for Grades K-3, Chapter 4: Targeting Phonological Awareness and Word Recognition, pages 45-48, the text describes methods for grouping students and strategies for teaching phonics, decoding, and spelling skills in small, targeted groups. There are lesson plans and assessments.

Materials provide some 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. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the K-1 Teacher Manual, page 72, the text addresses how to support students with high achievement. The text states, “In Dialogic Reading, teachers can ask especially sophisticated questions of them, provide language scaffolding to enhance the grammatical contexts in which they embed vocabulary words, and allow them to demonstrate retellings. They can assign text connections to these students as written work even early in the year when other students are doing these tasks orally.”

• No other evidence was found.