The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for materials provide explicit instruction to print and to practice the 26 letters (uppercase and lowercase).

Materials provide opportunities for instruction for the distinguishing features of every letter but do not include explicit directions on how to teach the formation of each letter. There is a scope and sequence for the instruction of every letter, both uppercase and lowercase, included. Students frequently practice letter formation through a variety of sensory and multi-modal experiences. Students have opportunities to practice forming letters with a variety of materials and through whole-body, large-muscle, and small-muscle activities. 

Materials include limited opportunities for students to practice forming all of the 26 letters (uppercase and lowercase). For example: 

• Print many upper- and lowercase letters.
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Center 1, page 351, during Days 146 - 150 students practice sensory writing. Students use sand, shaving cream, and finger paint to write letters. Students can also use q-tips or sponge brushes as tools. 
• In I am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, pages 23-29, there are letter formation activities for students to practice to reinforce correct letter formation and writing mechanics through multisensory/multimodal experiences. (i.e., Alphabet Aerobics, Sensory Letters using shaving cream, sand, etc., fine motor activities that develop the muscles in the hand, etc.)
• In I am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, page 81, there are several activities for the consonant f.   Students participate in air writing the letter f with “a finger, an arm, a leg, or toes.”

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for materials provide instructional support for general concepts of print and connect learning of print concepts to books (K-1) and provide cumulative review of print concepts, letter identification, and printing letters. (K-early Grade 1).

Although there are many teacher models for use in teaching general concepts of print, the Kindergarten materials do not contain explicit teacher instructional materials for teaching all print concepts. There are frequent and varied experiences for students to learn about print concepts with actual books. While the materials do provide some opportunity for review of print concepts, letter identification, and letter formation, the review is not systematic or frequent. 

Materials include some sufficient and explicit instruction for all students about the organization of print concepts (e.g. follow words left to right, spoken words correlate sequences of letters, letter spacing). Examples of print concepts instruction include, but are not limited to, the following:  

• Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.
• In I Am Ready Teacher’s Guide, page 58, Express Readers phonics book, Book Explorers, and The Consonant Play Book there are general correlations for following print from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page but there no specific correlations to lessons or instructions. The same table occurs on Teacher’s Guide, page 192, Steps 1-5.
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, page 346, the first decodable, “I Am Bug,” is introduced. There is a pre-teaching activity in which the teacher reads any book and reviews book-handling skills, "such as holding the book upright and turning pages from front to back." That is the extent of the instruction, and the same directions repeat in other lessons.
• Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters. 
• There are examples for teachers to model a print concept, and there are examples for students to copy the teacher actions, but directions that provide specific instructions for teachers to use in teaching general concepts of print are not included.
• Explicit interactions with books are used to teach print concepts. Suitable illustrated books with complete sentences are used to teach Kindergarten print concepts. Students use books to identify, practice, and reinforce print concepts, including applying newly learned print concepts during interactions with books.
• Understand that words are separated by spaces in print.
• In I Am Ready Teacher’s Guide, page 58, Express Readers books and class books, practice pages, there are general correlations for understanding that words are separated by spaces in print but there no specific correlations to lessons or instructions. The same table occurs on Teacher’s Guide, page 192, Steps 1-5.
• In I Am Ready Teacher’s Guide, Author Letter, page 2, the author states that she uses large font and extra spaces between words to emphasize sequences of letters and letter spacing.

Some practice opportunities using print concepts in the context of student books include:

• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, page 37, Library Center, students gain experience in handling books. Teachers can supervise students as they interact with books, modeling how to read and track their reading.
• In I Am Ready, Green Teacher Planner, Step 1, page 199, students read the book, “Dog is,” from the tool kit. Teachers staple the book together and the teacher discusses authors, illustrators, and reviews book handling skills, such as holding the book upright and turning pages from front to back.

Review opportunities of print concepts include, but are not limited to:

• According to the scope and sequence on pages 4-9 of I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Kindergarten students progress through the study of consonants for 95 days before they reach a time of review. 
• When a new letter is introduced, the teacher uses The Consonant Play Book and reads the first pages as a review. Example: Page 44, “Read the first pages...as a review.”
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Days 91 - 95, students work on learning the letter Ww. Students do a Letter Hop and Alphabet Aerobics, as well as several centers that work on not only the letter Ww, but the letters Tt and Vv, as well.

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for materials have frequent opportunities for students to engage in phonological awareness activities through Kindergarten and early Grade 1.

The materials contain lessons to engage students in oral language. Whole-group phonological awareness lesson plans do not contain guidance establishing if the lessons and activities are completed daily. For the first 140 days of Ready to Read, centers are used to practice phonological awareness skills, such as rhyming, initial sound fluency, sound comparisons, and blending skills. After the first 140 days, phonological awareness centers are less regular. While there are many activities to choose from in the centers, there is no clear direction on which activities to do each day.

Example of lessons and activities for phonological awareness include:

• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Activity: Listen and Blend #3, page 73, the teacher segments a word orally and students blend the word. The activity can be done by segmenting into three sounds or two sounds to practice onset-rime
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, page 141, there is a center called Part 2: Find 8. This activity requires students to enunciate and stress beginning sounds of words.
• In Step 1, Green Teacher Planner, Activity: Sort By Sound, page 176, students sort picture cards by the vowel sound they hear in the middle of the word. Students sort by /ĕ/ and not /ē/.

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for materials provide practice of each newly taught sound (phoneme) and sound pattern across the K-1 band. 

Materials include multimodal/multisensory activities for student practice of phonological awareness. Students have some opportunities to use body actions and their senses to practice skills, such as letter sounds.

Materials provide some opportunities for students to practice each new sound and sound pattern called for in grade level standards. The materials contain the following lessons and practice opportunities for students to learn phonemes:

• Recognize and produce rhyming words.
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Flip and Rhyme, page 25, students use Sound Cards to form three to five rhyming words for each card that is flipped. 
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher planner, Center #5: Flip and Rhyme & Rhyme Time Worksheet #1, pages 29-30, students work with the teacher to practice rhyming. During Flip and Rhyme, students come up with three to five rhyming words for each Sound Card that is flipped. During Rhyme Time Worksheet #1, students complete page 5 of Ready Pages as a rhyming practice activity. The teacher directions for the activity state, "I am going to say a word and you need to circle the picture of the word that rhymes. We will do this as a class."
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Center #5: Rhyme Time #5-6 & Rhyme Time Find #1, pages 93-95, students work with the teacher to complete activities focused on rhyming. During Rhyme Time #5-6, students complete pages 33 and 49 of Ready Pages by circling the picture of the word that rhymes with the word spoken by the teacher. This activity is done as a class. During Rhyme Time Find #1, students use Sound Cards to find all of the pictures that rhyme with the word in the top and bottom boxes of page 15 in Ready Pages. This activity is done as a class.   
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Center #4: Flip and Rhyme Memory, pages 194-195, students play memory using Sound Cards. The sound cards are laid out, picture side facing down and students take turns flipping two cards to try and make a rhyming pair. If a student makes a rhyming pair, the student keeps the pair, but if the student does not make a rhyming pair,, the student turns the cards back over and the next student takes his/her turn. 
• Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words.
• In Steps 2 and 3, Blue Teacher Planner, 2-Syllable Words, page 243, the lesson focuses on differentiating the sound of one-syllable words and two-syllable words. Students may find syllables by clapping, putting their hand under their chin and counting how many times their chin pulls down, or noticing how many times their mouth opens when saying a word. The students initially perform this oral activity seated before standing up to do a Syllable Stomp. Students stomp out the syllables as they repeat the activity. This practice task is repeated on page 245 of the Blue Teacher Planner.
• In Steps 2 and 3, Blue Teacher Planner, Syllable Sort, pages 243-244, students use the Syllable Sort Base and Syllable Sort Pictures on pages 497-498 of the Student Activity Book to distinguish between one-syllable and two-syllable words. Students glue the picture on the correct side of the Syllable Sort Base and repeat this process for all remaining pictures. This practice task is repeated on page 246 of the Blue Teacher Planner.   
• Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words.
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Center #5: Listen and Blend #1 & Letter Stories (B or C), Part 1: Listen and Blend #1, pages 53-54, students engage in a whole class segmenting activity that can be done by segmenting words into three sound or into the onset and rime. The directions state, "Remind the students that you are going to say a word in pieces; you are going to say the individual sounds that make up that word. When they figure it out, they will circle the word in a row that you are working on. After approximately two to five seconds of wait time, ask a student if they can share their answer. Practice blending the word orally out loud each time you review the answer. This modeling will help those students process how to blend and get the correct answer." This practice activity is repeated throughout the Yellow Teacher Planner.   
• 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 I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Center 4: Individual Picture Find (/h/) and/or Letter Find Hh, Part 1: Individual Picture Find (/h/), page 105, students color or circle the objects in the picture that begin with /h/. The teacher pre-teaches the activity by stressing the beginning sound of items in The Picture Find Book Hh page.
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Class Picture Find, page 213, students repeat the /t/ sound with the teacher, then find items in the picture that begin with the /t/ sound.
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Can You Hear It?, pages 289-290, students listen for the medial vowel sound in words spoken by the teacher. The teacher directions state, "Practice saying short words out loud, showing a picture for each word (using the Sound Cards), while students do a body movement if they hear the short/a/ in the middle (i.e., 'Put your hands on your head if you hear short /a/ in the middle of the word or put your hands on your knees if you don't hear the sound.')" This activity is repeated for each short vowel sound and during a review activity that focuses on all short vowel sounds. 
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Center #4: Clipart Sort, Short Vowels, pages 345-346, students sort clipart pictures according to their medial vowel sound by gluing the pictures onto the correct section of a paper that has been folded into five sections. 
• In Step 1, Green Teacher Planner, Center 4: Sort by Sound, page 157, students sort pictures by which short vowel sound they hear in the middle of the word into two categories, /ŭ/ and not /ŭ/.
• Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.
• No evidence found. 

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for materials emphasize explicit phonics instruction through systematic and repeated modeling.

Materials include some opportunities to practice phonics skills learned through hearing, saying, writing, and reading; however, phonics instruction is not explicitly taught in a regular, systematic way, and students do not have repeated opportunities to hear, say, write, and read each newly taught sound. The materials do not provide guidance for teachers that describes an explicit, systematic approach to instruction that focuses on modeling to instruct phonics. Materials do not indicate if these activities are to take place on a daily basis.

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

• 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 I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, page 54, students select which letter to use to create their story. They write the letter b or c in the box.
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Days 41-45, the teacher instructs in Whole Group Lessons using The Consonant Play Book, Class Picture Find, Sound Card Sort, and Listening Activity # 6.
• During the Class Picture Find, students repeat the /j/ sound with the teacher.
• During Sound Card Sort, students enunciate and stress the /j/ from the picture names.
• During Listening Activity #6, students practice following directions. This lesson does not connect to students learning j and /j/.
• In Step 1, Green Teacher Planner, page 87, the phonics pages provide practice for the names and sounds of letters. Students practice writing the target letters.
• While the accommodations section of the plans sometimes includes modeling, not all students would be exposed to this instruction.
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Days 11-105, Center: Find 8 and Mini-Book /?/, focuses on the consonant of the week. (page 39). In this center, students do the following:
• On level:
• Students touch each clipart picture and say it aloud, stressing the beginning sound.
• Students circle all pictures that start with the sound being studied that week.
• Extensions:
• Students write the letter next to every picture that starts with the given sound.
• Students phonetically spell words for the pictures.
• Students color the pictures beginning with the letter sound.
• Accommodations:
• The teacher says the word for each picture with the students and isolates the beginning sound for them. The teacher repeats the sound multiple times to practice, asking students to repeat the sound.
• Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Center #1: Can You Hear It? & Pick a Vowel, Part 2: Pick a Vowel, page 302, students use the picture side of Sound Cards to sort them into two labeled categories - short /i/ or short /a/. 
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Center #5: Rainbow Letters Oo and Bean Bag Buckets i, a, o, Part 2: Bean Bag Buckets, i, a, and o Short Vowels, page 316, students sort Sound Cards containing short /a/, short /i/, and short /o/ into three containers labeled with the letters a, i, and o. 
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Center #3: Short Vowel Hope & Pick a Vowel, Part 1: Short Vowel Hop, students listen for sounds in words and hop to the letter that shows the short vowel sound they hear. The directions state, "A student says one of the letter names, and the other student shop on that letter. (Students take turns being the caller.) Students can do any of the following:
• Write the uppercase letter on the board (on a portable mini-white board), and students hop on its partner letter. 
• A student says a sound and students hop on that letter.
• A student chooses a Sound Card word that starts with or contains one of the letter sounds, and the other students hop on that letter." 
• Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.
• No evidence found. 

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

• No evidence found.

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for materials include frequent practice opportunities for students to decode words that consist of common and newly-taught sound and spelling patterns and provide opportunities for students to review previously taught phonics skills.

The materials include activities for teaching each sound or spelling pattern but lack direction on the frequency of instruction. It is unclear whether the centers that focus on these skills are meant to be conducted on a daily or weekly schedule. The materials serve as a “menu” of choices rather than an explicit list of which lessons should be practiced in order for students to meet mastery of decoding words.

Examples of opportunities for students to decode words include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The Express Readers I Am Ready materials contain a 5-day cycle. Starting on Days 11-15, a letter and sound is taught for five days. With the focus on a letter and sound each week, previously taught letters and sounds are not reviewed daily. There are some opportunities to review letters and sounds during activities or centers that require “Tap” or the Alphabet Checklist. The I Am Ready materials include a whole class activity of reading The Consonant Play Book for every set of days starting on Day 106; however, it is unclear whether this activity is done daily. There are two review weeks. Consonant review week is Days 106-110 and short vowel review week is Days 141-145. The Step 1 materials contain a 5-day cycle. For the first 50 days, all the letters and basic sounds are reviewed. For example, in Days 11-15, the following consonants are reviewed: qu, r, s, t. In Days 50-85, the focus is on CVC words. The Step 2 materials contain a 5-day cycle. The materials focus on different topics (blends, consonant digraphs, ng, nk, two-syllable words, and compound words), but the materials do not review the previously learned topics.
• During Step 1, there are a variety of activities that help students read and decode CVC words and short vowel sounds. Students complete collage activities, play games and find other words on the page, reading and decoding the words using grade level phonics. 
• In I Am Ready, Green Teacher Planner, Step 1, pages 3-5, 84-85, 196, and 264, the center layout illustrates the letter that is taught during each five-day cycle. Each cycle provides some phonics practice through reading The Consonant Play Book, practicing the letter/sound or skill for that week in centers, and completing practice pages using that sound/skill.
• In I Am Ready, Blue Teacher Planner, Steps 2 and Step 3, Review Days 136-140, page 201, at various centers, students use silly sentence strips with digraphs, read the short story “Dog is Lost”, make a flipbook, and complete practice pages related to digraphs.
• There are many decoding activities present throughout the materials starting on Day 111; however, it is unclear as to the frequency that the activities are to be used. For example: 
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, page 290 and Ready Pages page 171, students participate in the Buttons activity for bat and hat. Students put their finger on the first button and say /b/, press the next button and say /a/, press the last button and say /t/, and then slide their finger along the arrow to blend the sounds together. Students repeat the process for the word hat.
• There are three to four whole class lessons and five centers for each short vowel sound, but there is no direction as to if students do all the activities each day or one per day. There are no explicit directions telling teachers which activities students should do on which day. There is a selection of lessons and centers to complete over a range of days. 

Examples of review for previously taught grade level phonics skills include:

• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Scope and Sequence, Days 116 - 120, students begin to learn short vowel a sounds. In I Am Ready, Green Teacher Planner, Step 1, Days 21 - 25, students review short vowel a sounds. These are not daily review activities. These activities are in separate Teacher Planners. 
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Center # 1, Ending Sound Tap, page 250, students have their Alphabet Checklist and a “wand.” A student selects a sound card and states the picture aloud. All the students point to the letter they hear at the end of the word.
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Consonant Play Book Review, page 271, the teacher reads the first pages of The Consonant Play Book (up until the b pages), stops on the page about what letters are consonants and what letters are vowels. The teacher can either pre-decide a page or a letter to review due to need, take a vote on which letter to review, or read through the book thus far.

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for materials promote frequent opportunities for students to practice decoding phonetically regular words in a sentence.

While there are some opportunities for students to decode words phonetically within a sentence in center activities and practice books, the decoding opportunities are not regular or frequent. 

Examples of decoding opportunities in sentences include:

• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Practice Pages, pages 167-170, students read the a book that features short, repeated sentences with one-syllable short a words. Sentences include, “I see a can. I see a fan. I see a hat. I am sad. I see a cat. I see a bat.” There are books for each short vowel that follow a similar format with different short vowel target words.
• In Step 1, Green Teacher Planner, the author describes (TPG Ready, Set, Go, page 30-32) letter-sound activities for decoding, but the activities listed are not about decoding in sentences. In I Am Ready, Green Teacher Planner, Ready Set Go, pages 36-38, there are directions for activities, such as Add to the Picture, Sticky Word Practice, Draw a Picture, and Choose the Correct Sentence, in which students must read the sentences that are there and add to, draw, or select a picture that goes with the sentences. 
• In Step 1, Green Teacher Planner, Practice Pages, page 138, students read the sentences and pick the sentence that matches the given picture. These same activities continue in Steps 2 and 3.
• Step 1 Practice Pages sentences include: Pig sits on a mat. Pig is mad. Pig is sad.
• Steps 2 and 3 Practice Pages sentences include: Frog wins a sash for Best Frog. Frog has a sash for Big Frog. Frog has a dish.

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for materials include frequent practice opportunities for students to build/manipulate/spell and encode grade level phonics, including common and newly-taught sound and spelling patterns.

Materials include opportunities for students to build/manipulate, spell, and encode grade level CVC word phonics; however, materials do not consistently have students practice encoding words. The practice opportunities occur in the repetitive weekly centers during Silly Sentences. Silly Sentences do not start until Day 54 of the materials. There are seven practice pages in Step 1 of the I Am Ready Green Teacher Planner that address word encoding in isolation. The materials do not include protocols for teachers to model encoding. 

Limited opportunities for students to build/manipulate/spell and encode grade level phonics include:

• There are no activities for practicing encoding words in isolation in I Am Ready; therefore, there are no teacher directions for demonstrating how to build/manipulate/spell and encode. The Ready to Read! Teacher’s Guidebook, pages 9-13, provides directions for the I Am Ready Practice Pages, but none of the pages include directions for encoding.
• In I Am Ready, Yellow Teacher Planner, Center Activity: Buttons, page 303, students blend CVC words by touching each letter, saying the sound, and blending the sounds to make a word.
• In Step 1, Green Teacher Planner, Word Hop, page 241, students write the five vowels and five to ten consonants on index cards. Students lay the letters on the floor and hop to make CVC words

The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for materials provide opportunities for students to engage in decoding practice focused on accuracy and automaticity in K and Grade 1.

There are few opportunities in the materials for Kindergarten for students to engage in decoding practice. There are opportunities for students to read decodable books and sentences over multiple readings but these activities are not required daily. There is some practice of nonsense word fluency; however, while the students may read the books to themselves and others, there is not an expectation for attaining accuracy and automaticity. Students are asked to read with fluency in the readers, but the emphasis is on tone. There is no direct teacher instruction for showing students how to read fluently and check for decoding accuracy and automaticity.

Limited opportunities for students to engage in decoding practice focused on accuracy and automaticity include:

• In Yellow Teacher Planner, page 293, students have small books for each of the letter sounds. Students can practice reading the book to each other, but there are no references to accuracy and automaticity in any of the letter sound books. 
• The book is introduced in Days 141-145 of I Am Ready, page 346. The book is introduced as a center with adult involvement. The teacher reads the book to the students while they track with their fingers. There is no reference to accuracy and automaticity in this lesson. 
• On Days 161-165, the teacher introduces Pig Is Sad (page 376). The teacher and students read the book as a small group, “either switching off pages or reading together.” 
• In Yellow Teacher Planner, Dog Is Re-Reading, Word Count, and Coloring, page 373, students are able to reread a book that they had read the week before.
• In Steps Two and Three, Blue Teacher Planner, page 164 in the activity Read Aloud Practice, students read the book Dog and the Gift to a partner and then listen as their partner reads to them.