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Report Overview
Summary of Alignment & Usability: Fountas & Pinnell Classroom | ELA
ELA K-2
The materials for Fountas and Pinnell Classroom Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 do not meet the expectations for text quality and complexity and alignment to the standards. The program does not include complex texts and texts do not reflect the distribution of text types required by the standards. The majority of questions and tasks do not provide students with opportunities to utilize and apply evidence from the text during speaking and listening activities or writing. There is limited instruction for grammar and vocabulary called for by the standards.
In foundational skills, the materials use an analytic approach to teaching phonics. The program cites some general research; however, the program does not present a research-based or evidence-based explanation for the teaching of phonological skills or for the hierarchy in which the skills are presented. Additionally, while in Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, the program cites studies supporting explicit teaching of phonics skills, the program does not present a research-based or evidence-based explanation for the sequence of phonics. Materials contain phonological awareness lesson structures that provide teachers with the opportunity to explicitly teach phonological awareness. However, daily phonological awareness practice opportunities for students are not provided. For phonics instruction, the Fountas and Pinnell materials contain lessons which provide the teachers with instruction and repeated modeling. However, foundational skills lessons are recommended for 10 minutes a day, which may not provide sufficient time for students to receive daily explicit instruction to work towards mastery of foundational skills. Since Letter-Sound Relationships and Spelling Patterns lessons do not span the entire year, students do not have daily opportunities to practice decoding sounds and spelling patterns. Lessons provide limited opportunities for students to develop orthographic and phonological processing. Materials include a limited number of generative lessons to use for high frequency word instruction to be repeated by the teacher; however, the program does not specify an exact sequence of high-frequency word instruction. Materials do not include resources for frequent explicit, systematic instruction in fluency elements. Materials contain poems from Sing a Song of Poetry, for students to read during Shared Reading in lessons of the Nine Areas of Learning about Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study. Poems are suggested in each lesson, but the poems are not aligned to the program’s scope and sequence and do not consistently provide practice of the decodable element from the lesson. There are curriculum-based assessment protocols provided in the online resources, which are directly correlated to the nine areas of literacy instruction included in the program. However, there are missed opportunities for assessments to provide the teacher with instructional guidance about the next steps for all students.
Kindergarten
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
1st Grade
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
2nd Grade
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
ELA 3-5
The materials for Fountas and Pinnell Classroom Grades 3-5 do not meet the expectations for text quality and complexity and alignment to the standards. While the program includes suggestions for high quality texts, the recommendations only partially meet the expectations for text complexity and may not include regular interaction with complex, grade-level text. While some questions and tasks used throughout the program (including speaking and writing tasks) include some text-based options, the overwhelming number of optional tasks may limit student time on standards-aligned, grade-level texts, questions, and tasks. There is limited instruction for grammar and vocabulary called for by the standards.
Materials contain limited explicit instruction of phonics, word recognition, and word analysis consistently over the course of the year. Assessment opportunities are provided over the course of the year; however, assessments do not clearly inform instructional adjustments of phonics and word recognition to help students progress toward mastery, and many assessments are optional.
Materials contain explicit instructions for systematic and repeated teacher modeling of all grade-level phonics standards. However, materials recommend that foundational skills lessons occur for 10 minutes each day, which may not provide sufficient time for students to receive explicit instruction to work towards mastery of newly learned foundational skills. Lessons provide teachers with systematic and repeated instruction for students to hear, say, encode, and read each newly taught grade-level phonics pattern.
While some Guided Reading lessons include fluency, there is no guarantee that all students will have an opportunity to receive these lessons since they are not a part of core instruction. A fluency rubric is included, but there is not sufficient support for the use of the rubric, nor is there support for instructional adjustments to help students progress toward mastery of fluency. There is no evidence of students receiving instruction on using self-correction while reading.
3rd Grade
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Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
4th Grade
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
5th Grade
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
Report for Kindergarten
Alignment Summary
The materials for Fountas and Pinnell Classroom Kindergarten do not meet the expectations for alignment to the standards. The Interactive Read-Aloud texts in Kindergarten materials are high quality; however, the majority of Shared Reading texts are repetitive, predictable texts with minimal academic vocabulary and do not reflect the distribution of text types called for by the standards. When considering quantitative levels, qualitative levels, and associated tasks, there are few complex texts. Text-dependent questions and tasks provide limited support for students in making meaning of the core understandings of the text being studied. The lesson plan often lacks specific teacher action and strategies for requiring the students to engage with the text directly whether during speaking and listening activities or writing. There are ample opportunities for narrative and informational writing, but there was little evidence found of opinion writing or for process writing to include editing and revising. For most of the Shared and Interactive Writing sessions, the teacher completes the writing while students contribute ideas through discussion. The materials include limited explicit instruction in grammar standards and for authentic practice opportunities. The materials do not provide teacher guidance for outlining a cohesive year-long vocabulary development component.
In foundational skills, the materials use an analytic approach to teaching phonics. There are eight lessons with explicit instruction on print concepts. The program cites some general research; however, the program does not present a research-based or evidence-based explanation for the teaching of phonological skills or for the hierarchy in which the skills are presented. Materials include a Master Lesson Guide which explains the order phonics lessons should be taught. While in Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K cites studies supporting explicit teaching of phonics skills, the program does not present a research-based or evidence-based explanation for the sequence of phonics. Materials contain phonological awareness lesson structures that provide teachers with the opportunity to explicitly teach phonological awareness. However, daily phonological awareness practice opportunities for students are not provided. For phonics instruction, the Fountas and Pinnell materials contain lessons which provide the teachers with instruction and repeated modeling. However, foundational skills lessons are recommended for 10 minutes a day, which may not provide sufficient time for students to receive daily explicit instruction to work towards mastery of foundational skills. Since Letter-Sound Relationships and Spelling Patterns lessons do not span the entire year, students do not have daily opportunities to practice decoding sounds and spelling patterns. Lessons provide limited opportunities for students to develop orthographic and phonological processing. Materials include seven High-Frequency Word Lessons. Since all seven lessons are generative lessons, the materials suggest the teacher repeat the lesson several times. Materials contain poems from Sing a Song of Poetry, Grade K for students to read during Shared Reading in lessons of the Nine Areas of Learning about Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study. Poems are suggested in each lesson, but the poems are not aligned to the program’s scope and sequence and do not consistently provide practice of the decodable element from the lesson. There are curriculum-based assessment protocols provided in the online resources, which are directly correlated to the nine areas of literacy instruction included in the program. However, there are missed opportunities for assessments to provide the teacher with instructional guidance about the next steps for all students.
Kindergarten
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Usability (Gateway 3)
Overview of Gateway 1
Text Quality & Complexity and Alignment to the Standards with Tasks and Questions Grounded in Evidence
The materials for Fountas and Pinnell Classroom Kindergarten do not meet the expectations for Gateway 1. The Interactive Read-Aloud texts in Kindergarten materials are high quality; however, the majority of Shared Reading texts are repetitive, predictable texts with minimal academic vocabulary. The Shared Reading texts reflect a 50-50 balance of informational and literary texts for the year-long plan. However, the Interactive Read-Aloud selections do not reflect a 50-50 balance of informational and literary texts over the course of a school year. When considering quantitative levels, qualitative levels, and associated tasks, Kindergarten texts are mostly accessible or moderate levels. There are few complex texts. There is little variance in overall complexity throughout the year.
The text-based discussion questions come from the sections of the lesson plans Within the Text, Beyond the Text, About the Text. The majority of questions rarely involve the setting or character analysis, and instead, the focus is often a retelling of the sequence of events and character feelings. The questions rarely require readers to produce evidence from texts to support opinions or statements. The instructional materials provide some opportunities and behavioral protocols for students to engage in speaking and listening activities; however, materials do not provide strong protocols for a variety of evidence-based speaking and listening opportunities across the whole year’s scope of instructional materials. Students have opportunities to reflect on their reading through speaking and listening opportunities; however, many speaking and listening opportunities do not require students to utilize, apply, and incorporate evidence from texts and/or sources.
Materials do not provide opportunities for students to learn and apply skills needed for process writing, such as editing and revising. The on-demand writing opportunities are often not standards-aligned or dependent on the texts students listen to during the Read-Aloud and Shared Reading lesson. There are ample opportunities for narrative and informational writing, but there was little evidence found of opinion writing. In addition, students do not have many opportunities to practice Independent Writing in Kindergarten. Students have opportunities across the school year to practice writing, but lack opportunities to learn and apply writing using evidence from the text(s).
The materials include limited explicit instruction in grammar standards. There was no evidence for the explicit instruction in teacher materials for multiple standards. The materials do not provide teacher guidance for outlining a cohesive year-long vocabulary development component. At the Kindergarten level, the Fountas and Pinnell materials place importance on the vocabulary “behaviors and understandings to notice, teach, and support” for students to “recognize and use concept words, e.g. color names, number words, days of the week, months of the year, seasons”.
There are eight lessons with explicit instruction on print concepts, which are in the Early Learning Concepts and Letter Knowledge lessons. The program cites some general research; however, the program does not present a research-based or evidence-based explanation for the teaching of phonological skills or for the hierarchy in which the skills are presented. Although there are a variety of practice activities, there are only 26 phonological awareness lessons. Daily phonological awareness practice opportunities for students are not provided. Materials include a Master Lesson Guide which explains the order phonics lessons should be taught. While in Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K cites studies supporting explicit teaching of phonics skills, the program does not present a research-based or evidence-based explanation for the sequence of phonics. For phonics instruction, the Fountas and Pinnell materials contain lessons which provide the teachers with instruction and repeated modeling. However, foundational skills lessons are recommended for 10 minutes a day, which may not provide sufficient time for students to receive daily explicit instruction to work towards mastery of foundational skills. Since Letter-Sound Relationships and Spelling Patterns lessons do not span the entire year, students do not have daily opportunities to practice decoding sounds and spelling patterns. Lessons provide limited opportunities for students to develop orthographic and phonological processing. The materials contain some opportunities for students to engage in decoding practice during Teach and Apply. Materials include seven High-Frequency Word Lessons. Since all seven lessons are generative lessons, the materials suggest the teacher repeat the lesson several times. The teacher selects which words to teach from either the 25 High-Frequency Words List or 50 High-Frequency Words List. The program does not specify an exact sequence of instruction or exactly how many high-frequency words should be mastered at any specific point over the Kindergarten year. Materials contain poems from Sing a Song of Poetry, Grade K for students to read during Shared Reading in lessons of the Nine Areas of Learning about Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study. Poems are suggested in each lesson, but the poems are not aligned to the program’s scope and sequence and do not consistently provide practice of the decodable element from the lesson. There are curriculum-based assessment protocols provided in the online resources, which are directly correlated to the nine areas of literacy instruction included in the program. However, there are missed opportunities for assessments to provide the teacher with instructional guidance about the next steps for all students.
Gateway 1
v1.5
Criterion 1.1: Text Quality and Complexity
Texts are worthy of students’ time and attention: texts are of quality and are rigorous, meeting the text complexity criteria for each grade. Materials support students’ advancing toward independent reading.
The materials for Fountas and Pinnell Classroom Kindergarten do not meet the expectations for Gateway 1. The Interactive Read-Aloud texts in Kindergarten materials are high quality; however, the majority of Shared Reading texts are repetitive, predictable texts with minimal academic vocabulary. The Shared Reading texts reflect a 50-50 balance of informational and literary texts for the year-long plan. However, the Interactive Read-Aloud selections do not reflect a 50-50 balance of informational and literary texts over the course of a school year. When considering quantitative levels, qualitative levels, and associated tasks, Kindergarten texts are mostly accessible or moderate levels. There are few complex texts. There is little variance in overall complexity throughout the year.
Indicator 1A
Anchor texts are of high quality, worthy of careful reading, and consider a range of student interests. *This does not include decodables. Those are identified in Criterion 3.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meets the criteria of Indicator 1a.
The Interactive Read-Aloud texts in Kindergarten materials are high quality; however, the majority of Shared Reading texts are repetitive, predictable texts with minimal academic vocabulary. Most texts are engaging, colorful, and have relatable characters or topics. Many Interactive Read-Aloud books are published works by well-known authors.
Some anchor texts are of high-quality and consider a range of student interests, are well-crafted, content rich, and engage students at their grade level. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:
The Interactive Read-Aloud texts, Baa Baa Black Sheep and I’m a Little Teapot as told and illustrated by Iza Trapani, provide students with opportunities to sing along to classic nursery rhymes. The stories are familiar to the students since these are some of the first words children see and speak.
The Interactive Read-Aloud text Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes, a well-known children’s author, includes colorful illustrations, a relatable character, and a high interest topic.
The Interactive Read-Aloud text, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems, is a humorous story with silly animal characters by a well-known children’s author. The story contains simple language and dialogue with speech bubbles. This story emphasizes the characters’ personalities and emotions.
Some anchor texts are not of high-quality. Examples of Shared Reading texts that are not high-quality include:
The Shared Reading text, The Itsy Bitsy Spider adapted by Helen Lorraine, exposes the students to a simple, humorous story. There are some rhyming words, but it is not a source of academic vocabulary.
The Shared Reading text, In My Bag by Amy Frank, is realistic fiction with a repetitive, patterned structure. This text contains few academic vocabulary words and a simple plot.
The Shared Reading nonfiction text, Stars by Catherine Friend, contains colorful photographs of star-shaped real objects. This text is a patterned reader and contains no academic vocabulary or text features.
The Shared Reading nonfiction text, A Rainbow of Fruit by Brooke Matthews, is a repetitive patterned book about colors. The text contains limited academic vocabulary such as color and fruit names.
Indicator 1B
Materials reflect the distribution of text types and genres required by the standards at each grade level. *This does not include decodable. Those are identified in Criterion 3.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria of Indicator 1b.
The Shared Reading texts reflect a 50-50 balance of informational and literary texts for the year-long plan. However, the Interactive Read-Aloud selections do not reflect a 50-50 balance of informational and literary texts over the course of a school year. The Kindergarten, 8-Week Instructional Plan, available on the digital platform, provides a suggested order of text presentation, but it does not match the suggested order of texts listed in the System Guide. The Interactive Read-Aloud and Shared Reading materials reflect a variety of text types and genres.
Materials reflect the distribution of text types/genres required by the grade level standards. For example:
The Interactive Read-Aloud, It’s Raining, It’s Pouring by Kin Eagle, is a nursery rhyme.
The Interactive Read Aloud text, Houses and Homes by Ann Morris, is a nonfiction text.
The Interactive Read Aloud text, Ruby the Copycat by Peggy Rathmann, is a fiction text.
The Interactive Read Aloud text, Lola at the Library by Anna McQuinn, is a realistic fiction text.
The Interactive Read-Aloud text, Float by Daniel Miyares, is a Wordless book.
The Shared Reading text, Coco Steps Out by Lionel Page, is an Animal Fantasy.
The Shared Reading text, Goldy retold by Athena Tsatsaronis, is a fairy tale.
The Shared Reading text, City ABCs by Finnoula Louise, is an ABC book.
The Shared Reading text, Ten in the Bed, is a song.
“Three Blind Mice” is a shared poem from the collection Sing a Song of Poetry.
Materials do not reflect a 50/50 balance of informational and literary texts. For example:
The Interactive Read-Aloud plan includes 85% literary texts and 15% informational texts. There are 17 informational texts out of 120 Interactive Read-Aloud books.
The Shared Reading plan includes 52% literary texts and 48% informational texts. There are also three hybrid texts that blend features of literary and informational text. The texts are evenly balanced between informational and literary reading.
Indicator 1C
Core/Anchor texts have the appropriate level of complexity for the grade according to documented quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis, and relationship to their associated student task. Documentation should also include a rationale for educational purpose and placement in the grade level.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten do not meet the criteria of Indicator 1c.
Materials include their own leveling system, but the levels are not included on the texts or lesson plans. The materials do not contain a formal rationale or analysis for each book; however, the Interactive Read-Aloud and Shared Reading Lesson Folders include a qualitative rationale for each book in a section titled About This Book, but it does not include a quantitative text complexity. The section includes the genre focus, how the book works, and important characteristics to notice or important text characteristics. The section does give additional information about the text characteristics, but does not provide text analysis.
There are no formal qualitative rubrics present in the materials. There is no explanation of how the texts are associated with student tasks and no rationale for the purpose or placement of the texts at this grade level. Although not explicitly stated on the Interactive-Read Aloud cards, the materials direct teachers to refer to the Fountas & Pinnell Literacy Continuum to select appropriate learning goals for students.
When considering quantitative levels, qualitative levels, and associated tasks, Kindergarten texts are mostly accessible or moderate levels. There are few complex texts. Most tasks, even for more complex texts, are of low or moderate complexity.
Most texts do not have the appropriate level of complexity for the grade according to quantitative and qualitative analysis and relationship to their associated student task. For example:
The Interactive Read-Aloud text, Ruby the Copycat by Peggy Rathman, has a Lexile of 500L. The qualitative rating is high due to text-heavy pages and high- interest vocabulary words. The associated task is rated as medium and includes a shared writing activity in which the class completes a timeline of important events from the story. The overall text complexity rating is complex.
The Interactive Read-Aloud text, I’m the Best by Lucy Cousins, has a Lexile of 210L. The qualitative rating is low due to short sentences, simple vocabulary, and repetition. The associated task is rated as moderate. Students participate in shared writing, listing special talents or qualities of the characters using a sentence frame. The overall text complexity rating is accessible.
The Shared Reading text, In the Arctic by Tess Fletcher, does not have a recorded Lexile. The qualitative rating is moderate. The associated task is rated low and includes a shared writing activity, using low-level knowledge-based opinions. The overall text complexity rating is accessible.
The Shared Reading text, A Rainbow of Fruit, by Brooke Matthews does not have a recorded Lexile level. The qualitative rating is low due to repeated phrases and a consistent layout of text across the pages. The associated task is rated low. It is an interactive writing activity in which the class creates a grid that lists the different colors in the book and how they match the objects and fruit. The overall text complexity rating is accessible.
Anchor/Core texts and series of texts connected to them are not accompanied by an accurate text complexity analysis and a rationale for educational purpose and placement in the grade level. For example:
The Interactive Read-Aloud and Shared Reading lesson folders contain a section titled About This Book. The section includes the genre focus, how the book works, and important characteristics to notice or important text characteristics. The section does give additional information about the text characteristics, but does not provide text analysis. There are no formal qualitative rubrics present in the materials. Quantitative levels are not discussed or included in the lesson plans. However, the lesson plans do include some information about why texts were chosen.
The Interactive Read-Aloud text, Jessica by Kevin Henkes, is a realistic fiction story. According to the lesson plan, the text was chosen because of the simple vocabulary and repetition.
The Shared Reading text,The Dog Park by Jackson Pace, is a nonfiction text. According to the lesson plan, the text was chosen because of repetitive language, a single topic, and words with opposite meanings.
The Shared Reading text, The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly adapted by Vivian Malone, is a humorous literary text. According to the lesson plan, this text was chosen for its use of comical, progressive content, use of contractions, and vivid verbs.
Indicator 1D
Series of texts should be at a variety of complexity levels appropriate for the grade band to support students’ literacy growth over the course of the school year.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten do not meet the criteria of Indicator 1d.
The texts included in the materials do not increase in complexity as the academic year progresses and associated tasks over the course of the year do not support students’ literacy growth. The complexity of the anchor texts in the Interactive Read-Aloud and Shared Reading do not consistently provide opportunities for student growth in literacy skills throughout the year. Outside of rereading the text, materials do not include more complex scaffolds to support reading development. There is little variance in overall complexity throughout the year.
The complexity of anchor texts students read do not fully provide an opportunity for students’ literacy skills to increase across the year, encompassing an entire year’s worth of growth. For example:
The texts provided in Months 1-2 range from ADL to 210L. The qualitative complexity ranges from low to high complexity. Associated tasks are low to moderate tasks. The overall text complexity rating for the beginning of the year includes an even distribution of accessible or moderately complex texts. Some texts include:
The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly by Vivian Malone does not have a Lexile level, but has a low qualitative complexity. The associated task is also low complexity and the overall text complexity is accessible.
I’m the Best By Lucy Cousins has a Lexile level of 210L. The associated task is of moderate complexity and the overall text complexity is accessible.
The Orange Butterfly: A Story in Pictures by Margie Sigman does not have a lexile level, but has a low qualitative complexity. The associated task is also low complexity and the overall text complexity is accessible.
The texts provided in Months 3-4 texts range in Lexile level from AD460L-210L. The qualitative complexities range from low to high with most texts being low or moderate. Associated tasks are all low or moderate tasks. Overall, all Months 3-4 texts are accessible or moderately complex with most being accessible. Some texts include:
Flower Garden by Eve Bunting has a Lexile level of AD460L and has a moderate qualitative complexity. The associated task is low complexity and the overall text complexity is accessible.
The Sleepover by Judith E. Nayer does not have a Lexile level, but has a low qualitative complexity. The associated task is also low complexity and the overall text complexity is accessible.
Country ABCs by Finnoula Louise does not have a Lexile level with a low qualitative complexity and task. The overall text complexity is accessible.
The texts provided in Months 5-6 range from AD480L-890L. The qualitative complexity ranges from low to high, with most texts being in the moderate to high range. Associated tasks range from low to moderate tasks. The overall text complexity rating for the middle of the year includes a range of accessible or moderately complex texts, but most of the texts are considered moderate. Some texts include:
Max Found Two Sticks by Brian Pinkney has a Lexile level of AD690L and has a moderate qualitative complexity. The associated task is also of moderate complexity and the text is overall moderately complex.
The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton has a Lexile level of AD610 and a high qualitative complexity. The associated task is of moderate complexity and the overall text complexity is moderately complex.
Kate’s Party by Jane Simon does not have a Lexile level, but has a high qualitative complexity. The associated task is low complexity and the overall text complexity is moderately complex.
The texts provided in Months 7-8 range from AD280L-740L. The qualitative complexity is moderate. Associated tasks range from low to medium complexity. The overall text complexity range for the end of the year is accessible to complex, but most of the texts are accessible. Some texts include:
Ruby the Copycat by Peggy Rathman has a Lexile level of 500L and has a high qualitative complexity. The associated task is medium complexity and the overall text complexity is complex.
The Dog Park by Jackson Pace is a Shared Reading text with no Lexile level and has a low level of qualitative complexity. The associated task is low complexity and the overall complexity is accessible.
The texts provided in Months 9-10 range from AD510L-600L. The qualitative complexity ratings show an equal distribution of texts between low and high complexity. Associated tasks are all low, moderate, or medium complexity tasks. The overall text complexity for the end of the school year is accessible or moderate with a few complex texts. Some texts include:
Kite Flying by Grace Lin has a Lexile level of 280L and has a medium qualitative complexity. The associated task is also low complexity and the overall text complexity is accessible.
A Rainbow of Fruit by Brooke Matthews does not have a Lexile level, but has a low qualitative complexity. The associated task is also low and the overall text complexity is accessible.
As texts become more complex, appropriate scaffolds and/or materials are not provided in the Teacher Edition (i.e., spending more time on texts, more questions, repeated readings). For example:
The associated tasks for Interactive Read-Aloud texts range from low to high complexity. As the tasks become more complex, the teacher is not provided with more advanced scaffolding to support the students. For each reading, the teacher is encouraged to revisit the text “on the same day or subsequent days.” This directive does not change from when the level of complexity changes from text to text.
The overall complexity of texts range from accessible to moderate, with very few complex texts being introduced at the end of the year. Complex texts are not included in Shared Reading. Since the texts do not become more complex, the teacher is not provided with lessons that include more advanced scaffolds.
Indicator 1E
Materials provide opportunities for students to engage in a range and volume of reading to support their reading at grade level by the end of the school year, including accountability structures for independent reading.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the expectations of Indicator 1e.
Materials include opportunities for students to engage in reading various types of texts throughout the literacy block, including Guided Reading, Interactive Read-Aloud, Shared Reading, Independent Reading, and Book Clubs. Students participate daily in the Interactive Read-Aloud for fifteen minutes and Shared Reading for ten minutes. The proposed time schedule allots an additional hour of rotating learning centers, where based on teacher selection, a student might participate in a Guided Reading Group, Book Clubs, and/or Independent Reading time. Depending on the Continuum, teachers select suggested texts for the students to read. The students may be exposed to three to five books per week. The guidance for teachers does not specify the texts or the order in which the books should be presented for student reading.
Instructional materials provide some opportunities and support for students to engage in reading and listening to a variety of texts. For example:
The Interactive Read-Aloud text sets include four to six texts that the teacher reads. The whole class discusses the content and completes the associated tasks. There are 25 text sets for Kindergarten with a total of 120 books, including both fiction and nonfiction genres.
Shared Reading is a component of whole group instruction. The teacher reads the text the first day and gradually releases the reading to the students, on a five-day rotation. There are 65 Shared Reading texts provided, made up of both fiction and nonfiction genres, as well as a book of poetry charts.
Guided Reading is small group instruction that takes place five days a week for 60 minutes. Students read challenging texts at their instructional reading level with teacher guidance and prompting. There are 200 Guided Reading books (F&P Levels, A-H) with six copies each and 200 corresponding lessons.
In the example lesson plans that are available on the digital platform, Kindergarten, Day 37, the whole class participates in reading and listening to the Interactive Read-Aloud text Yo! Yes! by Chris Raschka. Students listen to and read this story from a text set about friendship. The whole class then reads the Shared Reading text Not Quite Right by Helen Lorraine. They also discuss the poem “Two Little Blackbirds”. During the Guided Reading time, the teacher instructs small groups, but the number of students receiving this instruction is not specified. Some students participate in the Book Club using the text A Bedtime for Bear by Bonnie Becker, and the other students are doing Independent Reading work, which is specified as student choice.
Instructional materials provide some opportunities and support for students to engage in a volume of reading. For example:
The Interactive Read-Aloud sessions take place for 15 minutes each day. The collection of texts includes 120 titles organized into 25 text sets.
The Shared Reading sessions are scheduled for ten minutes each day. There are 65 titles and a collection of 100 poems.
The Guided Reading sessions occur daily for small groups. Each group works with the teacher for 20 minutes. There are 200 leveled texts in the collection.
The students that are not a part of the Guided Reading sessions participate in Independent Reading or Book Club.
The Independent Reading Collection Guide suggests giving students options to read texts from the classroom library. The collection includes 150 Independent Reading Collection books, small versions of Big Books, and Interactive Read-Aloud titles.
The Book Club Collection Guide suggests that students read one book per month. The students choose a text from a set of four books that correlate to the Interactive Read-Aloud text sets. They complete the suggested Before and During Reading activities. When they finish the book, the program suggests that students participate in a 15 minute discussion and complete the After Reading activities when they finish reading the book. There are 32 books in the collection that are organized into eight text sets.
There is limited teacher guidance to foster independence for all readers. (e.g., proposed schedule, tracking system for independent reading, independent reading procedures are included in the lessons.) For example:
A Weekly Lesson Plan form is available on the digital platform for the teacher to record titles of books read and any notes including student observations during the lessons.
There are two plans for Kindergarten. Teachers may select the plan for full-day Kindergarten and teach Guided Reading five days a week for 60 minutes. A teacher may also select the plan for half-day Kindergarten and teach Guided Reading five days a week for 30 minutes. Both plans include instructional content for the whole class, such as: Group Meeting, Interactive Read-Aloud, Shared Reading, Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study, Reading Mini-lessons, and Small Group Instruction. Some independent work and learning centers take place while the Small Groups are being instructed by the teacher.
Independent reading is part of the Independent Literacy Work block and is supported through lessons ranging from how to choose an appropriate book to brief accountability conferences. A tracking form is provided and students are encouraged to choose texts from the provided library. Students read environmental print, posters, charts, as well as previously read Guided Reading texts, Big Books, and Read-Aloud texts during this time.
A Guided Reading Record Keeping Form is available on the digital platform for the teacher to record observations and anecdotal notes about student performance, levels of reading, and book titles.
Criterion 1.2: Tasks and Questions
Materials provide opportunities for rich and rigorous evidence-based discussions and writing about texts to build strong literacy skills.
The text-based discussion questions come from the sections of the lesson plans Within the Text, Beyond the Text, About the Text. The majority of questions rarely involve the setting or character analysis, and instead, the focus is often a retelling of the sequence of events and character feelings. The questions rarely require readers to produce evidence from texts to support opinions or statements. The instructional materials provide some opportunities and behavioral protocols for students to engage in speaking and listening activities; however, materials do not provide strong protocols for a variety of evidence-based speaking and listening opportunities across the whole year’s scope of instructional materials. Students have opportunities to reflect on their reading through speaking and listening opportunities; however, many speaking and listening opportunities do not require students to utilize, apply, and incorporate evidence from texts and/or sources.
Materials do not provide opportunities for students to learn and apply skills needed for process writing, such as editing and revising. The on-demand writing opportunities are often not standards-aligned or dependent on the texts students listen to during the Read-Aloud and Shared Reading lesson. There are ample opportunities for narrative and informational writing, but there was little evidence found of opinion writing. In addition, students do not have many opportunities to practice Independent Writing in Kindergarten. Students have opportunities across the school year to practice writing, but lack opportunities to learn and apply writing using evidence from the text(s).
The materials include limited explicit instruction in grammar standards. There was no evidence for the explicit instruction in teacher materials for multiple standards. The materials do not provide teacher guidance for outlining a cohesive year-long vocabulary development component. At the Kindergarten level, the Fountas and Pinnell materials place importance on the vocabulary “behaviors and understandings to notice, teach, and support” for students to “recognize and use concept words, e.g. color names, number words, days of the week, months of the year, seasons”.
Indicator 1F
Most questions, tasks, and assignments are text-specific and/or text-dependent, requiring students to engage with the text directly (drawing on textual evidence to support both what is explicit as well as valid inferences from the text).
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria of Indicator 1f.
The text-based discussion questions come from the sections of the lesson plans Within the Text, Beyond the Text, About the Text. The majority of questions rarely involve the setting or character analysis, and instead, the focus is often a retelling of the sequence of events and character feelings. The questions rarely require readers to produce evidence from texts to support opinions or statements. The teacher materials provide some support for teachers about when to ask the questions such as before, during, after reading, or after a rereading. The suggestions are often repeated and not text specific, including directing students to discuss in pairs or threes or to engage in a turn and talk. The lesson plan often lacks specific teacher action and strategies for requiring the students to engage with the text directly.
Text-specific and text-dependent questions and tasks provide limited support for students in making meaning of the core understandings of the text being studied. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:
After listening to the Interactive Read-Aloud text, Dog’s Colorful Day by Emma Dodd, the students answer the questions, “What things does Dog do that causes him to get colored spots?” and “How do Dog’s spots get cleaned off?”.
After listening to the Interactive Read-Aloud text, Mouse Was Mad by Linda Urban, the students answer the questions, “How do Mouse’s feelings change from the beginning to the end of the story?” and “What different things does Mouse do when he’s mad?”
After listening to the Interactive Read-Aloud text, The Magic Fish by Freya Littledale, students answer the questions, “The fisherman keeps going back to the magic fish. Why does he do this?” and “How does the magic fish punish the fisherman’s wife for being greedy?”
After listening to the Interactive Read-Aloud text, The Ugly Vegetable by Grace Lin, students answer the questions, “Look at all the gardens. How is the girl’s family’s garden different from the others? What does the girl think of it?” and “What does the girl learn by eating the soup made from the ugly vegetables?
In Shared Reading, students listen to and read the text, The Big Race by David Edwin. The lesson plan includes the questions, “Is it a good idea for Rabbit to stop and rest?” and “Did Turtle or Rabbit learn a lesson? What was the lesson? Do you agree?”
Teacher materials provide limited support for planning and implementation of text-based questions and tasks. For example:
During the reading of the Interactive Read-Aloud text, The Bus for Us by Suzanne Bloom, the teacher asks “What vehicles do Tess and Gus see before their bus arrives?” and “How are you able to guess what vehicle is coming next?” The lesson plan provides example answers and responses.
During the reading of the Interactive Read-Aloud text, On Market Street by Arnold Lobel, the teacher notes suggest that the teacher should “Stop a few times to invite thinking and a brief conversation. Children may turn and talk in pairs or threes.” While some stopping points and quick comments are suggested in the plan, there is not a list of potential student responses to help the teacher develop questions that require further analysis of the text.
After listening to the Interactive Read-Aloud text, Snowballs by Lois Ehlert, the teacher asks the questions “What happens in this story?” and “Why do you think the people in this story make snow people?” The lesson plan provides sample responses based on the text.
After listening to and reading the Shared Reading text Slip and Slide by Amanda Yskamp, the teacher asks “What did you learn about sliding?”. The lesson plan provides eight sample responses based on the text.
In the Shared Reading, students listen to and read The Right Tools by Ingrid Jacobsen. The lesson plan includes teacher notes, “Page 16: (after reading) What a beautiful sand castle! How do these kids feel about what they have made?”
Indicator 1G
Materials provide frequent opportunities and protocols for evidence-based discussions.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria of Indicator 1g.
The instructional materials provide some opportunities and behavioral protocols for students to engage in speaking and listening activities; however, materials do not provide strong protocols for a variety of evidence-based speaking and listening opportunities across the whole year’s scope of instructional materials.The protocols are generalized for all discussions, with no guidance for growth as the year progresses. Most of the lessons do not contain samples or rubrics for discussions and do not include teacher modeling. There is minimal teacher guidance for facilitating and monitoring speaking and listening activities. Some tasks contain instructions for speaking and listening in smaller groups, but tasks are an optional choice list, so not all students will receive the same opportunities.
Materials provide limited protocols for evidence-based discussions across the whole year’s scope of instructional materials. For example:
The Fountas and Pinnell Literacy Continuum Grades PreK-8 briefly mentions that teachers should discuss books as a whole class, use turn and talk, and use small-group discussions. Teachers are instructed to consult a separate text for detailed guidance: Teaching for Comprehension and Fluency: Thinking, Talking, and Writing About Reading, K-8 by Fountas and Pinnell.
The Fountas and Pinnell Literacy Continuum Grades PreK-8 contains a section on Interactive Read-Aloud and Literature Discussions. This section gives some information about class discussions, although the teacher guidance for discussions is general. Additionally, the class discussions do not contain a specific protocol for teachers to follow. Materials state: “We use the terms intentional conversation to describe the instructional moves you make during the conversation surrounding books in interactive read-aloud or in small group literature discussion. Your first goals when reading aloud to your students and engaging them in small-group discussions are to engage their interest and intellect, to make the occasion enjoyable, and to guide them in active conversation.” Materials also state, “the teacher asks students to share their thinking in a focused way and keeps the conversation grounded in the text.” .
The Fountas and Pinnell Grade K System Guide includes Five Keys to Thoughtful Talk. “1. Help children understand that reading is thinking and that when they talk, they share their thinking. 2. Teach children to turn and talk effectively with each other. 3. Give children wait time and guide them to give others wait time as well. 4. Demonstrate the use of language that forsters participation, respect for others’ thinking, and promotes building on the ideas of others. 5. Set the norm that everyone listens attentively and respectfully to each other.” These are general guidelines and the Interactive Read-Aloud and Shared Reading lessons do not include a detailed protocol to achieve these Five Keys to Thoughtful Talk.
The lesson plans for the Interactive Read-Aloud discussions do not contain text-specific protocols beyond “Stop a few times to invite thinking and a brief conversation. Children may turn and talk in pairs or threes.” and “Invite children to talk about the book.” There are suggested comments and questions listed. It is assumed that discussions are conducted with the whole group since Interactive Read-Aloud is a whole group activity.
The lesson plans for Shared Reading do not contain protocols to support speaking and listening. Under the Discussion section of the lesson plan, it is stated “Invite children to talk about the book.” Some questions and prompts are suggested.
The Reading Minilessons Book provides some general anchor charts for students on how to engage in respectful conversations. For example:
In Reading Minilesson MGT.U1. RML 1, the teacher makes an anchor chart about using the appropriate voice level. The chart includes a 0-3 level with information about silent, soft, normal, and loud voices.
In Reading Minilesson LA.U4. RML 5, the teacher makes an anchor chart for students to engage in Book Clubs. The guidance includes:
What are you thinking?
What did you notice?
What surprised you?
What can you add to that idea?
What do you think about the illustrations?
Speaking and listening instruction includes limited facilitation, monitoring, and instructional support for teachers. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:
The teacher and students read five nursery rhymes in the Interactive Read-Aloud text set “Sharing Stories and Songs: Nursery Rhymes”. The teacher focuses the students’ attention on the Essential Question, “Why are traditional rhymes, songs, and stories important to people? In the Suggested Projects for Exploration, the students can Talk to Family Members and “ask older family members and friends about nursery rhymes they know or remember from childhood.” While this activity gives the students the opportunity to practice speaking and listening, there isn’t an opportunity to share what they learned with the class. There are no other teacher directions or criteria for evaluating this project.
The teacher and students read the Interactive Read-Aloud text Three Hens and a Peacock by Lester L. Laminack. The directions for Introducing the Text remind the teacher to “Make the introduction and reading interactive, allowing time for children to respond between questions.” Some of the questions the students answer before reading the text are “Who knows what a peacock is?”, “What is a hen?”, and “Do these birds look alike in any way?” There are no sample responses to guide the teacher when prompting or evaluating the students’ answers. In The Read the Text section, the students are encouraged to use the turn-and-talk protocol in pairs or groups of three to respond to questions like “After pages 9-10: The hens are upset about the peacock. Why are they unhappy?” and “After page 17: The cars don’t stop for the hens. Why don’t they stop?” There are no possible student responses listed to help the teacher guide the student responses.
At the end of the year, it is suggested that the teacher and students read the Shared Reading text The Enormous Potato by Aubrey Davis. During the Discuss the Text the teacher is provided with “prompts to engage thinking.” There are both prompts and possible answers listed. One question the students are asked while reading the text is, “Who helped the farmer pull the potato out of the ground?” The possible answer that is provided for the teacher to use to guide the discussion is “The farmer’s wife, his daughter, a dog, a cat, and a mouse helped the farmer.” When discussing the text after reading it the teacher can ask “What do you think are the lessons of this story?” The possible answer that is provided for the teacher to use to guide the discussion is “Things work best when we work together. It is good to share with others. Even the smallest person can make a difference.”
Indicator 1H
Materials support students' listening and speaking about what they are reading (or read aloud) and researching (shared projects) with relevant follow-up questions and support.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria of Indicator 1h.
Students have opportunities to reflect on their reading through speaking and listening opportunities; however, many speaking and listening opportunities do not require students to utilize, apply, and incorporate evidence from texts and/or sources. Students participate in daily whole group discussions of texts or turn and talk to a partner, but the speaking and listening opportunities are not varied over the course of the year.
Students have limited opportunities over the school year to demonstrate what they are reading through varied speaking and listening opportunities. The majority of discussions occur either in a whole group or a turn and talk. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:
In Months 1-2, the teacher reads the Interactive Read-Aloud text, I Love You All Day Long by Francesca Rusackas. Students participate in a teacher-prompted whole class discussion at different times during the reading process. The students practice speaking and listening as they respond to general comprehension questions about the story.
In Months 9-10, the teacher reads the Interactive Read-Aloud text, Hattie and the Fox by Mem Fox. Then the students read and participate in a discussion about the book. This can be in a turn and talk format or a whole group discussion. The lesson plan provides suggested questions for the text that are text-specific. After the book is read a couple of times, students have the option of creating paper-bag puppets of the characters then using the puppets to reenact the story.
At the beginning of the year, it is suggested that the teacher reads and the students listen to the Shared Reading text Spin, Spin, Spin by Alina Kirk. Then the students participate in a whole group discussion of the text with the teacher’s guidance. The class revisits the text over the next few days and groups of students take turns reading parts of the story and making hand movements. Some students can volunteer to individually read a page of the book.
In the middle of the year, it is suggested that the teacher and students read the Shared Reading text The Itsy Bitsy Spider adapted by Helen Lorraine. The students participate in a whole group discussion of the text. The class revisits the text over the next few days and students are invited to read the familiar verse on pages 2-5 and 14-15 with the teacher. During Independent Reading, students can listen to the story at the listening center, clapping the rhythm as they follow along in the small book version, reread the big book with a partner using a pointer, or join a small group to read or sing it in unison.
Some speaking and listening work requires students to utilize, apply, and incorporate evidence from texts and/or sources. For example:
After the teacher reads the Interactive Read-Aloud text, A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker, the students respond with new words they learned from the story. Possible answers on the lesson card include vamoose, begone, and blubbered. Students explain the ways that they guessed what the new words meant. They also provide responses showing how the new words made the story fun to read. Students may not produce the given words and may not incorporate evidence from the text in their answer.
After listening to the teacher read the Interactive Read-Aloud text, Two Homes by Claire Masurel, the teacher guides a student discussion. The teacher helps the students make connections. Students contribute to a poster by expressing what they believe to be the main message of the book and illustrating their ideas.
The teacher and students read about a fair in the Shared Reading text, Miss Mary Mack by Susannah Franco. After reading the text, the students discuss the questions “What happens when she gets there [to the fair]?” They use some evidence to show that Miss Mary Mack asked her mother for money to see the elephant jump over the fence. The students then answer the questions “Have you ever been to a fair or circus?” and “What did you like best about it?” These questions do not require students to recall information from the text to answer.
The teacher and students read the Shared Reading text, Not Quite Right by Helen Lorraine. The teacher asks students to talk about why having friends is important and what special things they enjoy doing with their friends. Students are also asked why Carly thinks her playhouse is “just right” at the end of the story. Students are not asked to provide evidence from the text to support their opinions or ideas.
Indicator 1I
Materials include a mix of on-demand and process, grade-appropriate writing (e.g., grade-appropriate revision and editing) and short, focused projects, incorporating digital resources where appropriate.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten do not meet the criteria of Indicator 1i.
The materials for Kindergarten include some opportunities for on-demand writing within the Interactive Read-Aloud and Shared Reading lessons. The on-demand writing opportunities are often not standards-aligned or dependent on the texts students listen to during the Read-Aloud and Shared Reading lesson. Materials do not provide opportunities for students to learn and apply skills needed for process writing, such as editing and revising. There are little to no digital tools to aid in the production and publishing of student work over the course of the school year. The support provided for teachers to develop writing skills during the school year is limited.
Materials include some on-demand writing opportunities that cover a year’s worth of instruction. The majority of on-demand writing tasks are not standards-based and can be answered without using the text. For example:
In Months 1-2, the students participate in a Shared Writing task after the teacher reads the Interactive Read-Aloud text, The Bus for Us by Suzanne Bloom. The students share ideas while the teacher creates a timeline of the order that vehicles pass by in the story. The students then reread the names of the vehicles.
In Months 5-6, the students complete a Shared Writing task after the teacher reads the Interactive Read-Aloud text, Good Morning Chick by Mira Ginsburg. The students discuss different settings while the teacher lists the ideas on chart paper. Then the students illustrate different settings that were listed on the paper. The students are not actively writing in this task.
Near the end of the school year, it is suggested that students listen to the Shared Reading text, Coco Steps Out by Lionel Page. In the Interactive Writing task, students write two or three sentences describing winter.
At the end of the year, it is suggested that the teacher and students read the Shared Reading text, Up in the Cloud Forest by Tess Fletcher. One of the Interactive Writing tasks has the students share a drawing of their favorite animal from the story. Then the teacher writes a sentence about an animal the class likes and invites the students to practice writing the letters they know from the sentence.
Materials do not include process writing opportunities that cover a year’s worth of instruction. There are no opportunities for students to revise and edit writing. For example:
Aside from the Reader’s Notebook that could potentially be used for process writing purposes, there was no evidence found of process writing instruction or tasks within the Interactive Read-Aloud, Shared Reading, Reading Minilessons, or any other component in the materials provided.
Materials include a limited number of digital resources to support student writing. For example:
Graphic organizers are available online to print to assist students with planning writing. Otherwise, there are no digital resources for students to use online to produce or publish writing.
Indicator 1J
Materials provide opportunities for students to address different text types of writing (year-long) that reflect the distribution required by the standards.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria of Indicator 1j.
Students participate in Shared Writing and Interactive Writing for both Shared Reading and Interactive Read-Aloud texts. There are ample opportunities for narrative and informational writing, but there was little evidence found of opinion writing. In addition, students do not have many opportunities to practice Independent Writing in Kindergarten. For most lessons, the teacher writes the high frequency words and initial consonants. The students draw illustrations to go with the writing, even at the end of the year. Students are not explicitly taught new writing skills, rather they respond to reading. There is no allotted time for the writing tasks included in Interactive Read-Aloud lesson plans or the Suggested Projects for text sets.
Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:
Materials provide some opportunities across the school year for students to learn and practice different genres/modes/types of writing that reflect the distribution required by the standards; however, materials lack explicit instruction in each genre. For example:
In Months 1-2, students participate in a Shared Writing task after reading the Interactive Read-Aloud story, This is the House that Jack Built by Pam Adams. The teacher and students “create a cumulative-text big book about their school over several days.” The students generate the ideas during a discussion, and then draw illustrations for the big book.
In Months 7-8, students participate in two Shared Writing tasks after reading the Interactive Read-Aloud text, Mole’s Hill: A Woodland Tale by Lois Ehlert. For the first Shared Writing task, the students discuss what they noticed about the author’s writing and illustrations in the book. The teacher records the student responses. The students draw illustrations to reflect the noticings. During a second Shared Writing task, the teacher writes “a note from Fox to Mole that thanks Mole for growing a garden on her hill.” During the discussion, the teacher also discusses ways to start and end a letter.
In the middle of the year, students participate in a Shared Writing task after reading the suggested Shared Reading text, City Kid, Country Kid by David Andrews. The students compare the sights and sounds the characters experienced in the city and the country. The teacher writes a T-chart based on the students’ responses. The students underline what is the same for the city and country on the chart.
Near the end of the year, the students participate in an Interactive Writing task after reading the suggested Shared Reading text, Fuzzy and Buzzy by Aaron Mack. The students draw and describe an animal they saw on a nature walk or in the book. The teacher writes sentences describing the animals on chart paper.
Different genres/modes/types of writing are not distributed throughout the school year. Materials lack opportunities for students to independently practice writing skills, as well as sufficient opportunities to engage in opinion writing. The teacher does the majority of the writing and students have limited opportunities for independent writing. Where appropriate, writing opportunities are connected to texts and/or text sets. For example:
Students have limited opportunities to engage in opinion writing.
In Months 1-2, the students write an opinion after reading the Interactive Read-Aloud, Horace and Morris but Mostly Dolores text by James Howe. The students explain whether or not they would recommend the book to others, and they give examples to support their opinions. The writing is then shared with a partner or the class.
In Months 5-6, the students write an opinion after reading the Interactive Read-Aloud, The Three Bears by Paul Galdone. The students share their thoughts about what the bears think of Goldilocks. The teacher records their responses.
Near the end of the year, after reading the Shared Reading text, Look Out! by Sue Bright-Moore, the students participate in a Shared Writing activity. Students answer “Do you think the mamas and papas in this book are good parents? Why do you think so?”. The teacher writes several sentences about one of the animals they discussed.
Students have opportunities to engage in informative/explanatory writing.
In Months 1-2, the students listen to the Interactive Read-Aloud, Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come! by Nancy Carlson. The students participate in a Shared Writing where they tell the teacher things they do in Kindergarten. They use the information from the book or their own experiences to create responses. The teacher writes the list, and the students draw pictures when the list is complete.
In Months 5-6, the teacher reads the Interactive Read Aloud, Houses and Homes by Ann Morris. The students participate in a Shared Writing task. The teacher writes the student’s ideas and descriptions of some of the houses in the book.
Near the end of the year, the students write information after listening to the Shared Reading, Alligator Hide-and-Seek by Reese Brooks. The students use books and other media to research alligators. They create a “Fun Facts About Alligators” bulletin board and include some of the facts that the author lists at the front of the book.
At the end of the year, the students write information after reading the Shared Reading, Smash! Crash! by Catherine Friend. The students write any high-frequency words and initial consonants that they learn after the teacher records the student’s responses about important tools.
Students have opportunities to engage in narrative writing.
In Months 1-2, Kindergarten students participate in an Independent Writing task after reading the Interactive Read-Aloud, I’m a Little Teapot by Iza Trapani. Students “draw a picture of the teapot...and write one or more feeling words around the teapot”. The teacher supports students, as needed, to write the feeling words.
In Months 9-10, the students participate in an Interactive Writing task after reading the Interactive Read-Aloud, The Enormous Potato by Aubrey Davis. The teacher hosts a discussion where the students provide input about a new ending for the story. The teacher writes the students' ideas on chart paper. Then the students are encouraged to write “easy high-frequency words.”
At the beginning of the year, the students participate in an Interactive Writing task after reading the Shared Reading text, The Dog Park by Jackson Pace. The class pretends to be the dog in the book, and they tell the teacher what the dog is thinking as he does different activities. The teacher writes a few sentences, emphasizing the personal “I” to show the point of view of the dog.
Indicator 1K
Materials include regular opportunities for evidence-based writing to support recall of information, opinions with reasons, and relevant information appropriate for the grade level.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten do not meet the criteria of Indicator 1k.
Students have opportunities across the school year to practice writing, but lack opportunities to learn and apply writing using evidence from the text(s). The majority of writing tasks include students supporting their opinions with personal experience, as opposed to supporting opinions with evidence from the text. The writing tasks are embedded within the Interactive Read-Aloud and Shared Reading texts; however, the lessons include writing responses to the texts and do not include specific writing instructions that build in complexity over the course of the school year. The tasks are similar from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. For most of the Shared and Interactive Writing sessions, the teacher completes the writing while students contribute ideas through discussion.
Materials do not provide frequent opportunities across the school year for students to learn, practice, and apply writing using evidence. Writing tasks do not include guidance for the teacher to provide explicit instruction. For example:
In Months 3-4, the students listen to the Interactive Read-Aloud, From Head to Toe by Eric Carle. The students discuss noticings about Eric Carle’s writings and illustrations. The teacher records a few of the students' ideas on chart paper. The students are invited to add drawings to illustrate the noticings.
In Months 7-8, the students listen to the Interactive Read-Aloud, Tough Boris by Mem Fox. With student input, the teacher writes a letter from the boy in the story to Boris. The teacher derives the letter from student answers to the following question “What would the boy want to say to Boris about the parrot, the adventure, or his violin music?” The students are also invited to write easy, high-frequency words or initial consonants they are learning.
At the end of the year, it is suggested that the students and teacher read the Shared Reading text, Giggles: Poems to Make You Laugh. After reading the poem “Five Little Pumpkins” the students participate in a Shared Writing task. The students use evidence from the text to explain “why the pumpkins were picked and how they feel about being picked.” With input from the students, the teacher creates a written list of the responses. In another Shared Writing activity, the students discuss what they liked about the poem “I Had a Little Puppy.” Then the students are asked if their friends might like the poem. Together with the teacher, the students provide input for a short letter that will invite their friends to read the poem.
The majority of writing opportunities are not focused around students’ recall of information to develop opinions from reading closely and working with evidence from texts and sources. For example:
In Months 1-2, the students listen to the Interactive Read-Aloud, I’m the Best by Lucy Cousins. The students participate in a Shared Writing task. With student input, the teacher writes a list of the special talents or qualities of the characters from the text. The teacher uses a sentence frame to capture what the characters are good at. A sample of the teacher’s writing is provided in the lesson plan. Once the discussion is over, the children “draw themselves doing their special talent or showing a special quality.” The teacher then turns the drawing samples into a class book; however, the students do not complete any writing.
In Months 9-10, the students listen to the Interactive Read-Aloud, It’s Okay to Be Different by Todd Parr. During the Shared Writing the teacher creates “a grid with three columns, labeled Book, Characters, and Message.” The teacher fills in the chart with the students' input. The students reread the chart and the teacher posts it in the classroom. The students are not required to use evidence from the text to support this writing task.
At the end of the year, it is suggested that the teacher and students read the Shared Reading text, Up, Down, and Around by Sue Bright-Moore. The students share their opinions about their favorite ride from the story and explain the reasons for the selection. The teacher uses the student responses to write several sentences about the rides that the students consider to be the best. The example in the lesson includes details from the text when explaining why.
Indicator 1L
Materials include explicit instruction of the grade-level grammar and usage standards, with opportunities for application in context.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for Indicator 1l.
The materials include limited explicit instruction in grammar standards. There was no evidence for the explicit instruction in teacher materials for multiple standards. Materials include limited opportunities for students to demonstrate the application of skills in context, including limited opportunities for authentic application to student writing.
Materials do not include explicit instruction of all grammar and conventions standards for the grade level.
Print many upper- and lowercase letters.
In Fountas & Pinnell The Reading Minilessons Book, Grade K, page 371, students draw a picture of what they like to do at school and then label their pictures. The teacher instructs the students to do their best to write words that they do not know how to spell.
In Prompting Guide, Part 1, Verbal Path, Tab 25 Formation of Letters, this tab provides the language that teachers can use to teach students how to form both lowercase and uppercase letters. For example, for the lowercase letter a, the teacher says, “Pull back, around, up, and down.”
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade K, Letter Knowledge 4, pg. 227-230, the teacher states: “This is a b. To make b, pull down, half up, and around. Who can find a b on the alphabet chart? Who can find a b on the name chart?” The instruction is then repeated with the letters m and r.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade K, Letter Knowledge 18, pg. 284, the teacher says, pull down, up, and around to make a lowercase b.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade K, Letter Knowledge Concept 21, page 295, students match uppercase and lowercase letterforms in the lesson. The teacher reminds students, “Each letter of the alphabet has two kinds. One is called uppercase, or capital, and the other is called lowercase, or small.” The teacher points out the pairs of letters in each box of the alphabet chart.
Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs.
In Fountas & Pinnell, The Reading Minilessons, Grade K, page 373, students write and draw about places they like to go.
Form regular plural nouns orally by adding /s/ or /es/ (e.g., dog, dogs; wish, wishes).
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, online resource guide, page 446, the teacher puts the word cards “one” and “more than one” at the top of the pocket chart. The teacher shows students picture cards and asks if they notice one or more than one object in each picture. The teacher asks students to talk about what they notice from the first and second columns. The teacher then explains that -s means that a word is a plural.
In Fountas & Pinnell, Phonics, Spelling, Word Study Lesson Folders, Level Kindergarten, Word Study Card 3, the teacher distributes copies of the poem “Here Are My Ears” and highlighter pens to partners. The teacher asks the children to reread the poem together, find words that tell them about more than one, and highlight them.
Understand and use question words (interrogatives) (e.g., who, what, where, when, why, how).
No evidence found
Use the most frequently occurring prepositions (e.g., to, from, in, out, on, off, for, of, by, with).
In Fountas & Pinnell, The Reading Minilessons, Grade K, Section 3: Strategies and Skills, page 333, the teacher has students read the word in and other words on a chart. The teacher reminds students when they come to these words they already know to read them quickly.
Produce and expand complete sentences in shared language activities.
In Fountas & Pinnell, The Reading Minilessons, Grade K, Section 2: Literary Analysis, page 175, the teacher has students share their experience of the book club with the class.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Early Literacy Concepts 3, the teacher instructs students that they can use words to make sentences. The teacher uses their names to come up with sentences with other words, and students cut apart and glue words to make a sentence.
In Fountas & Pinnell, Phonics, Spelling, Word Study Lesson Folders, Level Kindergarten, Early Learning Concept Card, the teacher tells students that they can use words to make sentences. The teacher asks the students to generate some ideas that the teacher will write for them.
Capitalize the first word in a sentence and the pronoun I.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Early Literacy Concept 7, page 100, the teacher states, “The first word is on the left. Also, the first word of the sentence has a capital letter.”
In Fountas & Pinnell, Prompting Guide, Part 1, Card 31, Capitalization, Punctuation, Teach, the teacher instructs the students, “This is how to start the sentence.” The teacher shows students uppercase letters.
Recognize and name end punctuation.
In Fountas & Pinnell, Prompting Guide, Part 1, Tab 31, Capitalization/Punctuation, this tab provides teaching tips, prompts, and reinforcement for capitalization and punctuation. The teacher states, “This is how to end the sentence. It’s a period. (model) This is how to show excitement. It’s an exclamation point. (model) This is how to show a question. It’s a question mark. (model)”
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Early Literacy Concept 7, page 102, in the interactive writing, the directions state, “Encourage children to use capital letters at the beginning of the sentences and punctuation at the end.”
Write a letter or letters for most consonant and short-vowel sounds (phonemes).
In Fountas & Pinnell, Guided Reading Word Card, “Cleaning My Room”, Level B, in the phonics/letter and word work, the teacher uses sound boxes to write the word hat. The teacher says not slowly, and tells students to listen to the sounds. Then the teacher asks students to identify the letter that is the first sound, middle sound, and ending sound.
In Fountas & Pinnell, Prompting Guide Part 1, Tab 27, Using Sound Analysis, the tab provides teaching tips, prompts, and reinforcement for using sound analysis to construct words.
In Fountas & Pinnell, Phonics, Spelling, Word Study, Lesson Folders, Level Kindergarten, Letter Knowledge 22, Interactive Writing, when a word is written, the teacher has students check to see whether it has a vowel and name it.
Spell simple words phonetically, drawing on knowledge of sound-letter relationships.
In Fountas & Pinnell, Guided Reading Literacy Card, “My Friend”, there is an optional writing activity where the teacher dictates the sentence, “My friend likes to fly a kite.” The students write the sentence in their Reader’s Notebook.
In Fountas & Pinnell, Prompting Guide Part 1, Tab 28, Visual Analysis, this tab provides teaching tips, prompts, and reinforcement for using visual analysis to construct words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns 1, page 347, Recognize and Use the CVC Pattern, the teacher uses magnetic letters to model the word pat.
In Fountas & Pinnell, Phonics, Spelling, Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Lesson Folders, Level Kindergarten, Word Study Card, Phonological Awareness Card 22, Independent Writing, the teacher encourages students to slowly say the new words they are attempting to spell (e.g. hat, ten, dog), representing as many letters as they can.
Materials include limited authentic opportunities for students to demonstrate application of skills in context, including applying grammar and convention skills to writing. For example:
In Fountas & Pinnell, Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, online resource guide, page 450, the teacher has students say words with more than one thing after they say the word of one thing. The teacher uses the example of saying cat and then cats.
In Fountas & Pinnell Guided Reading Card, Level A, Writing About Reading, page 4, Interactive Writing, the directions state, “Students may be able to write initial consonants in words and high-frequency words.”
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Concept 26, page 212, during Interactive Writing, students say a word slowly and think about how to start it.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Concept 13, page 266, the teacher connects the lesson of writing students' names with the interactive read aloud book, Jessica.
Indicator 1M
Materials include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to interact and build key academic vocabulary words in and across texts.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten do not meet the criteria of Indicator 1m.
The materials do not provide teacher guidance for outlining a cohesive year-long vocabulary development component. Vocabulary goals are included within the daily materials; however, only some of the terms listed in the lesson goals are mentioned or taught in the lesson. Because many text sets are not focused on a topic, text sets contain books with unrelated vocabulary; therefore, vocabulary is not repeated across multiple texts. The materials lack a standard routine or protocol to teach vocabulary throughout the year. Some vocabulary lessons focus more on sight reading skills than meaning of words and tasks usually do not use the vocabulary words. At the Kindergarten level, the Fountas and Pinnell materials place importance on the vocabulary “behaviors and understandings to notice, teach, and support” for students to “recognize and use concept words, e.g. color names, number words, days of the week, months of the year, seasons”. In the Fountas and Pinnell Literacy Continuum, Grades PK-8, it is stated that “Expanding vocabulary means developing categories of words: labels, concept words, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, and all parts of speech.” There were very few, if any, of these lessons located in the Kindergarten materials.
Materials do not provide teacher guidance outlining a cohesive year-long vocabulary development component. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:
In the Fountas and Pinnell Literacy Continuum Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study section, the primary focus for teaching and learning vocabulary development is Concept Words for Word Meaning and Vocabulary. Over the course of the school year, some listed goals for teaching and learning are to recognize and use concept words such as color names, number words, days of the week, months of the year, and seasons.
The Fountas and Pinnell Literacy Continuum lists grade-level vocabulary goals for a school year. During the Reread and Revisit the Text section in each Interactive Read-Aloud lesson, the teacher may choose to discuss one or two vocabulary words listed for meaning or context. A Supporting English Learners section appears in the sidebars to support both the Interactive Read-Aloud and Shared Reading lessons. The sidebar supports a student’s understanding of common expressions and important vocabulary necessary to build comprehension of texts.
The Fountas and Pinnell Literacy Continuum: Grades PreK-8 contains Selecting Texts characteristics for each grade level. The Selecting Texts characteristics are divided into parts of the text. For Interactive Read-Aloud and Literature Discussion, Shared and Performance Reading, and Guided Reading, there sections to support Vocabulary development.
Vocabulary is not repeated in contexts (before texts, in texts) or across multiple texts. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:
In the Interactive Read-Aloud text set, “The Importance of Friendship” there are five fiction texts. The students listen to the text, A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker. The lesson plan includes the vocabulary words vamoose, begone, blubbered, undone, and wailed as examples. While the teacher reads the text, students are asked what they think vamoose and undone mean and what new words they learned from the story. The students discuss how they came up with the definitions of the new words. After rereading the same story on a different day, students are asked, “What do you think the word commanded means? Why do you think the author uses the word commanded instead of the word said?” The words are not repeated within this text, nor are they aligned with other vocabulary words in the text set. The other texts in this set have unique words for each text and do not repeat words before lessons, during lessons, or across texts.
In the Interactive Read-Aloud text set, “Sharing the Earth: Animals” there are six suggested Shared Reading texts including, In the Arctic and Up in the Cloud Forest by Tess Fletcher. The vocabulary for In the Arctic includes content words such as lemming, puffin, arctic and animal sound words such as grunt, squeak, and arf. Students learn that the Arctic is cold and about some of the animals that live there. The teacher asks questions about the animals and animal sounds. Students draw and write about one of the animals in the Arctic. However, there is no explicit protocol for teaching the vocabulary. For Up in the Cloud Forest the lesson plan provides the content words such as cloud forest, spiny, sloth, hummingbird, and lizard. The teacher asks questions about these words, and also briefly defines habitat. Vocabulary is not repeated between books despite both books being about animals and animal habitats.
Two of the Shared Reading texts are suggested as pairings with the Interactive Read-Aloud text set “Having Fun With Language”. The fiction text, Pitter Patter by Miriam David, and the non-fiction text, Smash! Crash! by Catherine Friend, states in the goals that students will learn sound words and opposites. The lesson plan for the text Pitter Patter wants the students to “notice and understand words that are of high interest and novelty” such as pitter patter and ah-choo. The word pitter patter is introduced in the beginning of the lesson as a sound word for rain. The words squeezed, ah-choo, squeaked, barked, and brayed are some of the words that the teacher emphasizes during the lesson. These do not match the initial vocabulary goals listed in the plan. It states that students learn the meaning of content words that are supported by the text and pictures such as wrecking ball, dynamite, and rubble. The students also discuss words with opposite meanings like old/new. During the discussion of the text, the teacher talks with the students about the tools and machines used in the text. The focus during this discussion is on a big claw, a wrecking ball, a jackhammer, dynamite, and a bulldozer. The claw and the wrecking ball are focused on during the reading. It is not until the Possible Teaching Opportunities that students may be introduced to “different action words the author used, such as grab, fall, work, cut, and swing.” The opposite words are also listed in the suggested activities. These opposite meaning words are not addressed in the plan.
Attention is not paid to vocabulary essential to understanding the text and to high value academic words. For example:
In the Fountas and Pinnell Literacy Continuum book for Kindergarten, there is a subheading for Word Meaning/ Vocabulary in the Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study section. The only guidance for vocabulary “behaviors and understandings to notice, teach, and support” is students shall “recognize and use concept words, e.g. color names, number words, days of the week, months of the year, seasons”. While these are important, these are not examples for high value academic words.
In the Interactive Read-Aloud, A House is a House For Me by Mary Ann Hoberman, the teacher talks to the students about the author’s ideas being far fetched but makes no mention of the definition. The teacher is also prompted to ask the students, “Why do you think the author used the word dwelling instead of house?” and again gives no definition or explanation for the word dwelling. The class discusses the different meanings for the word house.
In the Interactive Read-Aloud, Tough Boris by Mem Fox, there are no goals listed for teaching vocabulary in the lesson plan. In a Supporting English Learners sidebar it is suggested that the students understand the words tough, massive, scruffy, greedy, and fearless. The teacher uses “illustrations as support.” In the same sidebar, it is suggested that the teacher provide synonyms for each word. The example that is given is “Boris is tough.” The teacher could provide “strong and brave” as words that mean the same as tough.
In the Shared Reading text, Alligator Hide-and-Seek by Reese Brooks, the lesson identifies the vocabulary focus as simple plurals. The teacher discusses stubby, and webbed feet. The teacher does not discuss plurals; plurals is listed as one of the “Possible teaching opportunities”, which is not a main part of the lesson.
Criterion 1.3: Tasks and Questions: Foundational Skills Development K-2
Materials in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language targeted to support foundational reading development are aligned to the standards.
There are eight lessons with explicit instruction on print concepts, which are in the Early Learning Concepts and Letter Knowledge lessons. The program cites some general research; however, the program does not present a research-based or evidence-based explanation for the teaching of phonological skills or for the hierarchy in which the skills are presented. Although there are a variety of practice activities, there are only 26 phonological awareness lessons. Daily phonological awareness practice opportunities for students are not provided. Materials include a Master Lesson Guide which explains the order phonics lessons should be taught. While in Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K cites studies supporting explicit teaching of phonics skills, the program does not present a research-based or evidence-based explanation for the sequence of phonics. For phonics instruction, the Fountas and Pinnell materials contain lessons which provide the teachers with instruction and repeated modeling. However, foundational skills lessons are recommended for 10 minutes a day, which may not provide sufficient time for students to receive daily explicit instruction to work towards mastery of foundational skills. Since Letter-Sound Relationships and Spelling Patterns lessons do not span the entire year, students do not have daily opportunities to practice decoding sounds and spelling patterns. Lessons provide limited opportunities for students to develop orthographic and phonological processing. The materials contain some opportunities for students to engage in decoding practice during Teach and Apply. Materials include seven High-Frequency Word Lessons. Since all seven lessons are generative lessons, the materials suggest the teacher repeat the lesson several times. The teacher selects which words to teach from either the 25 High-Frequency Words List or 50 High-Frequency Words List. The program does not specify an exact sequence of instruction or exactly how many high-frequency words should be mastered at any specific point over the Kindergarten year. Materials contain poems from Sing a Song of Poetry, Grade K for students to read during Shared Reading in lessons of the Nine Areas of Learning about Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study. Poems are suggested in each lesson, but the poems are not aligned to the program’s scope and sequence and do not consistently provide practice of the decodable element from the lesson. There are curriculum-based assessment protocols provided in the online resources, which are directly correlated to the nine areas of literacy instruction included in the program. However, there are missed opportunities for assessments to provide the teacher with instructional guidance about the next steps for all students.
Indicator 1N
Materials, questions, and tasks directly teach foundational skills to build reading acquisition by providing systematic and explicit instruction in the alphabetic principle, letter-sound relationships, phonemic awareness, and phonological awareness (K-1), and phonics (K-2) that demonstrate a transparent and research-based progression for application both in and out of context.
Indicator 1N.i
Explicit instruction in phonological awareness (K-1) and phonics (K-2).
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for Indicator 1n.i.
Materials contain phonological awareness lesson structures that provide teachers with the opportunity to explicitly teach phonological awareness. Lessons start with Teach, which is a whole-class instruction on the phonological concept. The Teach section provides the teacher with examples for instruction in blending, segmenting, and manipulating phonemes. For phonics instruction, the Fountas & Pinnell materials contain lessons which provide the teachers with instruction and repeated modeling. The teacher uses a pocket chart during whole group instruction for students to receive systematic and repeated modeling of the skills. However, foundational skills lessons are recommended for 10 minutes a day, which may not provide sufficient time for students to receive daily explicit instruction to work towards mastery of foundational skills.
Examples include but are not limited to:
Materials provide the teacher with systematic, explicit modeling for instruction in syllables, sounds (phonemes), and spoken words. However, materials recommend that foundational skills lessons occur for 10 minutes each day, which may not provide sufficient time for students to receive explicit instruction to work towards mastery of newly learned foundational skills.
Recognize and produce rhyming words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, online resource guide, Phonological Awareness, page 126, the teacher reads a rhyming story to students. The teacher asks the students what they notice about the words. Then the teacher practices another set of rhyming words.
In Phonological Awareness Card 1, Hear and Say Rhyming Words, Kindergarten, pages 1-4, on page 2, the teacher explains that “some words have parts at the end that sound the same. They rhyme.” The card references the Hear and Say Instructional Procedure on page 36 in the Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons book.
In Fountas & Pinnell, Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lesson Folders, Kindergarten, Phonological Awareness Concept Card PA5, Teach, the teacher tells the students that they are going to listen to some rhymes and make some of their own.
Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Lesson 6, pages 130-131, the teacher explains that “words can have more than one part. Listen, say, and clap the parts in a word.” The teacher shows pictures to students who name the picture and clap the parts. Students sort the words according to the number of syllables in each.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Lesson 9, online resource guide, page 141, the teacher explains to the students that they are going to work on thinking about words in syllables or parts. The teacher tells students that the teacher is going to say a word in parts and then the students will say the word. The teacher uses the example of mon/ster.
In Fountas & Pinnell, Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lesson Folders, Kindergarten, Phonological Awareness Concept Card PA8, Teach, using a Lotto and Bingo Game Board, students listen to a word said slowly, say the word, count the number of syllables (one or two), and mark on their board.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness 23, page 199, during Share, partners categorize picture cards into two groups with four sounds and words with five sounds. Partners take turns selecting a word at random and saying each sound in order.
Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade K, Phonological Awareness 19, page 182, the teacher explains to students that when you say a word, you can listen for the first and last parts. The teacher then demonstrates with the word make. The first part is /m/ and the last part is /-ake/. The teacher then helps the students take apart the word take. The lesson continues with students saying the first and last parts of several other words.
In Fountas & Pinnell, Phonics, Spelling, Word Study Lesson Folders, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Concept Card PA19, Apply, using the game board “Follow the Path,” the students use a die and travel around the board. When they land on a picture they say the word, then the first part (onset), and then the last part (rime). Some pictures are: bag, lid, and sun. The terms onset and rime are not used.
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 Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Lesson 13, online resource, page 158, the teacher displays the pocket chart with photos of a dog, the sun, and a book. The teacher then says the word dog slowly. Then the teacher says that you can hear the first sound of dog, and s/he emphasizes the first sound. Then the teacher says the last sound in dog and identifies that this is the last sound in the word. The teacher does this same thing with the example sun.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Concept 22, Recognize and Use the CVC Pattern, page 194, the teacher explains they will listen for the first sound, the last sound, and the middle sound in a word and models with the word pig.
Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Lesson 16, page 170, the teacher says the word ran and isolates the initial sound. Then the teacher says the word can and isolates the initial sound. The teacher explains that you can change the first sound in a word to make a new word.
Materials provide the teacher with examples for instruction in syllables, sounds (phonemes), and spoken words called for in grade-level standards.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Introduction, Phonological Awareness, page 6, the Phoneme Chart details the forty-four phonemes.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, online resources, page 37, the teacher is given a list of words for the Hear and Say rhyming activity. Some examples are can/man, me/he, and hot/pot.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Master Lesson Guide, Suggested Sequence for Phonics Lessons, page 53, the lesson provides the teacher with teaching suggestions for extended learning on syllable lessons.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, online resource, Phonological Awareness Lesson 16, page 170, the teacher is given a list of words to continue playing the game with the students for students hearing the first sound and changing it to make a new word.
Materials contain explicit instructions for systematic and repeated teacher modeling of all grade-level phonics standards. However, materials recommend that foundational skills lessons occur for 10 minutes each day, which may not provide sufficient time for students to receive explicit instruction to work towards mastery of newly learned foundational skills.
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 Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter-Sound Relationships 1, page 314, this generative lesson requires the teacher to teach a letter, a picture corresponding to the first letter and the letter sound. The teacher models the letter name and states the letter sound.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter-Sounds Relationships 6, page 334, the teacher uses the Alphabet Linking Chart to review the letter-sound relationships for consonants.
In Fountas & Pinnell, Literacy Continuum: A Tool for Assessment, Planning, and Teaching, Grades PreK-8, page 365, Letter Sound Relationships Consonants, Selecting Goals Behaviors and Understandings to Notice, Teach, and Support Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study, this resource demonstrates that some letters represent consonant sounds, e.g., the letter b stands for the first sound in boy.
Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns 1, page 348, this generative lesson provides the teacher the opportunity to teach short vowels within CVC words. The teacher models building CVC words and stating the words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns 6, page 368, the teacher shows students a few words ending in -ine that children know, such as line and nine. The teacher writes the words on chart paper and then talks about what students notice about the letters.
Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns Concept 1, Recognize and Use the CVC Pattern, page 347, the teacher builds CVC words, replacing a consonant or vowel one at a time to make a new word.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, online resource Word Structure Lesson, Spelling Patterns Lesson 3, page 356, the teacher shows a few words ending in -at. The teacher reads a list of words and then asks students what they notice about them. The teacher tells students they can read other words with the same pattern. Then the teacher invites students to create more words with that pattern.
Lessons provide teachers with systematic and repeated instruction for students to hear, say, encode, and read each newly taught grade-level phonics pattern.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns 1, page 348, the students hear short vowels when the teacher builds a word, such as pat. The teacher has students read the word with the teacher.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns 5, page 365, the teacher states: “Today you’re going to make more words that end with -ake.” The teacher invites students to say two or three more words that end with the spelling pattern -ake.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns 6, page 369, the teacher shows -ine words. The students use magnetic letters, letter tiles, or lowercase letter cards to make and read -ine words to a partner.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns 7, page 372, the teacher presents several words to students that have the same ending pattern. The teacher asks the students to notice what is the same about the group of words. The teacher continues the lesson by showing students a different group of words with the same ending pattern.
Indicator 1N.ii
Phonological awareness based on a research-based continuum (K-1).
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for Indicator 1n.ii.
Materials contain a hierarchy for teaching phonological awareness skills. The hierarchy is separated into early, middle, and late Kindergarten. The Master Lesson Guide shows the order phonological awareness should be taught. The program cites some general research; however, the program does not present a research-based or evidence-based explanation for the teaching of phonological skills or for the hierarchy in which the skills are presented. Although there are a variety of practice activities, there are only 26 phonological awareness lessons. Daily phonological awareness practice opportunities for students are not provided.
Examples include but are not limited to:
Materials have a sequence of phonemic awareness instruction based on the expected hierarchy to build toward students’ application of the skills.
In Fountas & Pinnell Comprehensive, Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Guide, Grades PreK-8, page 6, the guide outlines the order of the areas of learning as phonological awareness, rhyming words, words, syllables, onsets and rimes, and then phonemes.
In Fountas & Pinnell Comprehensive Online Resource, Phonological Awareness, page 6, the guide states that students understand the ability to notice and connect sounds, hear onsets and rime, and hear the syllables in words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade K, Table of Contents, the Table of Contents outlines the order of the 26 Phonological Awareness lessons.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade K, Nine Areas of Learning, page 46, this page details the early, middle, and late development of Phonological Awareness skills.
Materials do not contain a clear, evidence-based explanation for the expected hierarchy for teaching phonological awareness skills.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness, page 6, the guide details the development of phonological awareness.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Table of Contents, the Table of Contents outlines the order of the 26 Phonological Awareness lessons.
In Comprehensive, Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Guide, it identifies a hierarchy for teaching phonological awareness skills in Kindergarten. On pg. 18 to 20, the progression is sequenced on an instructional chart as the following: rhyming words, words, syllables, onsets and rimes, and phonemes.
Materials include a variety of activities for phonological awareness.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Lesson 13, page 157, students are taught a short poem to identify rhyming words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons ,Grade K, Phonological Awareness Lesson 16, page 169, the students play the game, “Line Up or Sit Down.” The teacher says a word and asks the students to change the first sound to make a new word.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, page iv, of the 26 phonological awareness activities, the vast majority of the activities use the instructional procedure of “Hear and Say”, where the teacher says words that match the target skill. Students search for phonological patterns and articulate the target principle, then work with words to apply the principle.
There are opportunities for students to practice phonological awareness.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Lesson 1, page 110, the teacher has the students create their own rhyming words using the tune of the song, “If You’re Happy and You Know It.”
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Lesson 16, page 170, the students play a game where they change a letter to a different letter to make a new word (example: changing the word pack to sack).
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Lesson 23, page 199, the students take turns showing each other pictures. The student says the sounds slowly, putting their fingers in the air as they say the sounds, and then they identify the number of sounds in the word.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Contents, page iv, there are 26 lessons listed under phonological awareness.
Materials provide opportunities for students to practice each new sound and sound pattern.
Recognize and produce rhyming words:
In Fountas & Pinnell, Phonological Awareness Card 1, Hear and Say Rhyming Words, Kindergarten, Contents, page iv, there are five rhyming word lessons listed in the table of contents.
In Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade K, Phonological Awareness 2, pg. 114, students learn a rhyming song that contains quick, candlestick, fox, and box. After students learn the song, the teacher asks students to think about quick and candlestick. The teacher helps students recognize the words rhyme. Students practice the poem more to produce the rhyming words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Lesson 4, page 123, the teacher has students play the game “Concentration” using the picture cards of rhyming words.
Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words:
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Contents, page iv, there are four syllable lessons listed in the table of contents.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Concept 6, Hear, Say and Clap Syllables, page 131, the students demonstrate saying and clapping the parts of a few one- and two-syllable words for the share-out.
In Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons Grade K, Phonological Awareness 21, pg. 190, the teacher models segmenting bee. “You can hear each sound in this word by saying it slowly: /b/ long /e/.” Students look at picture cards and say each word slowly while a partner puts a finger up in the air when s/he hears each sound for two sounds in a word.
Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words:
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Lesson 20, page 187, students play the game “Go Fish” with blending rime words. The example the teacher uses is the word c-at.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons Grade K, Phonological Awareness Concept 19, Hear and Divide Onsets and Rhymes, page 184, the students play the “Follow the Path” game and say the word that represents the picture in the space they land on. Then they say the first part and the last part of the word.
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 Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Contents, page iv-v, there are two lessons for isolating and pronouncing the medial vowel in CVC words. The lessons for isolating and pronouncing beginning and final sounds include words that are not CVC words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Lesson 18, page 179, students complete a two-way picture sort activity with a partner. There is a picture of a pig and a cat. If the middle sound is /a/ or /i/, they place it under the right picture. If the picture is not one of those sounds they place it on the side of the table.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Concept 22, Recognize and Use the CVC Pattern, page 195, the students take turns with their partners pointing to the picture of a word as the other child says the three sounds in the word.
Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words:
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness Word-Solving Action 3, page 464, students are given a set of picture cards and a column chart. The students put the words that rhyme on either side and then they explain to the other student how they can change the first sound of the first word to make the second word.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Contents, page v, four lessons involve adding or substituting individual sounds in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.
Indicator 1N.iii
Phonics demonstrated with a research-based progression of skills (K-2).
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for Indicator 1n.iii.
Materials include a Master Lesson Guide which explains the order phonics lessons should be taught. While Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K cites studies supporting explicit teaching of phonics skills, the program does not present a research-based or evidence-based explanation for the sequence of phonics. Students have practice in listening, speaking, writing, and reading the phonics skills they are learning through a variety of activities. There are opportunities for students to decode letter sounds during eight Letter-Sound Relationships lessons. Students decode phonetically based words during seven Spelling Patterns lessons, which contain decoding instruction and practice of phonograms. Since Letter-Sound Relationships and Spelling Patterns lessons do not span the entire year, students do not have daily opportunities to practice decoding sounds and spelling patterns. The materials do not contain a deliberate, systematic review of previously introduced grade-level phonics skills. The materials contain some opportunities for students to build/manipulate/spell and write words based on phonics patterns. Encoding opportunities are not provided daily. Lessons provide limited opportunities for students to develop orthographic and phonological processing.
Examples include but are not limited to:
Lessons provide students with opportunities to decode (phonemes, onset and rime, and/or syllables) phonetically spelled words.
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 Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter-Sound Relationship, Grade Kindergarten, Lesson 5, page 330, the teacher tells students they are going to read a poem. The teacher points out that the poem has the letter p in it. Students find the words with p in it.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness, Concept 11, page 150, Hear and Say the Same Beginning Sound in Words, the teacher says, “What sound do you hear at the beginning of the word bear? It’s /b/. When you say the word bear, you can hear the /b/ sound at the beginning.”
In Fountas & Pinnell, Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lesson Folders, Kindergarten, Phonological Awareness Card PA8, the teacher holds up a picture of a bee. Students identify the first sound /b/. Then they identify the second sound /long e/. The activity continues with other pictures of an egg, a tie, and a key.
Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.
In Fountas & Pinnell, Literacy Continuum A Tool for Assessment, Planning, and Teaching Grades PreK-8, Level D, Guided Reading, Selecting Goals Behaviors and Understandings to Notice, Teach, and Support, Solving Words, Reading Words, page 431, students read words with spelling patterns with the support of pictures and language (VC, CVC, CVCe).
In Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns 1, pg. 348, this generative lesson provides the teacher with the opportunity to teach short vowels within CVC words. The teacher models building CVC words and stating the words.
In Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns 6, pg. 368, the teacher shows students a few words ending in -ine that children know, such as line and nine. The teacher writes the words on chart paper and then talks about what students notice about the letters.
Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns Concept 1, Recognize and Use the CVC Pattern, page 347, the teacher builds CVC words, replacing a consonant or vowel one at a time to make a new word.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter-Sound Relationship, Word-Study Lesson 9, page 488, the teacher tells students they are going to learn more about making new words. The teacher changes the word bog to big and asks students what they notice.
In Fountas & Pinnell, Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lesson Folders, Kindergarten, Spelling Patterns, Card SP1, using magnetic letters, the teacher makes the word pat. Then the teacher changes the letters to make pet, pit, pot, and put.
Lessons provide students with opportunities to read complete words by saying the entire word as a unit using newly taught phonics skills.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Lesson 3, page 358, students create words using the /-at/ sounds. Then, after they have read the words they made with /-at/ sounds, students think about how to use the words in a sentence.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Lesson 4, page 360, the teacher writes /-ay/ words on chart paper and has the students read them out loud.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns Concept 2, Recognize and Use Phonograms: -an, page 353, during Shared Reading, students use highlighter tape to point out words that contain the spelling pattern /-an/. Then the students read the list of /-an/ words to their partner.
Lessons provide students with some opportunities to decode words in a sentence.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Lesson 4, Grade Kindergarten, page 362, students read the poem “Five Little Snowman,” which has /-ay/ words in it.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Lesson 5, page 366, the teacher reads the interactive read-aloud books Sleepy Bears and Over on the Farm, which has /-ake/ words in them.
Lessons provide students with some opportunities to build/manipulate/spell and encode words using common and newly-taught sound and spelling patterns.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Lesson, Activity 5, page 366, in the interactive writing portion of the activity, students write words with /-ake/ in them.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Lesson 6, page 370, during the interactive writing part of the lesson, the teacher draws attention to words that have phonograms in them.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns Lesson 2, page 353, students use magnetic letters, letter tiles, or lowercase letter cards to make words with the spelling pattern /-an/. There are four other similar lessons using other letter patterns (/-at/, /-ay/, /-ake/, /-ine/).
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns Concept 1, Recognize and Use the CVC Pattern, page 347, the students use magnetic letters, letter tiles, or lowercase letter cards to make words with a variety of CVC spelling patterns.
Materials contain some methods to promote students’ practice of previously taught grade-level phonics.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Online Resource, Word Structure lesson, Letter Knowledge Lesson 22, page 300, students build the word cat. The teacher says that c is a consonant, and a is a vowel. Then, using magnetic letters, the teacher shows the students the letters that are vowels.
Generative Lesson plans contain a structure for teachers to present similar content or concepts to teach a variety of spelling patterns, however, the intention is not for systematic, explicit review of phonics skills with a variety of methods to promote students’ practice of previously taught grade-level phonics. For example, in Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns 1, pg. 347, the generative lesson suggestion is:
A generative lesson has a simple structure that you can use to present similar content and concepts. You can use this lesson structure to teach children a variety of CVC spelling patterns with a variety of words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Online Resource, Word Structure Lesson 1, page 438, the teacher directs students to identify the syllables in words. The student is provided word cards of the words airplane, hat, pig, and flower.
Materials delineate a scope and sequence with a cohesive, intentional sequence of phonics instruction and practice to build toward application of skills.
In the Master Lesson Guide, Suggested Sequence of Phonics, Grade Kindergarten, Lesson 12, Title: Matching a Spoken Word with a Group of Letters, the guide suggests that this lesson is taught after Early Literacy Concepts Lesson 3.
In Across the Year, page 47, Grade Kindergarten, the guide gives information on the skills that students learn at the beginning of the year, middle of the year, and late in the year and where those lessons are in the learning progression.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, pages 44-45, there is A Suggested Sequence for Phonics Lessons. This explains how phonics lessons are organized by the nine areas of learning. On pages 46-71, there is a Master Lesson Guide Suggested Sequence for Phonics Lessons. This contains the Lesson Number, the Lesson Title, Teaching Suggestions for Extending Learning, and Teacher Notes.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, in Annotated Lesson and Its Features, the lesson outlines how to use an array of features of each lesson.
Materials have an explanation for the order of the phonics sequence. Research is not cited for the explanation.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Online Resources, page 30, the guide states that the phonics lessons are broken up into the 9 areas of learning: Early Literacy Concepts, Phonological Awareness, Letter Knowledge, Letter-sound Relationships, Spelling Patterns, High-Frequency words, Word Meaning/Vocabulary, Word Structures, and Word-Solving Actions.
Materials provide some opportunities for students to develop orthographic and phonological processing.
In Fountas & Pinnell, Literacy Continuum A Tool for Assessment, Planning, and Teaching Level PreK-8, Level C, Guided Reading, Selecting Goals Behaviors and Understandings to Notice, Teach, and Support, Planning for Letter and Word Work After Guided Reading, Examples (Orthographic), page 427, the students say a word slowly and write the letter and letters related to each sound.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter-Sound Relationships 1-7, students learn beginning consonant sounds and letters. Lessons include images to help students identify sounds and include long words such as mitten and mouse.
Indicator 1N.iv
Decode and encode common and additional vowel teams (Grade 2).
Indicator 1O
Materials, questions, and tasks provide explicit instruction for and regular practice to address the acquisition of print concepts, including alphabetic knowledge, directionality, and function (K-1), structures, and features of text (1-2).
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for Indicator 1o.
The Fountas & Pinnell materials contain 24 lessons on letter names in the Letter Knowledge lessons. Students learn to name and identify all 26 letters (uppercase and lowercase). There are eight lessons with explicit instruction on print concepts, which are in the Early Learning Concepts and Letter Knowledge lessons. Early Learning Concepts are taught until #46 of the Master Lesson Guide. Therefore, some print concepts are not reviewed and practiced after #46. The Shared Reading lessons include some general guidance for teaching print concepts, such as, “point crisply under each letter and word with the pointer,” but do not include explicit and systematic instruction in print concepts.
Examples include but are not limited to:
Materials provide students with frequent opportunities to engage in practice identifying all 26 letters (uppercase and lowercase).
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Early Learning Concepts, Lesson 3, page 84, students are told they can make words using letters. The chart lists the names of students in the class, and the teacher and students come up with sentences that identify things the students like to do.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Lesson 1, page 216, the teacher tells the students that they are going to put together their name puzzles using the letters in their name.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Concept 4, Recognize Letters and State Their Name, page 227, the guide suggests that teachers teach the following sequence of letters to students who do not know many letters: b, m, r, s, t, g, n, p, c, h, f, d, l, k, j, w, y, z, v, x, q.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Concept 4, Recognize Letters and State Their Name, page 227, the teacher makes a letter b on the whiteboard and repeats the motions of how to make the letter b.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Concept 4, Recognize Letters and State Their Name, page 227, the teacher conducts an interactive read-aloud and reads the book ABC, I Like Me.
Materials provide opportunities to engage in practice locating all 26 letters (uppercase and lowercase).
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Lesson 1, page 217, students locate the letters in their name and make their puzzle three times.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Lesson 23, page 303, the teacher shows students the magnetic letter chart with the letters in order. The teacher tells students that they are going to learn the order in which the letters go. The students practice putting the letters in order.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Concept, Recognize Letters and State Their Name, page 236, students use the Alphabet Linking Chart to help remember the names of letters and how they look.
Materials provide opportunities to engage in naming all 26 letters (uppercase and lowercase).
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Lesson 23, page 305, during the Apply section of the lesson plan, the teacher has the students say the letter after they match the magnetic letter to the letter on the sentence strip.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Lesson 24, page 308, students use the Alphabet Linking Chart to sing the alphabet song.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Concept, Recognize Letters and State Their Name, page 236, students use the Alphabet Linking Chart with a partner to help name the letters.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Concept 7, Recognize Letters and State Their Name, page 240, students read the poem “Room 4” and use the poem to notice and point to and name the letters.
Materials contain isolated, systematic, and explicit instruction for all 26 letters (recognize and name uppercase and lowercase).
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge 24, page 310, the students read the story “ABC I Like Me” by Nancy Carlson, and the teacher directs students to predict the next letter.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Sound Knowledge Lesson 1, page 314, the teacher tells students that they are going to learn about letters and sounds. The teacher says, “I’m going to take a letter card from the card stack. The teacher says this is the letter B.”
In Fountas & Pinnell The Reading Minilessons Book, Grade K, page 121, the teacher reads the book On Market Street to students, which is about the letters in the alphabet.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Concept 5, Recognize Letters and State Their Name, page 233, students fold and glue tissue paper to outline the letter g.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Concept 11, Recognize Letters and State Their Names, page 255, the teacher creates a letter M mini-book for each child.
There is a defined sequence for letter instruction to be completed in a reasonable time frame over the school year.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Lesson 4, page 227, the guide recommends that, during this lesson, the teacher use the sequence, b, m, r, s, t, g, n, p, c, h, f, d, l, k, j, w, y, z, v, x, q.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Table of Contents, The Table of Contents outlines 24 lessons on Letter Knowledge.
Materials include limited 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).
Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.
In Fountas & Pinnell The Reading Minilessons Book, Grade K, Strategies and Skills Unit 1 RML2, page 326, the teacher says, “Run your finger left to right under the word as you read it.”
In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Early Literacy Concepts 3, pg. 86, during Shared Reading, the teacher can use “Jerry Hall” or “Go to Bed” from Sing a Song of Poetry to teach students to read word-by-word.
Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Early Literacy Concepts Lesson 1, page 76, students’ names are written on cards. The teacher picks one up and says, “This is Avery’s name. Avery starts with an A. Say, Avery. Say A for Avery.” Avery would then put her name on the chart.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Contents, page v, there is one lesson that addresses understanding that words are formed with letters.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Early Literacy Concepts Concept 3, Match a Spoken Word with a Group of Letters, page 83, the teacher explains that they can use words to make sentences.
Understand that words are separated by spaces in print.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Early Literacy Concepts Concept 3, Match a Spoken Word with a Group of Letters, page 83, the teacher explains that students should leave a space between the end of one word and the beginning of the next word.
In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Early Literacy Concepts 3, pg. 83-86, the teacher teaches left to right progression in reading pocket-chart cards from the Ready Resources and other online resources. The teacher writes the words on cards as the students say them and places the cards on the pocket chart. The teacher indicates that space should be left between each word in the sentence and continues until each word in the sentence is placed in the chart. The teacher places a period at the end of the sentence.
Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Lesson 4, page 228, students use the magnetic letters b, r, and other letters. The teacher makes a letter on the whiteboard, and then students find the letter b on the alphabetic chart. This is repeated with the letters m and r.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Contents, page v, seven lessons address recognizing and naming all upper- and lower-case letters of the alphabet.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge Concept, Recognize Letters and State Their Name, page 236, students use the Alphabet Linking Chart with a partner to help name the letters.
Indicator 1P
Instructional opportunities are frequently built into the materials for students to practice and gain decoding automaticity and sight-based recognition of high-frequency words. This includes reading fluency in oral reading beginning in mid-Grade 1 and through Grade 2.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for Indicator 1p.
The Fountas & Pinnell Kindergarten materials contain some opportunities for teachers to explicitly instruct students to decode with automaticity and accuracy. The teacher explains the phonics concept in some lessons but does not model reading words with automaticity and accuracy before asking students to read the words. The materials contain some opportunities for students to engage in decoding practice during Teach and Apply. Materials include seven High-Frequency Word Lessons. Since all seven lessons are generative lessons, the materials suggest the teacher repeat the lesson several times. The teacher selects which words to teach from either the 25 High-Frequency Words List or 50 High-Frequency Words List. The program does not specify an exact sequence of instruction or exactly how many high-frequency words should be mastered at any specific point over the Kindergarten year. High-frequency lessons are not frequently addressed over the year, with lessons occurring in #26, #53, #82, #83, #84, and #85 of the Master Lesson Guide. Each lesson suggests using the Words to Know Instructional Procedure, which contains five steps, including explicit instruction by the teacher and opportunities for students to understand the principle.
Over the course of the year, some opportunities are provided in core materials for students to purposefully read emergent-reader texts.
Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding.
In the Guided Reading Folder, page 2 of the folder states that the teacher should tell students that they will read a story called My Dad that is part of the family series. The book has high-frequency words my and is in it, along with inflectional endings.
Fountas & Pinnell, Guided Reading Card, Levels A-D, each Guided Reading Card has three sections focused on understanding the text. These sections are called “Introducing the Text”, “Reading the Text”, and “Discussing and Revisiting the Text”.
Materials support students’ development of automaticity and accuracy of grade-level decodable words over the course of the year.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns Lesson 2, students use letter tiles and lowercase letter cards to make words with /-an/.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns 5, the teacher writes -ake words on chart paper. The teacher states, “You can look at this spelling pattern to read each word.” The teacher writes more words with -ake, and students reread the list of words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns Lesson 6, students use magnetic letters to build -ine words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Word Solving Actions 2, the lesson focuses on recognizing and reading known words quickly. Students practice reading a letter together with coaching from the teacher. Individual students are asked to read a line word-by-word while the other students check whether the child reads accurately. Students go back and read the salutation and first two lines together again quickly. The teacher adds two more lines to the letter and repeats the tasks using the new lines.
Materials include systematic and explicit instruction of high-frequency words (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, the Words to Know Instructional Routine is described with five steps:
1. Show a group of high-frequency words, reading each one while running your pointer finger under it, left to right.
2. Children look at each word to see if they recognize it.
3. Help children understand the principle.
4. Children work with high-frequency words to apply the principle.
5. Summarize the learning by restating the principle.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Online Resource Guide, High-Frequency Online Resource, Lesson 3, students play a word matching game called “Lotto.” The teacher holds up a card with a word on it, and students match it to the same word in the pocket chart. The teacher models how to check the card in the pocket chart to make sure it is the right match.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, High-Frequency Words 1, the teacher places the following word cards on the magnetic whiteboard: to, a, it, me, and I. The teacher holds up the word and says, “What is this word? You read it. What are the two letters in this word? Spell it from left to right.” The teacher makes the words using letter tiles. The teacher writes the word. The class reads all three examples of the word.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, High-Frequency Words 3, the teacher starts the lesson by asking, “What word is this?” The teacher asks the students to match word cards with the words on a wall chart.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, High-Frequency 4, the instruction begins with an explicit model, “The first word is like. You read it. What are the four letters in like?”
Students have opportunities to read and practice high-frequency words in isolation.
Read common high-frequency words by sight (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Online Resource Guide, there are seven lessons with high-frequency words in them. In Lesson 2, students work with building and reading words the, and, is, in, and can use magnetic letters. Students write the word, then read it.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, High-Frequency Words 2, the teacher tells students they will read, make and write high-frequency words. The teacher models finding the letters, making sure they are in the correct order, going across to read, and making and writing on the board to ensure all words are correctly spelled.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, High-Frequency Words 3, Recognize and Use High-Frequency Words With One, Two, or Three Letters, students play a word-matching game of high-frequency words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, High-Frequency Words 4, students are instructed to read their list of high-frequency words to a partner and to read each word quickly. The teacher is to “Notice whether children are able to recognize high-frequency words with three or more letters quickly when reading.”
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, High-Frequency Words 5, students use the read, make, and write model for the following high-frequency words: from, what, your, she. Students check with a partner to make sure they are reading the words correctly.
Materials include an insufficient quantity of new grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words for students to make reading progress.
The Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K presents 25 high-frequency words for students to learn throughout their Kindergarten year. On page 377, it says, “You will make sure that children know as many as twenty-five high-frequency words in detail and teach them a procedure for learning and remembering words by sight.”
Indicator 1Q
Materials, questions, and tasks provide systematic and explicit instruction in and practice of word recognition and analysis skills in a research-based progression in connected text and tasks.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for Indicator 1q.
The Fountas & Pinnell Kindergarten materials contain instruction and practice in word analysis strategies during Letter-Sound Relationships, Word Structure, Word Solving Actions, and Spelling Patterns. The skills introduced are explicitly taught, and students are provided both guided and independent practice activities that include word sorts, games, using magnetic letters, poems, and other reading selections. Students have opportunities to hear and read high-frequency words in the context of sentences during Teach and/or Shared Reading of the High-Frequency Word and Word-Solving Actions lessons. The teacher models reading poems that contain high-frequency words from Sing a Song of Poetry, and students are encouraged to join the teacher after one or two repetitions. During Interactive Writing, students have opportunities for writing words in isolation and checking their spelling on the word wall, but there is no systematic practice on writing high-frequency words in sentences. In some Independent Writing sections, the teacher encourages students to recall words they know by sight and write them quickly, checking them for accuracy against words posted on the word wall, but does not provide systematic practice on writing that day’s high-frequency words in context.
Materials contain poems from Sing a Song of Poetry, Grade K for students to read during Shared Reading in lessons of the Nine Areas of Learning about Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study. Poems are suggested in each lesson, but the poems are not aligned to the program’s scope and sequence and do not consistently provide practice of the decodable element from the lesson. Poetry can be used for repeated readings for the following reasons: expand oral language and/or help students notice print features such as letters, letter patterns, or words. The materials do not suggest when to reuse poems for repeated readings. The poems also include high-frequency words for students to read during Shared Reading in the High-Frequency Words Lessons. The decodable texts/poems align with the scope and sequence of the Master Lesson Guide. While there are poems for high-frequency word reading in decodable texts, there are a limited number of prepared lesson plans for repeated readings of the poems.
Materials provide limited support for 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.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter-Sound Relationships Lesson 1, students are told that they will match consonant sounds to letters.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter-Sound Relationships 6, students practice recognizing beginning consonant sounds and the letters that represent them.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns Concept 1, Recognize and Use the CVC Pattern, the teacher builds CVC words, replacing a consonant or vowel one at a time to make a new word.
In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Word-Solving Actions 3, students take turns changing the first sound of the word on the left to make the word on the right. Students explain using the following format, “The first sound is /d/. When I change the first sound to /l/, l makes the word log.”
Materials provide some opportunities to read high-frequency words in connected text and tasks.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lesson Grade K, High-Frequency Words 1, the teacher presents a shared reading poem and has children use highlighter tape to locate one-, two-, and three-letter high-frequency words after reading.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Grade K, High-Frequency Word Lesson 7, the teacher presents a poem from Sing a Song of Poetry during Teach. After reading the text, the teacher asks students to locate the high-frequency words and highlight them within the text.
This activity is extended into Apply, and students continue to identify high-frequency words within context.
In Shared Reading, the teacher enlarges “Little Red Apple” or “I Clap my Hands” for reading with students. Students use highlighter tape to locate and identify high-frequency words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Word-Solving Actions 2, students read the class letter with some high-frequency words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, it is encouraged to have the students read some of the words during the interactive read-aloud, particularly on the second and third reading.
Lessons and activities provide students opportunities to learn grade-level word recognition and analysis skills while encoding (writing) in context and decoding words (reading) in connected text and tasks.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge 22, the students write a word on the board during the interactive writing. The teacher has students check to see if the vowel is in the beginning, middle, or end of the word.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter-Sound Relationships Lesson 6, students create a frog book. They make a page for each consonant.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Word Solving Action 2, the teacher creates a class letter. Students take their copy, cut up the sentence strips, glue them on a chart, and then read them to a partner. The teacher uses words that students should already know and a few they might need to sound out.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Word Solving 5, students complete a two-way sort with picture cards and word cards. Students say each sound in the word and practice writing the word, matching the word to a picture card.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Word-Solving Actions 7, students cut apart the words in the poem, “Here is a House.” Students say and glue each word to make the poem. They illustrate and read the poem.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, High-Frequency Words 1, during Interactive Writing, students write high-frequency words quickly while others locate the word on the word wall.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, High-Frequency Words 6, during Independent Writing, the teacher is to “encourage the children to recognize that they have known some words really well. They can write them quickly as they write stories. Have them check their spelling.”
In Fountas & Pinnell, Prompting Guide Part 1, Tab 12, Solving Words, Word Parts, the three columns on this page includes teaching students how to use different parts of a word to read it, prompting students to use different parts of a word to read it, and reinforcing students for using different parts of a word to read it.
Materials include some decodable texts that contain grade-level phonics skills aligned to the program’s scope and sequence.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge 15, students read the poem “A Tisket, a Tisket,” or “Here is a Bunny.” After reading the poem, students use highlighter tape to find words with the same letter in various locations of the poem since the lesson is about finding connections among words by noting the position of a letter.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter-Sound Relationships 4, students read the poem, “Two Little Black Birds.” Students read up to the word with the sticky note and then try and predict the first letter of the word covered by the sticky note.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Word-Solving 2, students read the poem, “Bouncing Ball.” Students predict a word or two and determine if it is correct or not.
In Sing a Song of Poetry, page 12, there is a grid to help teachers think about using five poems as a text to revisit.
A teacher could revisit “Hey Diddle Diddle” to focus on:
Phonogram Patterns: -at, -ow, -an, -ay.
Letter-Sound: Beginning with h, d, th, c, f, j, m, l, t, s, r, w.
Letter-Sound: Ending with y, l, t, d, w, r, n, g, ch, sh, th.
One- and two-syllable assonance.
-ed ending, action words.
A teacher could revisit “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” to focus on:
Phonogram Patterns: -ow, -ot.
Letter-Sound: Beginning t, l, s, h, w, y, d.
Letter-Sound: Ending l, r, w, t, p, v, d, k, n.
One- and two-syllable words.
Materials include some decodable texts that contain grade-level high-frequency/irregularly spelled words aligned to the program’s scope and sequence.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, High-Frequency Words Lesson 1, students read the book Fish Eyes. The teacher is prompted to reread and have students point out high-frequency words. This aligns with the lesson plan and scope for Lesson 1 in high-frequency words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade Ky, High-Frequency Word Lesson 7, students read the poem “This is the Way We Go to School.” Students learn the high-frequency word to. This aligns with the lesson plan and scope for Lesson 7.
In Sing a Song of Poetry, page 12, there is a grid to help teachers think about using five poems as a text to revisit.
A teacher could revisit “Hot Cross Buns” to focus on:
High-Frequency Words: you, have, no to, your.
A teacher could revisit “I Love Chocolate” to focus on:
High-Frequency Words: I, in, my.
A teacher could revisit “Pat-a-cake to focus on:
High-Frequency Words: me, a, you, can, it and, with, in, the, for.
Indicator 1R
Materials support ongoing and frequent assessment to determine student mastery and inform meaningful differentiation of foundational skills, including a clear and specific protocol as to how students performing below standard on these assessments will be supported.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for Indicator 1r.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K materials, there are daily opportunities to assess students' foundational skills during Assess. There are curriculum-based assessment protocols provided in the online resources, which are directly correlated to the nine areas of literacy instruction included in the program. Each assessment explains what is tested, why it is important, and how to complete the assessment. These opportunities provide the teacher with information about students’ skills. There are Extend learning sections the teacher can use if a student has mastered a content area or if a student needs reteaching. The assessments are administered at the end of lessons. Throughout the High-Frequency Words lessons, the following assessment opportunities are provided within the Online Resources to use over the course of the year: Assessment A (Reading Words) and Assessment B (Writing Words). For word analysis, there are Word-Solving Action assessments provided such as Assessment B (Using Letter-Sound Relationships to Solve New Words), Assessment C (Recognizing and Reading Known Words Quickly), Assessment D (Using Onset and Rimes in Known Words to Solve New Words), and Assessment E (Using Onset and Rimes in Known Words to Solve New Words). Each assessment provides recommendations for what teachers should analyze once the assessment has been administered. There are missed opportunities for assessments to provide the teacher with instructional guidance about the next steps for all students.
Assessment opportunities are provided over the course of the year in core materials for students to demonstrate progress toward mastery and independence of foundational skills. For example:
Materials include assessment opportunities that measure student progress of print concepts.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Early Literacy Concepts 3, page 89, it states to observe children in shared reading and notice whether students are reading left to right and match word to word. It then suggests conducting a quick assessment by asking individuals to point to the words as you read a couple of sentences. There is also a suggestion that the teacher could use Early Literacy Concepts Assessment E, G, H, and J.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge 5, page 233, the teacher selects a familiar text from Sing a Song of Poetry. Individual students point to or circle a specific letter in the text. The teacher is to assess a selection of up to 5 different letters with each child.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge 17, page 281, the teacher assesses students on letter names as indicated in the “Assess” part of the lesson. The teacher is to observe the speed at which students sort letters because it indicates their written ability.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge 23, page 305, the teacher observes students as they put upper and lowercase letters cards alphabetically on a long strip of paper.
Materials include assessment opportunities that measure student progress of phonological awareness.
There are 10 assessments and an individual record form found in the Online Resources for Phonological Awareness. During Assess, the teacher is to use particular assessments. The assessments are:
Assessment A: Hearing Rhymes
Assessment B: Hearing Syllables
Assessment C: Identifying Sounds in Words
Assessment D: Segmenting a Word into Sounds
Assessment E: Identifying Beginning Consonant Sounds
Assessment F: Identifying Ending Consonant Sounds
Assessment G: Blending Sounds to Make Words
Assessment H: Blending Word Parts
Assessment I: Removing Sounds from Words
Assessment J: Segmenting Word Parts
Assessment K: Individual Record
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness 9, page 143, during Assess, the teacher says five words and notices if students can hear and clap one syllable and two syllables. The teacher could use Phonological Awareness Assessments B or K.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness 15, page 167, during Assess, the teacher notices whether children can hear the end sound. The teacher places a few picture cards on a chart and asks individual students to name the picture and then match it to a card in the pocket chart according to the ending sound.
Materials include assessment opportunities that measure student progress of phonics and decoding.
Throughout the Letter-Sound Relationships (LSR), the following assessment opportunities are provided within the Online Resources: Assessment A: Matching Consonant Letters and Sounds at the Beginning of Words, Assessment B: Matching Consonant Letters and Sounds at the End of Words, Assessment C: Class Record.
Throughout the Sound Patterns (SP), the following assessment opportunities are provided within the Online Resources: Assessment A: Matching Pictures of Words that Contain the Same Phonogram Pattern, Assessment B: Matching Words that Contain the Same Phonogram Pattern, Assessment C: Matching Pictures with Words that Contain the Same Phonogram Pattern, Assessment D: Reading Words with the CVC Pattern in Unfamiliar Text, Assessment E: Reading Words with Phonogram Patterns, Assessment F: Reading Words with Phonogram Patterns, Assessment G: Class Record (Reading Phonogram Patterns), and Assessment H: Class Record (Writing Phonogram Patterns(.
Throughout the Word-Solving Actions (WSA) set of lessons, the following assessment opportunities are provided within the Online Resources: Assessment A: Sorting Names, Assessment B: Using Letter-Sound Relationships to Solve New Words, Assessment C: Recognizing and Reading Known Words Quickly, Assessment D: Using Onset and Rimes in Known Words to Solve New Words, Assessment E: Using Onset and Rimes in Known Words to Solve New Words, Assessment F: Individual Record (Using Parts of Known Words to Solve New Words, 1), Assessment G: Individual Record (Name Chart), Assessment H: Class Record, and Assessment I: Class Record (Name Chart).
Materials include assessment opportunities that measure student progress of word recognition and analysis.
In Online Assessment A, students’ general knowledge of high-frequency words is assessed. It is recommended to use this assessment in High-Frequency Words. Students read a list of 25 words, and the teacher marks down whether the student reads the word correctly or not.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, High-Frequency Words 1, page 379, during Assess, the teacher observes whether children can recognize high-frequency words quickly when reading. The teacher observes if students can write high-frequency words accurately.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, there are two curriculum based protocols for assessing a student’s letter-sound relationships: a) matching consonant sounds at the beginning of words, and b) matching consonant sound at the end of words.
In Letter-Sound Relationships Lesson 3, pages 321-324, it suggests the teacher may want to use the Letter-Sound Relationships Assessment A or C.
After administering the assessment, it recommends the teacher analyze a student’s:
ability to identify names of objects represented by picture,
ability to say, hear, and identify the initial consonant sound in words
ability to link the consonant sound to the letter that it represents
children’s articulation patterns
letter-sound confusions.
In Online Assessment C, the teacher has a student read the “Recognizing and Reading Known Words Quickly” text. The teacher uses a duplicate copy to record the student’s reading behavior.
Assessment materials provide teachers and students with information of students’ current skills/level of understanding.
In Fountas and Pinnell Early Literacy Concepts Assessment H, Individual Record online document, Lessons 1-8, this document identifies the skills that the student has mastered and the skills that have not been mastered.
In Fountas and Pinnell Letter-Sound Relationships Assessment C is completed with Letter Sound Relationship Lessons 1-8. The teacher records whether students were able to complete beginning consonants, ending consonants, and writing words.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K Online Resources, Early Literacy Concepts, Kindergarten, seven assessments are available in this resource, including locating letters, locating words, and matching word-by-word. The guidance suggests the lessons in which these assessments are to be used and what teachers should notice during these lessons.
In Fountas and Pinnell, BAS1 3rd Edition, Optional Assessments, Where-to-Start-Word Test, this test allows the teacher to give a quick assessment to give the broad notion of the level at which to begin the Benchmark Assessment
In Fountas and Pinnell, BAS1 3rd Edition, Optional Assessments, Early Literacy Behaviors, at the end of the information on the assessment, guidance is given to teachers as to what to notice as they interact with a child on a simple text.
In Fountas and Pinnell, BAS1 3rd Edition, Recording Form, Socks, Level C, Fiction tests, these tests assess students’ oral reading fluency and comprehension.
Materials provide limited support to teachers with instructional adjustments to help students make progress toward mastery in foundational skills.
In Fountas and Pinnell, Guided Reading book, Chapter 8, page 203, in this section on assessment, teachers are directed to use The Fountas and Pinnell Literacy Continuum to determine what to work on next by reading level.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Online Resource Guide, Early Literacy Concepts, Card 1, page 72, every card contains suggestions for English Language Learners.
Indicator 1S
Materials, questions, and tasks provide high-quality lessons and activities that allow for differentiation of foundational skills, so all students achieve mastery of foundational skills.
The materials reviewed for Kindergarten partially meet the criteria for Indicator 1s.
The Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, lessons consistently include Teach, Apply, and Share. “Teach” is a whole-class lesson. “Apply” is hands-on practice, and the teacher may have students work in a small group at a literacy center. “Share” is a whole-class meeting for students to share their phonics, spelling, and word study lessons. Within Teach, Apply, and Share, there are no opportunities or explicit instruction in re-teaching when a student performs below grade level to receive extensive opportunities for learning and practice. While some of the lesson plans are generative and a teacher can reteach the generative lesson repeatedly, guidance is not provided to the teacher as to how to scaffold students performing below grade level. The Fountas & Pinnell materials provide daily support for students who read, speak or listen in a language other than English. Each lesson is introduced with a section entitled Working with English Language Learners, which provides additional suggestions for addressing the instructional needs of this population. No advanced opportunities are provided for students to work on, while the teacher provides reteaching to students who have not acquired the skills being taught. Each lesson contains Extend Learning opportunities, which can provide advanced students with the opportunity to learn grade-level foundational skills at greater depth. In Phonics, Spelling, and Word Lessons, Grade K, page 34, the materials describe Extend Learning as “If children need more experience, you can repeat the lesson format using these suggestions for variation, different examples, or more challenging activities.”
Materials provide strategies and supports for students who read, write, and/or speak in a language other than English to meet or exceed grade-level standards. At the beginning of each lesson, information is provided to the teacher for working with English Language Learners. Examples include, but are not limited to:
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Early Literacy Concepts 7, page 99, it states: “Be sure to be explicit in demonstrating the meaning of the words first, last, letter, and word. If you know these words in the children’s own languages, you may want to use them to focus attention on the four concepts. You may wish to have children work in small groups to help them highlight first and last letters.”
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge 7, page 239, states the teacher may want to work with the lesson’s poem over many days before asking students to name and locate letters.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns 4, page 359, it states to begin the lesson working with words that students know in their home language first.
General statements about ELL students, or few strategies noted at the beginning of a unit or at one place in the teacher edition are then implemented by the materials throughout the curriculum.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study, Lesson Book, What Are Some Ways of Working Effectively with English Language Learners?, pages 23-29, states, “You are likely to have many children in your class who not only can speak one language but are learning a second or even third language.” It is suggested that the teacher adjust their teaching to ensure that English language learners have access to the teaching of sounds, letters, and words. Suggestions are provided for Oral Language, Reading, Writing, Phonics, and Word Study. For example:
Oral Language: Paraphrase and summarize for children. Repeat the directions or instructions several different ways, watching for feedback that they understand you. Paraphrase until you can see that they understand.
Reading: Be sure to use oral language, pictures, concrete objects, and demonstration when you introduce stories to help children untangle any tricky vocabulary or concepts they are reading in texts for themselves in guided and independent reading. They may encounter words that they can “read” (which really means decode) but do not understand.
Writing: Provide a great many models of writing for English language learners--interactive writing, shared reading, charts about people in the room, or their experiences. Encourage children to reread and revisit these models to help them in their writing. In the beginning, they may use phrases or sentences from charts around the room, varying their own sentences slightly. Gradually, they will go beyond these resources, but models will be helpful support for a time.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study: “Use the pocket chart often so that children have the experience of working with pictures and words in a hands-on way. They can match pictures with words so that the meaning of words becomes clearer.”
Materials provide strategies and supports for students in special populations to work with grade-level foundational skills and to meet or exceed grade-level standards.
Materials suggest small group teaching but do not provide lesson plans and explicit instruction for reteaching students performing below grade level.
Materials do not provide guidance to teachers for scaffolding and adapting lessons and activities to support students who read, write, speak, or listen below grade level in extensive opportunities to learn foundational skills at the grade-level standards.
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.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study Lessons, Grade K, Phonological Awareness 14, during Extend Learning, page 164, students have the opportunity to “repeat the lesson with different pictures to practice matching other ending sounds” while gradually increasing the range of sounds children can work with at one time.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Lessons, Grade K, Letter Knowledge 6, page 238, during Extend Learning, materials provide seven suggestions for teachers to extend learning for students once they have learned more about letters. Some of the suggestions are: start in the middle or end of the chart and read back to the beginning or read only the words under the picture.
In Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Lessons, Grade K, Spelling Patterns 1, during Extend Learning, the teacher asks students to look for CVC words in texts the class has read during Interactive Read-Aloud and Shared Reading. Students write each word they find on a blank word card.
Overview of Gateway 2
Building Knowledge with Texts, Vocabulary, and Tasks
Gateway 2
v1.5
Criterion 2.1: Building Knowledge
Materials build knowledge through integrated reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language.
Indicator 2A
Texts are organized around a cohesive topic(s) to build students’ ability to read and comprehend complex texts independently and proficiently.
Indicator 2B
Materials require students to analyze the key ideas, details, craft, and structure within individual texts as well as across multiple texts using coherently sequenced, high-quality questions and tasks.
Indicator 2C
Materials require students to analyze the integration of knowledge within individual texts as well as across multiple texts using coherently sequenced, high-quality text-specific and/or text-dependent questions and tasks.
Indicator 2D
Culminating tasks require students to demonstrate their knowledge of a unit's topic(s) through integrated literacy skills (e.g., a combination of reading, writing, speaking, listening).
Indicator 2E
Materials include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to achieve grade-level writing proficiency by the end of the school year.
Indicator 2F
Materials include a progression of research skills that guide shared research and writing projects to develop students' knowledge using multiple texts and source materials.
Criterion 2.2: Coherence
Materials promote mastery of grade-level standards by the end of the year.
Indicator 2G
Materials spend the majority of instructional time on content that falls within grade-level aligned instruction, practice, and assessments.
Indicator 2H
Materials regularly and systematically balance time and resources required for following the suggested implementation, as well as information for alternative implementations that maintain alignment and intent of the standards.
Overview of Gateway 3
Usability
Criterion 3.1: Teacher Supports
The program includes opportunities for teachers to effectively plan and utilize materials with integrity and to further develop their own understanding of the content.
Indicator 3A
Materials provide teacher guidance with useful annotations and suggestions for how to enact the student materials and ancillary materials to support students' literacy development.
Indicator 3B
Materials contain adult-level explanations and examples of the more complex grade-level/course-level concepts and concepts beyond the current course so that teachers can improve their own knowledge of the subject.
Indicator 3C
Materials include standards correlation information that explains the role of the standards in the context of the overall series.
Indicator 3D
Materials provide strategies for informing all stakeholders, including students, parents, or caregivers about the program and suggestions for how they can help support student progress and achievement.
Indicator 3E
Materials provide explanations of the instructional approaches of the program and identification of the research-based strategies.
Indicator 3F
Materials provide a comprehensive list of supplies needed to support instructional activities.
Indicator 3G
This is not an assessed indicator in ELA.
Indicator 3H
This is not an assessed indicator in ELA.
Criterion 3.2: Assessment
The program includes a system of assessments identifying how materials provide tools, guidance, and support for teachers to collect, interpret, and act on data about student progress towards the standards.
Indicator 3I
Assessment information is included in the materials to indicate which standards are assessed.
Indicator 3J
Assessment system provides multiple opportunities throughout the grade, course, and/or series to determine students' learning and sufficient guidance to teachers for interpreting student performance and suggestions for follow-up.
Indicator 3K
Assessments include opportunities for students to demonstrate the full intent of grade-level/course-level standards and shifts across the series.
Indicator 3L
Assessments offer accommodations that allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills without changing the content of the assessment.
Criterion 3.3: Student Supports
The program includes materials designed for each student’s regular and active participation in grade-level/grade-band/series content.
Indicator 3M
Materials provide strategies and supports for students in special populations to work with grade-level content and to meet or exceed grade-level standards that will support their regular and active participation in learning English language arts and literacy.
Indicator 3N
Materials regularly provide extensions to engage with literacy content and concepts at greater depth for students who read, write, speak, and/or listen above grade level.
Indicator 3O
Materials provide varied approaches to learning tasks over time and variety in how students are expected to demonstrate their learning with opportunities for students to monitor their learning.
Indicator 3P
Materials provide opportunities for teachers to use a variety of grouping strategies.
Indicator 3Q
Materials provide strategies and supports for students who read, write, and/or speak in a language other than English to meet or exceed grade-level standards to regularly participate in learning English language arts and literacy.
Indicator 3R
Materials provide a balance of images or information about people, representing various demographic and physical characteristics.
Indicator 3S
Materials provide guidance to encourage teachers to draw upon student home language to facilitate learning.
Indicator 3T
Materials provide guidance to encourage teachers to draw upon student cultural and social backgrounds to facilitate learning.
Indicator 3U
This is not an assessed indicator in ELA.
Indicator 3V
This is not an assessed indicator in ELA.
Criterion 3.4: Intentional Design
The program includes a visual design that is engaging and references or integrates digital technology, when applicable, with guidance for teachers.
Indicator 3W
Materials integrate technology such as interactive tools, virtual manipulatives/objects, and/or dynamic software in ways that engage students in the grade-level/series standards, when applicable.
Indicator 3X
Materials include or reference digital technology that provides opportunities for teachers and/or students to collaborate with each other, when applicable.
Indicator 3Y
The visual design (whether in print or digital) supports students in engaging thoughtfully with the subject, and is neither distracting nor chaotic.
Indicator 3Z
Materials provide teacher guidance for the use of embedded technology to support and enhance student learning, when applicable.