The materials include a clearly defined sequence for explicit instruction in letter formation. Students spend 13 weeks learning how to write all of the upper and lower case letters. The materials provide explicit instruction and guidance for the teacher and also provide a routine for each letter, which includes watching a video, tracing the letter, verbal prompts, and air writing. Materials do not provide teacher guidance on providing corrective feedback to students when students make a mistake or do not understand how to form the letters correctly. 

There is a defined sequence for letter formation, aligned to the scope and sequence of letter recognition, to be completed in a reasonable time frame over the school year. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In the Program Materials, there is a Kindergarten Year Long Scope and Sequence for letter formation that begins in Unit 1, Week 2, and concludes by Week 13. This is the same scope and sequence used in the program for letter recognition. In the program, students learn letter names, formation, and phonemes together. 

  The scope and sequence includes:

  • Week 2: Mn

  • Week 3: Ss, Aa

  • Week 4: Rr, Tt

  • Week 5: Ll, Nn

  • Week 6: Bb, Oo

  • Week 7: Pp, Cc

  • Week 8: Ii, Ff

  • Week 9: Dd, Hh

  • Week 10: Uu, Gg

  • Week 11: Kk, Ee, Vv

  • Week 12: Xx, Jj, Ww

  • Week 13: Yy, Qq, Zz

Materials include clear directions for the teacher concerning how to explain and model how to correctly form each of the 26 letters (uppercase and lowercase). Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Unit 1, Week 3, Day 2, the materials provide the teacher with guidance on how to teach the letter Ss. Instructional activities include watching a handwriting video and using a letter formation poster to show students how to trace the letter.

• In Unit 1, Week 5, Day 2, students learn how to write the letter Ll. The teacher begins by showing a handwriting video, and then the students watch it a second time but air-write along with the video. Then, the teacher shows a poster with the letter, and the students air-trace the letter while the teacher provides verbal prompts. 

• In Unit 1, Week 7, Day 4, the teacher introduces the letter Cc. The teacher uses the same routine as in previous weeks and days, which includes watching a video, air-writing, and tracing along dotted lines with verbal prompts.

• In Unit 1, Week 11, Day 4, the teacher follows the same instructional routine to teach students how to write the letter Vv, including tracing it, using verbal prompts, and air writing it. 

Materials include teacher guidance for corrective feedback when needed for students. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• No evidence found.

The materials provide assessment opportunities at the end of each unit; however, the materials do not provide guidance to teachers about assessing students more frequently. The documentation included with the assessments indicates that students should score 80% or higher on the end-of-unit assessments before moving on to the next unit, though there is limited additional support for students who do not reach this threshold. 

Materials regularly and systematically provide a variety of assessment opportunities over the course of the year to demonstrate students’ progress toward mastery and independence of letter recognition and letter formation. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The Kindergarten materials include a placement test that is designed to be given at the start of the year and the end of the year to determine where students should begin in the program and growth over the course of the year. This assessment measures letter identification, names, and sounds. 

• Each unit ends with an End of Unit Assessment to assess students’ knowledge of the skills learned within the unit. For example, in Unit 1, the teacher uses the Level K, Unit 1 End of Unit Assessment to assess several skills, including students’ letter recognition and letter sound identification. Teachers can also administer the extended letter formation/handwriting assessment, though this is optional.

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

• The Unit 1, End of Unit Assessment includes guidance for the teacher that states the purpose of the assessment is to “evaluate student learning throughout this unit, as well as to help you set up for small group instruction that begins in Unit 2.” It suggests students should get an 80% or higher to continue in the scope and sequence. 

• The Unit 3, End of Unit Assessment provides data about students’ mastery of the phonological awareness, phonics, and high frequency word skills taught in the unit. However, the assessment does not evaluate letter recognition and printing letters. 

Materials support teachers with instructional suggestions for assessment-based steps to help students to progress toward mastery in letter recognition and letter formation. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 1, if students score 80% or lower on the end-of-unit assessment, they should continue working on Unit 1 concepts. However, the materials do not specify what skills students should continue to work on. 

• In Unit 2, Week 15, information for teachers is provided on how to use the unit assessment results, including how to group students. The materials suggest that if students know fewer than 80% of letter names and sounds, they should go into a small group.

Throughout the materials, there is some explicit instruction in phonemic awareness with repeated teacher modeling. In some lessons there is teacher modeling, but in other lessons, the teacher explains the activity, and students complete it without teacher modeling. Materials include minimal guidance for corrective feedback in phonemic awareness. 

Materials include some explicit instruction in sounds (phonemes). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

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

  • In Unit 1, Week 5, Lesson 1, the teacher models how to isolate the initial, medial, and final sounds in the word hat. The teacher models how to do the hand movements while pronouncing each phoneme, as explained in the “Hand Movements for Level K” video. The directions say, “You listen first, watch my hands, and then you repeat.” 

  • In Unit 2, Week 16, Lesson 1, the materials guide the teacher to isolate the initial, medial, and final sounds in the word seat. The teacher says the word and then segments the word into the individual phonemes.

  • In Unit 2, Week 18, Lesson 1,the teacher models how to isolate the initial, medial, and final sounds in the word gap. The lesson materials include the script, “I’ll say a word, and you tell me the sounds. If I say ‘gap’ you say /g/, /a/, /p/.”

  • In Unit 3, Week 24, Transition Activities, Day 2, the teacher says, “I’m going to say a word, and you tell me what the middle sound is. For example, the middle sound in jet is /ĕ/. Ready?” Students then practice with the words bed, chin, shut, cake, and dock.

  • In Unit 4, Week 34, Lesson 5, the teacher guides students to practice segmenting. The materials direct the teacher to say, “I’m going to say a word, and you tell me the sounds in the word. Ready?” The teacher models, if needed, then students segment the words note, stale, globe, hike, tube, line, mule, and flute.

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

  • In Unit 2, Week 18, Lesson 1, the teacher introduces a game where the teacher says a word and then a phoneme to add to the initial position. The teacher models by saying the sound /ā/, then saying he/she needs to add the sound /m/, and the new word is may. 

  • In Unit 4, Week 30, Lesson 5, the materials provide teachers with directions for a substitution game. The teacher models by saying, “In this game we’re going to switch out the last sound in the word. So if I say the word ‘lake’ and I change ‘k’ to ‘t’, I get late.” 

Materials provide the teacher with examples for instruction in sounds (phonemes). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Each week includes daily Transition Activities, which provide guidance on how to instruct the students in a variety of phonological awareness skills, not specifically phonemic awareness skills tied to the phonics skill. For example, in Unit 2, Week 15, the Transition Activities include daily review and practice in counting syllables and blending phonemes, identifying final sounds, generating rhymes, substituting syllables, blending phonemes, and adding syllables. 

• In Unit 3, Week 21, the Transition Activities include blending phonemes, identifying medial sounds, counting syllables, and identifying rhyming patterns and include words for the teacher to use. 

Materials include minimal teacher guidance for corrective feedback when needed for students. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The materials do not include guidance for corrective feedback when needed. There are some suggestions on teacher actions if students are making mistakes (i.e. in Unit 4, Week 30, Lesson 2, during the Blending Drill and Wrap-Up section, guidance is provided that “if students struggle, model saying each sound and then blending the sound together”)  but there is no guidance or examples of how to use corrective feedback to support students in identifying and correcting their error. 

Students have regular opportunities to practice phonemic awareness skills. During the Phonics portion of the lesson, materials generally introduce a sound card and students practice using sound cards in a Blending Routine. The lessons include support on pronouncing each phoneme, but directions to the teacher for demonstrating how to pronounce each phoneme based on mouth formation do not exist.  

Daily phonemic awareness instruction correlates to the phonics portion of the lesson (phoneme-grapheme correspondence). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 2, Week 15, the Phonological Awareness focus of the week is medial sound matching and phoneme segmentation. The phonics focus of the week is short vowels a and i. In Lesson 1, the teacher instructs students to listen for the short a sound in the middle of the words. 

• In Unit 3, Week 24, the target skills include CVC words with the -ob ending and mixed short a and o word families. In Lesson 3, during Phonological Awareness, the teacher plays a game with students where the teacher says a word, students repeat it, and then students switch out the initial sound, but all words are CVC words with short a. 

• In Unit 4, Week 35, the materials focus on long vowels i and u with silent e. During Lesson 1, Phonological Awareness, students play a game to identify the sounds in the word, and words include duke, lime, tile, tune, and cute. Then, during Word Building, students use magnetic letters, tiles, or cards to build words with short vowels and then add the “magic e” to make the long vowel sound in the words. 

Materials include opportunities for students to practice connecting sounds to letters. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Lesson 9, students go through the sound cards and say each letter name and sound. 

• In Lesson 30, students use s blend cards and vowel cards to complete a blending drill.  Students read the whole word by saying each sound and then reading the word. 

Materials include limited directions to the teacher for demonstrating how to pronounce each phoneme (articulation/mouth formation). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the Unit 1 Materials, the program provides a Letter Sounds Video that includes a video of the teacher demonstrating the pronunciation of each letter. While there is modeling of the sound and accompanying hand gestures, there is no evidence of modeling articulation and mouth formation. There is also no guidance for the teacher on utilizing the videos for students other than direction to play the video within that section of the lesson. For example, in Unit 1, Week 6, Lesson 1, the teacher introduces the letter “b,” demonstrates how to pronounce the phoneme, and plays the video, but there is no modeling about mouth formation. 

Materials include a Placement Test and End of Unit Assessments that evaluate students’ phonemic awareness skills, among other foundational reading skills. There are no interim assessments within each unit to provide regular and systematic assessment opportunities. There is minimal guidance on what to do with assessment results or how to support teachers with next steps toward mastery in phonemic awareness. 

Materials provide limited assessment opportunities over the course of the year to demonstrate students’ progress toward mastery and independence in phonemic awareness. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Materials include a Placement Test for teachers to administer at the beginning of the year and again at the end of the year to measure growth.

• There is an End-of-Unit Assessment for all four units, but there are no interim assessments provided within each unit.

• The Unit 1 End of Unit Assessment includes items that measure phonological and phonemic awareness skills, including syllable blending, syllable segmenting, identifying initial and final sounds, phoneme blending, and syllable manipulation. 

• The Unit 3 End of Unit Assessment includes items that measure phoneme blending, phoneme segmenting, and phoneme deleting, including initial phoneme substitution and final phoneme addition.

• Within each unit, in the Overview & End of Unit Assessment section, the materials provide a downloadable Excel spreadsheet for teachers to keep track of data electronically if they choose.

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

• The materials include a Level K Placement Test, which provides information concerning students’ current skills/level of understanding of phonemic awareness. The materials include guidelines to assist in placement of where a student should begin in the materials. 

• Within the End of Unit Assessment documents, the materials indicate that if a student performs a task with 80% accuracy or better they are ready for the next unit, but otherwise, the assessments do not provide teachers and students with information concerning students’ current skills/levels of understanding of phonemic awareness.

Materials support teachers with instructional suggestions for assessment-based steps to help students to progress toward mastery in phonemic awareness. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• No evidence was found of instructional suggestions for assessment-based next steps to help students progress toward mastery in phonemic awareness.

The materials include a phonics scope and sequence that includes common phonics generalizations and high-utility patterns; however, the scope and sequence progresses through skills quickly and includes work with word families. Students spend 14 weeks on letter names, sounds, formation, then progress quickly through all short vowels, CVC words, and digraphs in six weeks.  Students then spend nine weeks on CVC word families and end with six weeks of blends and long vowels. The materials include a Researched Based-Principles and Citations document that outlines the research used for the scope and sequence of instruction. 

Materials contain a clear evidence-based explanation for the expected sequence for teaching phonics skills. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The program materials include a Research Base for From Sounds to Spellings document, which includes a bulleted list of research-based best practices. This includes information about phonics instruction and research citations.

• In the Frequently Asked Questions section, the materials state that the scope and sequence is developed based on the research of Donald Bear, Marcia Invernizzi, Shane Templeton, Francine Johnston, and Wiley Bevins, but it does not include the specific research to explain the order of the phonics sequence. 

Materials clearly delineate a scope and sequence with a cohesive, intentional sequence of phonics instruction, from simpler to more complex skills, and practice to build toward the application of skills; however, materials progress quickly through some skills and include word families. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The materials include a scope and sequence of phonics instruction. The scope and sequence includes the following:

  • In Unit 1, Weeks 1-14, the focus is on introducing all of the letters.

  • In Unit 2, Weeks 15-20, the focus is on short vowels a, e, i, o, and u; CVC words; and digraphs sh, th, ch, wh, qu, and ck.

  • In Unit 3, Weeks 21-29, the focus is CVC words in -at, -an, -am, -ap, -op, -ot, -ob, -im, -ip, -in, -ill, -ug, -ut, -ed, and -et word families and plural nouns and inflectional endings.

  • In Unit 4, Weeks 30-35, the focus is on initial s-blends; initial l-blends; initial r-blends; sounds of long a, e, i, o, and u; CVCe words with long a and long o; and CVCe words with long i and long u.

Phonics instruction is based on high utility patterns and/or common phonics generalizations. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Units 2-4, the scope and sequence of phonics skills begins with introducing students to all of the short vowel sounds and common digraphs. With foundational knowledge of short vowels and common digraphs, the scope and sequence of instruction in the lessons moves to the common word family patterns of CVC words using each short vowel, then plural nouns, and initial blends. Finally, an introduction to long vowel sounds and CVCe word patterns occurs by the end of the year.

The materials include systematic and explicit in phonics instruction. The lessons include direct instruction, modeling, practice, and repetition. Students have the opportunity to blend and segment one-syllable words and opportunities to practice writing words and sentences. However, the materials do not include opportunities or guidance for the teacher to give corrective feedback. The materials do not provide guidance to the teacher on how to support students who make mistakes through the use of corrective feedback. 

Materials contain explicit instructions for systematic and repeated teacher modeling of all newly-taught phonics patterns. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

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

  • In Unit 1, Week 2, Lesson 2, the teacher introduces the letter Mm. The teacher explains that “Every letter has a name and at least one sound. This letter’s name is M, and the sound is /m/. Say /m/ with me.” 

  • In Unit 1, Week 3, Day 1, the teacher introduces the letter Ss. The teacher shows students both the uppercase and lowercase letters and explains that Ss says /s/ and shows a picture of a sun as the keyword. 

  • In Unit 1, Week 4, Lesson 1, the teacher introduces the letter Rr and that it says /r/. The teacher also introduces a picture of a rat on the alphabet poster as a keyword to support the one-to-one letter-sound correspondence. 

  • In Unit 1, Week 9, Lesson 1, the teacher introduces the letter Dd. The teacher explains that the letter Dd says /d/. Students repeat the sound, and the teacher shows the keyword duck. The teacher then asks what other words start with /d/. 

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

  • In Unit 3, Week 24, Lesson 1, the teacher reviews the short o sound. The teacher builds the word job and asks students to segment each sound. Then, the teacher engages in a chaining activity with students using the words cob, sob, and rob. 

  • In Unit 4, Week 33, the lessons introduce the long vowel sounds for Aa, Ee, Ii, Oo, and Uu, and contrast these sounds with the previously learned short vowel sounds. For example, in Lesson 3, the teacher reviews the short and long vowel sounds for Oo and Ee, and then introduces the long vowel sound for Ii. The teacher uses the words hid and hi as examples. 

  • In Unit 4, Week 34, Lesson 1, the teacher gives students magnetic letters (or equivalent), and together the students make the word name. Students discuss the two vowels and are asked which vowel makes a sound. Students continue with a chaining activity using gate, late, lake, make, and rake. 

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

  • In Unit 3, Week 21, Lesson 3, the teacher directs students to build the word man with magnetic tiles or similar. Then, the teacher tells the students to make the word ban next. The teacher says, “Whoa, guess what? ‘Ban’ has /an/, just like ‘man.’” The teacher continues discussing the similarities and differences in /an/ words. 

  • In Unit 3, Week 24, Lesson 1, the materials direct teachers to say, “Let’s play a game. I’ll say the word, and you repeat it. Then, we’ll switch out for the first sound to make a different word. Ready? The word is ‘day.’ Repeat. (day) Change /d/ to /p/, and we get ‘pay.’ Do you hear how ‘day’ turns into ‘pay’ when we change the /d/ to /p/?” Students then practice turning job into rob, then sob, mob, cob, and Bob.

  • In Unit 3, Week 28, Lesson 1, the teacher has the students make the word fed by first segmenting and then writing or using magnetic tiles. Then, the teacher has the students make the word red. The teacher asks, “how do we change fed into red?” Then, students make the words bed, led, and wed.

Lessons include blending and segmenting practice using structured, consistent blending routines with teacher modeling. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 1, Week 6, Lesson 2, the materials direct the teacher to say, “Now let’s do something different. We’re going to practice breaking words into syllables again.” The teacher directs students to stand up and open their palms, first reading and modeling pounding syllables if needed. 

• In Unit 3, Week 24, Lesson 4, the teacher has the students practice writing words with short a and o. The first word is sad, and collectively, the students are expected to segment the sounds. Then, students write the word and check it by repeating each sound and blending them together. The teacher presents additional words, and students segment them each time if needed.

• In Unit 4, Week 31, Day 1, during the blending drill, students engage in a blending drill with the l-blends. The teacher shows students a word, and before saying the word, they must say each sound and blend it together.

• In Unit 4, Week 32, Day 1, during the Blending Drill, students work with r-blends. It is suggested that students segment each sound before blending them together, and if they struggle, the teacher should model each sound and blend the sounds together. 

Lessons include dictation of words and sentences using the newly taught phonics pattern(s). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 3, Week 22, Lesson 5, the teacher passes out dictation paper and displays their own copy for students to follow along. After engaging in dictation of individual sounds, students begin writing words. The teacher says the word and uses it in a sentence before students write the word. The teacher can go through each letter, sound by sound, or have students write the whole word. During this time, students also write the sentence, I am Pam and I can nap. 

• In Unit 3, Week 25, Lesson 2, the materials include a Whiteboard Dictation section. In small groups, the teacher directs students to practice writing words in the -im word family. The teacher says the word, students repeat it, and then the teacher puts it into a sentence. Collectively, they segment the word and write the y sound. Finally, students check it. In Lesson 5, the teacher dictates the sentence, Hit it to him. Students reread the sentence, fix any mistakes they made, then the teacher writes the sentence on the board. 

• In Unit 3, Week 28, Lesson 2, during Whiteboard Dictation, students write words in the -ed family, including led, shed, red, bed, fed. The teacher says the word, students repeat, and then the teacher says it in a sentence. Students then segment the word and write the word before checking it by blending it together.

• In Unit 4, Week 32, Lesson 4, the teacher dictates the word drop for students to write. The teacher says it aloud, uses it in a sentence and then repeats it. The students then segment the word as a class and write it on their sheets. Then, they check the word and rewrite it, even if they got it correct.

Materials include teacher guidance for corrective feedback when needed for students. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• No evidence found

The materials include decodable texts that align with the weekly phonics skill. Students have the opportunity to read and reread the texts each week. However, the materials do not guide the teacher on using the decodable text until students can accurately read single-syllable words. There is no explicit instruction on how to use these texts, and instead, the program provides suggestions based on student needs, such as the option to choral read, echo read, or whisper read. 

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

• In Unit 2, Week 16, students read the decodable text “Chat with Chad.” The phonics target skill for the week is digraphs ch and wh. Words included in the text are Chad, chop, chip, chin, and chum. 

• In Unit 3, Week 21, students read the decodable text “The Cat, the Rat, and the Bat.” The target skill for the week is words that contain the -at word family, and words in the text include hat, mat, rat, bat, chat, and at. 

• In Unit 3, Week 29, students read the decodable text “Jobs” and the decodable poem, “Rats in Hats.” The text contains grade-level phonics skills aligned to the program’s scope and sequence. The target skills for the week include plural nouns and inflectional endings with -s. Words included in the decodable texts include cups, hugs, pups, shops, mats, ships, and dots. 

• In Unit 4, Week 35, students read two decodable texts, “Five Ripe Limes” and “Meg, Mike, and the Job.” The phonics skill focus of the week is CVCe words with long i and long u. Words that are in the decodable reader include five, ripe, limes, line, Mike, wipe, cube, tune, quite, and sides.

Materials include detailed lesson plans for repeated readings of decodable texts to address acquisition of phonics skills. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 2, Week 18, students read “Chat with Chad.” In Lesson 5, the materials say that students would read the text after initially echo reading. It also suggests that if students struggle to recognize high-frequency words, they should search for words they already know and circle or highlight these words. 

• In Unit 3, Week 29, Lesson 2, students circle/highlight words included in the decodable poem “Rats in Hats” with the -s ending. Students chorally read the poem together and then whisper-read it to themselves. In Lessons 3 - 5, during independent work, the materials suggest that students reread the decodable texts and write about them.

• In Unit 4, Week 31, students read “Little Jack Horner” and “The Plum Club.” There is some support for teachers in supporting repeated readings of the text. In Lesson 3, the materials advise the teacher to have students whisper read the story at their own pace and chorally read if the teacher anticipates that students will struggle. In Lesson 4, the materials tell teachers to have students read with a partner. 

Reading practice occurs in decodable texts (i.e., an absence of predictable texts) until students can accurately decode single-syllable words. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• No evidence was found regarding regular opportunities for the teacher to guide students in the reading of decodable texts to ensure students are accurately decoding single-syllable words.

Materials include assessment opportunities for phonics that occur during the Placement Test at the beginning and end of the year, as well as the End-of-Unit Assessments. There are no interim assessments throughout the units to regularly and systematically assess students. In addition, there is minimal evidence of guidance for the teacher on what to do with the data once it is collected to help students progress toward mastery in phonics. There are weekly dictation activities that the teacher is expected to use to determine if the class is ready to move on to the next target skill. This data is analyzed whole-class as opposed to individual students. 

Materials regularly and systematically provide a variety of assessment opportunities over the course of the year to demonstrate students’ progress toward mastery and independence in phonics. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The Level K Placement Test is used to “measure student growth throughout the school year.” A Student Summary sheet is included to record the components of the assessment, including CVC words with digraphs and blends. Assessment items include both decoding and encoding.

• Materials include an end-of-unit assessment to collect data about student progress, but interim assessments are not included in the program. 

• The Level K Placement Test includes a suggested order of components for administering the assessment based on the time of year. 

• In Unit 1, Week 15, Lesson 3, during Whiteboard Dictation, the lesson plan advises the teacher to “Carefully observe your students and periodically check to see if they can be successful with little support.” However, there is no recording sheet and this type of formative assessment is not systematic across the program. 

• Besides the Placement Test and the End of Unit Assessment for all four units, there are no opportunities for teachers to regularly assess students’ progress toward mastery and independence with phonics. 

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

• The Level K Placement Test provides information on students’ ability to read and write CVC words with blends and digraphs. Teachers are expected to take results and place students in small groups. 

Materials support teachers with limited instructional suggestions for assessment-based steps to help students to progress toward mastery in phonics. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 3, Week 21, the teacher dictates spelling words based on the sound-spelling pattern for the week. The materials include that “if most students spell five or more of the words correctly, that is a good indicator that you can move on to the next week’s target skill.”

Throughout Kindergarten, students learn new high-frequency words every week beginning in Week 7, with time built-in to review previously taught words. Students learn two to three new words per week with explicit instruction and modeling; however, materials do not consistently include teacher modeling of the spelling and reading of high-frequency words that includes connecting the phonemes to the graphemes 

Materials include systematic and explicit instruction of high-frequency words with an explicit and consistent instructional routine. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 1, Week 7, students learn the high-frequency words see, a, we. The teacher provides explicit instruction, including reading a sentence with the high-frequency word, pulling apart the high-frequency word to see how to read and spell it, and then participating in activities to practice. Students receive flashcards and are told to tap out the word on their own. 

• In Unit 3, Week 29, students learn the words me and come. The teacher explicitly teaches the word me first by using a pocket chart to identify the sounds of each grapheme. The teacher explains that the e does not normally say /ē/, but all vowels can make more than one sound. The teacher repeats the same type of instruction for come. Students then review these words and previously taught ones using high-frequency word flashcards. 

• The materials provide a review of all previously taught high-frequency words at the end of Units 1 and 2. In addition, Unit 4 contains no new high-frequency words, and materials instruct the teacher to review or cover words at the teacher’s discretion. The materials do not provide explicit instruction. 

Materials do not consistently include teacher modeling of the spelling and reading of high-frequency words that includes connecting the phonemes to the graphemes. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 1, Week 7, Day 2, the teacher holds up the card for see and models touching his/her arm white saying each letter. Then they do it together, tapping their arm while they spell the word. 

• In Unit 2, Week 19, the high-frequency words of the week are to and do. On Day 1, the teacher shows the students the sentence, “We can go to the shop.” The teacher asks students which word in the sentence says to. The teacher then takes out a card for the pocket chart that says to and tells students it says to and asks students how to spell it. Then, the teacher points to each letter as they say the sound the letter makes. 

• In Unit 3, Week 21, students learn the word an.  The teacher asks students to point to the word that says an, ask what letters are in it, and the sounds, and models blending it together. The teacher also explains the utility of the word by explaining it comes before a word that starts with a vowel. 

Materials include a sufficient quantity of high-frequency words for students to make reading progress. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The Kindergarten Year Long Scope and Sequence includes an overview of the high-frequency words taught each week. There is a range from one to three words in a week. High-frequency word instruction begins in Week 7 of Unit 1.

• The materials include multiple resources that provide opportunities for students to use and practice the newly learned one to three words each week. Examples include decodable texts, high-frequency word worksheets, and games. For example, in Unit 3, Week 27, the high-frequency word is up. Students have various opportunities throughout the week to practice this word through whole group and small group instruction and activities. 

• In Unit 3, Week 24, the materials include multiple resources to provide students with the opportunities to use and practice high-frequency words. This includes high-frequency word worksheets for the word is, pocket chart sentence card activity, and a sight word mix-up activity.

The materials include limited explicit instruction in syllable types. Word analysis lessons include plural nouns towards the end of the Kindergarten year. 

Materials contain limited explicit instruction of syllable types and routines for syllable division that promote decoding and encoding of words. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 4, Lesson 33, Day 1, the teacher introduces “wacky” vowels by telling students that the “door strip” with the word got and the short o sound. The teacher tells students that wacky vowels make more than one sound and “if we open the door, the vowel yells its name out the door. When the door is closed we have the word got. The o makes the short o sound. When the door is open, the vowel yells its name out the door and the word is go.”  A note in this section indicates that the teacher can introduce the concept of open/closed syllables if you like. The text states “I don’t do this with most Kindergarten students, but you know your students best!”  

• In Unit 4, Week 34, Day 1, the teacher plays a video about the story of Silent E or Magic E. The teacher displays the A Magic E word card and tells students that when you see the Magic E at the end of the word, the Magic E “shoots across the word like a shooting star and makes the a say its name.” The teacher models segmenting and reading the word, reminding students that the e will be silent.  

Materials contain explicit instruction in morpheme analysis to decode unfamiliar words. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 3, Week 24, the materials include the option to introduce students to the plural marker s. A note to the teacher says, “NOTE: Your goal here is not for students to master plurals with -s. You’re simply introducing the concept for students who are ready, and you will cover it in more depth later on in the unit.” The teacher writes the word “mop” on the board for students to read, then adds the ‘s’ at the end. The teacher says, “What does this say now? Let’s see. Mop, /s/. Mops! If I’m talking about one mop, I say, ‘mop.’ If I’m talking about two mops, I say mops!” The teacher continues this explicit instruction with the word pot/pots.

• In Unit 3, Week 29, day 1, the teacher tells students we add -s to the end of a word when we talk about more than one thing. The teacher models adding -s to the word dog and explains that in the word dogs, the letter s makes a /z/ sound. The teacher repeats with pot, and explains that in the word pots, the letter s makes an /s/ sound. 

Limited opportunities are provided over the course of the year for students to learn, practice, and apply word analysis strategies. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 3, Week 29, Day 2, students read plural words.

• In Unit 4, Week 34, day 4, students read words with the magic e using letter cards. The teacher directs students to change consonants and vowels and build new words.

Throughout the materials, students take an end-of-unit assessment that measures their progress in word recognition, but there is no evidence of word analysis assessment. In addition, interim formative assessments throughout the program do not exist. The program’s end-of-unit assessments measure students’ ability to read and spell high-frequency words, but there are no assessment items that examine students’ level of performance with word analysis. The materials include the guidance that if students score 80% or better on the assessment, they are ready for the next unit, but do not provide additional guidance and instructional next steps. 

Materials regularly and systematically provide a variety of assessment opportunities over the course of the year to demonstrate students’ progress toward mastery and independence of word recognition and analysis. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In each unit, there is an end-of-unit assessment that includes assessment of word recognition. However, there are no regular and systematic assessments throughout the program besides these four end-of-unit assessments. There are multiple activities for word recognition and analysis throughout the lessons, but no formal assessment is present in the lessons.

• In Unit 1, students are assessed on high frequency words in the End-of-Unit Assessment, such as the words, the, at, we, a, I, like, look, can, see, and my.  

• In Unit 3, students are assessed on high frequency words in the End-of-Unit Assessment, such as the words: in, are, is, it, an, up, on, am, for, me, and come.

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

• The end-of-unit assessments provide general information on students’ current skill level. According to the information that accompanies the end-of-unit assessments, “If a student gets 80% or more of the assessment items correct, this is a good indication that they are ready to continue in the scope and sequence rather than continue working on Unit X concepts.” This information is not specific for word recognition and analysis. 

• In the Overview & End of Unit Assessment section, the materials include a spreadsheet to record results from the end-of-unit assessments. The spreadsheet is delineated by phonics skills, such as mastery of digraphs, but does not include word recognition. 

Materials support the teacher with instructional suggestions for assessment-based steps to help students to progress toward mastery in word recognition and word analysis. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Kindergarten, students take a Placement Test, and the materials include a Placement Guide for teachers to use when utilizing the assessment as a placement test. However, the recommendations indicate where to begin the material, and it does not include instructional suggestions. 

• Besides indicating that students are ready to move on to the next unit if they receive an 80% or higher, the materials do not provide instructional suggestions to help students toward mastery in word recognition and word analysis.