1st Grade - Gateway 3

The teacher guidance in LetterLand meets the expectations for Indicator 3a. Materials provide useful annotations and suggestions for how to enact the student materials and ancillary materials, with specific attention to supporting students’ foundational literacy development. Teacher resources outline program design, instructional settings, foundational skills components, and lesson structure, offering clear support for presenting content and implementing instructional routines. Lessons include point-of-use annotations, scripting, timing cues, and procedural steps that guide the teacher through daily activities and align instructional moves to foundational skills objectives. Instructional routines are consistently named and referenced within lessons, supported by explanations that reinforce developmental readiness. Digital resources, small-group guidance, and supplemental manuals further strengthen implementation and ensure the teacher has the information needed to deliver systematic foundational literacy instruction.

• Materials provide a well-defined, teacher resources for presenting content and instructional routines. 

  • In the Grade One Teacher’s Guide: Welcome to LetterLand, materials provide comprehensive teacher resources that outline how to implement the program. The introduction includes guidance for Instructional Settings (Whole Group, Small Group, Independent Practice, and Embedded Intervention) and explains the program’s design through sections such as Learning with All Modalities, Research-Based: The Science of Reading, and Understanding Foundational Skills in Letterland. Foundational components are defined, including phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics: letter sounds,  blending and reading, segmenting and spelling, high-frequency and tricky words, word analysis and morphology, print awareness and syntax, letter names and handwriting and fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. The teacher also receives an Assessments Overview and descriptions of the available Digital Resources within Phonics Online as well as Getting Started guidance, Reproducible Pages for each Unit, Lesson Components and a Lesson Structure outline describing how daily lessons are organized. 

    • Each Section’s front matter provides a Curriculum Skills Focus, Assessment Objectives, and evidence-based explanations of target skills. It also includes Lesson Components and a Lesson Structure outline describing how daily lessons are organized. The Getting Started supports classroom setup with core materials such as Sound Wall Cards, Picture Code Cards, Pocket Charts, Anchor Charts, and Phonics Online.

  • The Grade One Tricks & Strategies Manual offers explicit guidance on instructional routines that support phonemic awareness and phonics instruction as well as reading and comprehension.  The teacher is encouraged to familiarize themselves with the routines before instruction and are directed to step-by-step videos, detailed procedures, and research validation available in the manual and Phonics Online.

  • Digital supports within the Phonics Online Teacher Portal include Classroom Demonstration Videos that model effective lesson delivery. The Teacher Resources Folder provides additional lesson and assessment materials, as well as teacher and student supports and Coaching and Administrative Support. 

  • The Grade One Small Group Guide includes step-by-step guidance for differentiated instruction aligned to the whole-group sequence, ensuring the teacher has clear routines to support students’ foundational literacy development.

• Materials include annotations and suggestions to support implementation, presented in the context of specific learning objectives. 

  • Throughout all of the lessons in the LetterLand program, the materials provide point-of-use annotations and suggestions for teaching the lesson, in addition to the scripted teacher moves, timing guidance, and references to supporting routines. 

    • In Unit 3, Day 1, Section 1, the lesson header provides a 25-30 minute time stamp for the lesson, lists physical and digital materials (e.g., K-Word Cards),and identifies the Unit Focus for the week with new and review high frequency/tricky words, decodable words and sentences. 

  • Lesson components include detailed descriptions of how to implement each part of the routine, aligned to the day’s foundational skills objective. 

    • Daily whole-group structures, for example in Section 1: Ears Ready, Let’s Review, Let’s Learn, Let’s Practice, and Let’s Read, each contain embedded guidance explaining the instructional purpose and teacher actions. 

  • Materials provide direct, step-by-step procedure for building and reading single-syllable words, guiding the teacher through each instructional move. The lesson directs the teacher to: 

    • In Unit 1, Day 1, Section 1, Abbie Apple:  

      • Distribute picture code cards (PCCs) for the selected words and arrange students to form the word while holding the plain letter side toward the class. 

      • Prompt students holding PCCs to push cards forward and say their sounds in sequence. 

      • Lead the class in finger-tap blending or use the Roller Coaster Trick for additional support, with annotations explaining how to model finger tapping (one finger per sound) and how to slide across fingers to blend. 

      • Use the decided word in a brief sentence to reinforce meaning. 

      • Rearrange students with PCCs to create the next word and repeat the routine, with notes such as reminding students to place cards down when not blending to reduce distractions. 

    • These point-of-use instructions provide both the procedural steps and the instructional rationale (e.g., why students hold cards a certain way, how kinesthetic routines support blending automaticity). 

The adult-level explanations in LetterLand meet the expectations for Indicator 3b. Materials contain full, detailed explanations and examples of foundational skills concepts so the teacher can improve their knowledge of the subject as needed. Teacher-facing resources describe the research base of the program, outline each foundational skills component, and explain how skills develop across the Grade 1 progression. The materials also provide explicit explanations of instructional approaches related to phonics, blending, segmenting, spelling, word analysis, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Detailed examples, character explanations, instructional rationales, and skill-by-skill overviews across the Teacher’s Guide, Tricks and Strategies Manual, and digital resources strengthen teacher understanding of foundational literacy content.

• Complete, detailed adult-level explanations are provided for each foundational skill taught at the grade level. 

  • The LetterLand materials provide numerous documents to support the teacher in improving their knowledge of the subject. Many of the guides can be found in the front matter sections of the Teacher’s Guide and Phonics Online, Teacher Resources Folder. Guidance includes, but is not limited to: 

    • Research-Based: The Science of Reading: The section provides an adult-level explanation of the research base behind the program and describes how LetterLand’s design aligns with reading science and foundational skills development. 

      • Each component of foundational skills in this section describes how students build knowledge across the program and how each skill connects instructionally to later skills. This section provides expert explanations of phonological & phonemic awareness, phonics: letter and sounds, blending and reading, segmenting and spelling, high frequency/tricky words, word analysis and morphology, print awareness and syntax, letter names and handwriting, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension and outlines how each component is aligned to the Grade One learning progression. 

    • LetterLand Character Explanations for the role of each character: C the specific letter-sound correspondences each character represents and how these connections support instruction across lessons. 

    • Diagnostic Teaching Section: Explains the teaching and learning cycle and how assessment data should be used to adjust instruction. The sequence is as follows: Plan from texts and standards, teach, assess, analyze, adapt and reflect. 

    • Assessment Overview: The section describes how various types of assessments work together to give the teacher a complete picture of a student's progress. 

    • Daily Lesson Structure in the How to Teach section: Explains the purpose of each component of the Grade One lesson (phonemic awareness, letter-sound review, blending, segmenting, word recognition, word analysis, spelling, fluency, etc.) For example, Section 1 explains that Let’s Review - Letter Sound Review provides cumulative practice of learned letter sounds while building accuracy and that Quick Dash and Sounds Race Target different modalities to support reading vs. spelling. 

• Detailed examples of the grade-level foundational skills concepts are provided for the teacher.

  • In the Front Matter of the Teacher’s Guide, each foundational skills component provides the teacher with a detailed explanation of the concepts and instructional approaches at the grade level. Examples include, but are not limited to: 

    • Blending and Reading: The section explains that Grade One phonics instruction extends beyond learning letters and sounds and must teach students how to blend phonemes and graphemes to read and how to segment them to spell. The guide notes that decoding and encoding should mirror one another. The Grade One phonics sequence is aligned to five of the six syllable types of English: closed, open, vowel-consonant-e, vowel teams, and r-controlled syllables. 

    • Segmenting and Spelling: The section explains that segmenting and spelling are generally more difficult than decoding and require attention to syllable structure, orthographic patterns, and spelling rules. Spelling rules are aligned to the phonics sequence. For example, tch is introduced in Unit 7 at the same time ch is reviewed, allowing the teacher to help students differentiate the two patterns. Suffix -ing is reviewed in Unit 15 before vowel-consonant-e is introduced, giving students practice with unchanging base words before learning the drop-e rule. The sequence is designed so the teacher introduces new rules within familiar phonics content, expanding the number of words students can read and write. 

  • In the Appendix, the materials provide a summary of the LetterLand phonics and spelling stories that explain digraphs and other spelling patterns, offering the teacher a quick-reference overview of the character-based stories that support mastery of these concepts. The full directory of characters and spelling stories is available in the Teacher Toolkit on Phonics Online, giving the teacher additional examples that deepen their understanding of how phonics patterns are introduced and reinforced. 

    • The appendix also includes a Unit Word Chart that details key decodable words, high-frequency/tricky words, decodable sentences, and decodable readers for each unit and lesson. The chart outlines the phonic focus, whole-group decodable words, new high-frequency or tricky words that become decodable after introduction, decodable sentences, Unit Story, Phonics Reader, and the decodable reader. 

The lesson design and pacing in Letterland meet the expectations for Indicator 3c. Materials use a consistent, research-based lesson structure that systematically develops foundational literacy skills through coordinated whole-group, small-group, and independent practice. Daily and weekly lesson plans follow a predictable five-day sequence with clear pacing guidance, defined instructional settings, and embedded opportunities for review, assessment, and reteaching. The yearlong scope and sequence are designed to be completed within a typical school year, beginning with intentional review to ensure readiness and continuing with spiraled instruction across units. While the program includes a larger volume of material in Grade 1, the flexible sequence guidance clarifies how teachers may adjust unit order or use supplementary units as needed while still ensuring full coverage of all required Grade 1 foundational skills.

• Lesson plans utilize effective, research-based lesson plan design for early literacy instruction. 

  • According to the Program Overview, the Grade One lessons follow research-based design that develops early literacy skills systematically. 

    • Units A and B include ten Kindergarten review lessons (two weeks of instruction) to ensure students begin Grade One with a firm alphabetic foundation. These units introduce or review all Aa-Zz phonemes, letter names, and basic letter formation for both uppercase and lowercase letters, supporting accurate phoneme-grapheme mapping before Unit 1 instruction begins. After this initial review, alphabetic knowledge is revisited throughout the year during core instruction beginning in Unit 1. 

    • The Flexible Sequence section explains that units are organized in a logical progression with ample practice and review of phonics patterns and high-frequency tricky words. 

    • The How To Teach section explains that each unit follows the same Five-Day plan and uses a gradual release model. Across the week, instruction moves from full teacher support toward increased student independence. Day 5 includes an assessment of students’ spelling and reading fluency, and the program provides guidance on whether to reteach the unit with an alternate word list or proceed to the next unit based on students’ performance. 

• The effective lesson design structure includes both whole group and small group instruction. 

  • According to the Program Overview, the materials incorporate whole-group and small-group instruction to support differentiated foundational skills learning. 

    • Each unit follows a structured whole-group sequence that includes Ear’s Ready, Explore, Let’s Review, Let’s Learn, Let’s Practice, Let’s Read, and Let’s Check.

    • Small-group instruction is used to reinforce skills taught in the whole-group lesson, with activities designed to provide additional support and targeted practice based on student assessment data. The materials note that students receiving intervention in a different unit may still participate in whole-group instruction with their peers. There is a dedicated Grade One Small-Group Teacher Guide with detailed guidance for selecting activities based on students’ needs. 

    • Independent and partner work is also included in each unit, allowing students to practice skills while the teacher works with small groups. 

    These three instructional settings - whole group, small group, and independent/partner - are embedded into every unit and support flexible, differentiated instruction. 

• The pacing of each component of daily lesson plans is clear and appropriate. 

  • According to the Program Overview, the daily instructional components follow a predictable and appropriate structure that supports student mastery. 

    • Each unit uses a consistent Five-Day plan, ensuring that instruction is sequenced and predictable for both the teacher and students. The materials provide clear time stamps for each instructional setting, including 25-30 minutes for the whole group, 15-20 minutes for small-group instruction, and 10-20 minutes for independent or partner work. 

      • Day 1

        • Ears Ready – Phonemic Awareness (2–3 mins)

        • Let’s Review – Graphemes to Phonemes (2 mins)

        • Let’s Learn – New Concepts (8–10 mins)

        • Let’s Practice – Blending (5 mins)

        • Let’s Practice – High-Frequency or Tricky Words (3–4 mins)

        • Let’s Read – Reading Automaticity (5–6 mins)

      • Day 2

        • Ears Ready – Phonemic Awareness (2–3 mins)

        • Explore – Language Awareness and Word Analysis (3–4 mins)

        • Let’s Review – Phonemes to Graphemes (2 mins)

        • Let’s Learn – Word Analysis (10–12 mins)

        • Let’s Practice – Segmenting (8–10 mins)

        • Let’s Read – High-Frequency or Tricky Words (3 mins)

      • Day 3

        • Ears Ready – Phonemic Awareness (2 mins)

        • Explore – Language Awareness and Word Analysis (3–4 mins)

        • Let’s Review – Graphemes to Phonemes (2 mins)

        • Let’s Learn – Recap New Concepts (3–4 mins)

        • Let’s Practice – Word Recognition (8–10 mins)

        • Let’s Read – Decodable Text (10–12 mins)

      • Day 4

        • Let’s Review – Phonemes to Graphemes (2–3 mins)

        • Let’s Learn – Recap New Concepts (2 mins)

        • Let’s Practice – Spelling (6–7 mins)

        • Let’s Read – Fluency (8–10 mins)

        • Let’s Read – Decodable Text (7–8 mins)

      • Day 5

        • Let’s Check – Progress Monitoring (25–30 mins)

    The teacher is advised not to skip lessons to align with the calendar and instead continue the progression as written, maintaining the integrity of the instructional sequence. The inclusion of review and consolidation activities at designated points in each unit supports appropriate pacing for student understanding. 

• The suggested amount of time and expectations for maximum student understanding of all foundational skills content can reasonably be completed in one school year and should not require modification. 

  • According to the Scope, Sequence, and Skills, the foundational skills content is designed to be completed within a typical school year while ensuring students have adequate time to master key skills. The program includes a total of 45 units. 

    • Units A and B provide a two-week review period at the start of the year, noting readiness before beginning Unit 1 without requiring schedule adjustments. The flexible sequence allows the teacher to follow the recommended unit order or align instruction with another reading program while still covering all essential Grade One content. 

    • Supplementary units (Units 39-45) provide options for acceleration or extension without increasing the total number of instructional days. Review opportunities are embedded throughout the year, minimizing the need for teacher-created modifications. 

• For those materials on the borderline (e.g., approximately 130 days on the low end or 200 days on the high end), evidence clearly explains how students would be able to master ALL the grade-level foundational skills standards within one school year. 

  • According to the Flexible Sequence section, the materials explain how students can meet all Grade One foundational skills expectations even when instructional days vary or require adaptation. 

    • The materials explain that units are ordered in a careful, logical sequence with built-in practice and review of phonics patterns and high-frequency or tricky words. While the sequence is described as sound and functional, the materials note that teachers may choose to adjust the order of units to align with another reading program used in the classroom. From Unit 30 onward, the materials indicate that teachers may choose to substitute or reorder certain units to align with district requirements. Supplementary Units 39-45 can be inserted or used in place of earlier units to support students who require acceleration or additional challenge. The teacher is encouraged to use independent and partner work strategically so that students who require less practice remain productively engaged while small groups receive targeted instruction.  

    The curriculum is well designed and includes intentional spiraling, which results in a larger volume of material in Grades 1 and 2 and may take the teacher up to the maximum number of instructional days; however, the flexible sequence guidance clarifies how all required grade-level foundational skills can still be taught within a typical school year.

The teacher guidance for using instructional tools in LetterLand meets the expectations for Indicator 3f. Materials consistently identify the instructional tools used across Grade 1 foundational skills lessons and reference them directly within routines so the teacher knows what to use and when. Tools are aligned to specific instructional purposes across phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, and encoding, and are named clearly within lesson steps and teacher prompts. Materials also provide explicit guidance on how to use each tool, including when to apply visual supports, manipulatives, and digital resources to strengthen skill development. 

• Materials consistently identify tools (e.g., Elkonin boxes, letter tiles, sound walls, mirrors) within lesson routines and instructional steps. 

  • According to the Program Overview, Grade 1 materials clearly identify the full set of tools used across foundational skills instruction, including: 

    • Phonics Online: Meet the LetterLanders, Quick Dash, Cards Tool, Phonics Readers, and Teacher Toolkit. 

    • Posters: Class Train Frieze (used daily to introduce and review a-z sounds, letter names, and alphabetical order), Sound Wall Posters (for grouping sounds and spelling patterns introduced in Grade 1), and a set of seven Grade One Posters that highlight key skills. 

    • Cards: Grade One Cards, Picture Code Cards - Straight, Letter Sound Cards, Sound Wall Cards, and a Magnetic Word Builder “to make new words and practice spelling with no mistakes to rub out.” 

    • Print Resources: Grade One Handwriting Practice, Grade One Phonics Practice, Phonics Readers Sets 2 and 3, and the ABC Trilogy (ABC, Beyond ABC, Far Beyond). 

    • Classroom Tools: Pocket Chart, Grade One Bookmark, and downloadable G1 Word Cards and Fluency Passages. 

    • Downloadable Teacher Resources: Student Lists, Review Sentences Lists, Unit Stories, Word Detectives, Spelling Sorts, Games of the Week, Little Letter Cards, Song Lyrics, Sound Boxes, Reading Direction Sign, Word Charts, Assessments and Group Records, and games and resources aligned to Tricks & Strategies. 

• Materials provide teacher-facing guidance on how and when to use these tools to support instruction in phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, and encoding. 

  • Lessons embed explicit guidance on how to use visual and manipulative tools to support phonics understanding: 

    • In Unit 1, Day 1, Section 1, the teacher is guided to: 

      • Hold up the Abbie Apple Picture Code Card to highlight that Abbie Apple is a short vowel sound and an “important vowel sound.” 

      • Point out all the vowels on the Grade One Short & Long Vowels Poster, naming “short vowel sound” and directing students to the short vowel section of the poster. 

    • In Unit 1, Day 1, Section 1, Let’s Read - Reading Automaticity (Unit 1, Day 1), the materials provide detailed instructions for using G1 Word Cards, Picture Code Cards, and the Pocket Chart (or Phonics Online):

      • The teacher is told to “arrange the unit word cards as shown on the pocket chart (use List A as shown - you can show List B or C if repeating a day)” and to move the single short-vowel picture code cards across column “so students can learn to read by analogy.”

      • The lesson explicitly notes that the teacher may use physical picture code cards and G1 word cards or the digital word sort feature in Phonics Online, clarifying when to use each tool to build automaticity with word patterns. 

    • Encoding routines provide clear guidance on using Sound Boxes and mapping tools to support spelling of high-frequency and tricky words: 

      • In Unit 3, Day 1, Section 1, Let’s Practice High-Frequency/Tricky Words, the teacher is directed to “follow the 10-step tricky word procedure” from the Tricks & Strategies manual, then given a summary: 

        • Say the word, use it in a sentence, and repeat the word. 

        • Stretch and segment the word with students and draw sound boxes while students draw lines. 

        • For regular spellings, students discover and write letters for each sound; for irregular spellings, the teacher supplies letters and explains why that part is “tricky.” This annotation clarifies when to use sound boxes and how to adapt the procedure based on students’ prior learning (“some students may not find parts tricky due to previous grade learning - mark parts that are tricky to your class”). 

    • Across these examples, tools are not only named but tied directly to instructional purpose - introducing vowel concepts, supporting analogy-based decoding, and mapping phonemes to graphemes in tricky words - providing the teacher with concrete guidance on how and when to use each resource to support phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, and encoding.

The strategies and supports for students in special populations in LetterLand meet the expectations for Indicator 3j. Materials provide clear guidance for scaffolding instruction so students who need additional support can work with grade-level content and progress toward foundational skills standards. The Grade One Small Group Teacher Guide offers structured lessons, intervention supports, and specific adjustments the teacher can make to reteach or extend instruction based on student need. Materials also outline predictable, self-managed practice routines that allow students to reinforce previously taught skills while the teacher provides targeted small-group support. 

• Materials provide opportunities for small group reteaching. 

  • The  Grade One Small Group Teacher Guide includes a full set of small-group lessons aligned to each whole-group lesson, with explicit structures for reteaching skills at the sound, word, and text levels. The guide explains how to differentiate instruction using data and offers a flexible lesson design that allows the teacher to reteach essential content in shorter or longer time frames. The Embedded Intervention section provides Tier 2 small-group intervention lessons, additional fluency lists, and supplementary assessments that support reteaching based on student need.

• Materials provide guidance to the teacher for scaffolding and adapting lessons and activities to support students who read, write, speak or listen below grade level in accessing grade-level foundational skills standards. 

  • The Grade One Small Group Teacher Guide includes explicit suggestions for adjusting instruction depending on the instructional focus (phonemic awareness and letter-sound correspondence and automaticity and fluency). Each scenario outlines which lesson components to modify, shorten, omit, or extend to maintain the integrity of instruction while supporting student needs. The guide offers targeted options such as reducing the amount of text to read, choosing appropriate letter-sound activities and adding appropriate phonemic awareness activities, dividing time between blending and segmenting words, and using routines from the K–Tricks & Strategies Manual. 

    • Materials also include guidance for self-managed work stations that provide additional scaffolded practice for students who need support accessing grade-level foundational skills content. The teacher is directed to set up multiple short, varied stations that mirror the Review and Consolidate days from the Grade One Teacher Guide – Whole Group. Students rotate through stations for a few minutes each, allowing the teacher to offer targeted support while other students work independently.

      • The materials designate specific station activities that can be completed independently once introduced, including G1–Handwriting Practice activities focused on letter shapes, G1–Phonics Practice (Books 1 and 2) pages that follow predictable routines. Students can also read Review Sentence Lists independently or with a partner to reinforce prosody. The program directs the teacher to use Unit Stories as independent or partner-reading practice; these short texts follow the instructional sequence of the whole-group lessons, and students benefit from rereading them multiple times to build accuracy and fluency. Materials also recommend that students regularly review the Student Lists, noting that spending any available time rereading these lists helps all students revisit previously taught sounds, words, and spelling patterns, supporting consolidation and automaticity. The program also notes that Phonics Readers may be appropriate as an independent challenge option for more advanced students.

    These self-managed work stations offer structured, scaffolded opportunities for students—especially those working below grade level—to access previously taught skills and receive additional practice that supports their ability to engage with grade-level foundational skills instruction.