The Really Great Reading materials meet the expectations for alignment to research-based practices and standards for foundational skills instruction as well as usability.

The materials provide a defined scope and sequence for letter recognition instruction. The materials include a scope and sequence for phonemic awareness instruction. The materials include systematic and explicit instruction in phonemic awareness skills with repeated teacher modeling. The materials include Articulation Videos and Guidewords, Movement, and Proper Articulation of Sounds document, which includes examples for instruction in phoneme articulation. 

The materials do not contain elements of instruction that are based on the three-cueing system for teaching decoding. The materials provide a clear, evidence-based explanation for the order of the phonics scope and sequence. Phonics instruction is based on high utility patterns and common phonics generalizations. The materials provide appropriate pacing of phonics skills, which are taught daily in 20-30 minute teacher-led whole group lessons, 20-30 minutes daily in small group lessons, and 30-40 minutes of independent practice time each week. The materials include systematic and explicit instruction in phonics with repeated teacher modeling. The materials contain spelling rules and generalizations aligned to the phonics scope and sequence, and these generalizations are taught in conjunction with reading words that follow these rules. The materials contain decodable texts with phonics aligned to the phonics scope and sequence. 

The materials provide systematic and explicit instruction of Heart Words (high-frequency words) with consistent and explicit instructional routines repeated each week. The materials provide opportunities for students to read high-frequency words in isolation through the Heart Word Magic Videos and practice activities, including Look, Think, Say!, Pop-Up, 3-Up, and Read a Row. The materials include explicit instruction with teacher modeling for syllable types. Materials also include explicit instruction in morpheme analysis beginning in Grade 1.

The materials include systematic instruction in oral reading fluency. The instructional routine includes the teacher modeling fluent reading, discussing how to address punctuation when reading, and strategies to address accuracy. Guidance for Positive Corrective Feedback is provided within mini-lesson resources and in the appendices. The materials include systematic assessment opportunities through reading the passages and tracking accuracy. 

The materials regularly and systematically provide a variety of assessments over the course of the school year where students’ progress in phonics can be measured. The materials contain multiple assessment opportunities with cold 1-minute reads of decodable texts corresponding to each unit, which includes a consistent routine that tracks students’ accuracy. 

The materials provide a well-defined teacher resource for content presentation, including a Table of Contents sectioned by Unit, Lesson, and Appendix. There are three teacher guides provided for the Countdown materials. The online materials in the Supply Room contain additional resources and instructional materials for teachers to utilize. Lesson pacing is designed to be completed within a year. The materials provide an alignment document for formative and summative assessments and an extensive alignment document for all foundational skills tasks. 

The materials provide support for multilingual learners through instructional videos, an alternative scope and sequence, crosslinguistic lessons, and recommendations and tips for using, accommodating, and delivering curriculum components. General statements regarding MLL learners and instructional strategies or supports can be found in the Unit Planners and the Introduction and Appendices of the Teacher Guides; however, resources are limited to Spanish-speaking students. There are missed opportunities for MLL resources in other languages. 

The materials include decodable passages, which are utilized throughout the units. Several characters are animals; however, there is more reference to male animals or characters than females. There are some non-discrepant animals that do not reference gender or use pronouns. With the exception of reference to male or female pronouns, references to characters’ gender, culture, ethnicity, linguistic background, or other distinct characteristics are absent. The materials include a Spanish Supports Scope and Sequence, which provides cross-linguistic referencing between English and Spanish. A Cross-linguistic Alphabet Letter Cards User Guide is also provided, which contains cognates that list shared and unshared graphemes and phonemes between English and Spanish; however, additional guidance on how to draw upon students’ home language other than Spanish is absent from the program. In addition, the materials do not include resources for students who speak a dialect different than Standard classroom English. It is important to note that the English Language Teacher Supports Guide states, “We will be periodically adding more languages throughout the school year.”