1st Grade - Gateway 1

The materials include a scope and sequence for phonemic awareness instruction. Materials focus on activities that develop phonemic awareness skills and avoid spending excess time on phonological sensitivity tasks. Phonemic awareness activities often align with phonics skills. The first step in many of the phonics activities in Blast is to identify the sounds in words that are associated with letters.

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

• In Blast Online, Teacher Resources, Research, in the article, “Bringing Research to Practice with Foundational Reading Skills Instruction for Beginning Readers Research Paper,” it states, “In Blast Foundations and HD Word, first and second graders begin working at the individual phoneme level immediately. These programs emphasize the segmentation of phonemes with a focus on identifying and categorizing vowel phonemes and also incorporate phoneme blending. Vowel phonemes are taught using hand motions, helping to cement the sounds into the students’ memories. As students’ phonemic awareness becomes further solidified, they are able to do more complex phonemic tasks such as phoneme manipulation (addition and deletion of initial and final phonemes and vowel substitution). This supports students’ decoding and encoding of words with more complex phonics features. Phoneme manipulation, in particular, is a key skill in helping students learn to read and spell English words, especially when reading connected text, and phoneme manipulation helps students recognize words automatically and build them into their sight word memory (Kilpatrick, 2015).”

• In Blast Online, LaunchMyApps Pad, Teacher Presentation Tool, Supply Room, Teacher Resources, Research, Notes on Our Scope and Sequence, there is a clear explanation of the scope and sequence of phonemic awareness skills. The instruction within Really Great Reading intentionally moves along a continuum from phoneme isolation to blending, then segmentation, followed by addition and deletion. This continuum goes from simplest skills to most complex skills: “The goal with phonemic awareness skill building exercise is to help students develop what’s commonly referred to as ‘Phonemic Proficiency.’ This is the instant, automatic access to phonemes in spoken words (Kilpatrick, 2015). There is emerging evidence that phonemic proficiency is critical to orthographic mapping, or reading words by sight, spelling words from memory, and acquiring vocabulary words from print.” 

Materials have a cohesive sequence of phonemic awareness instruction based on the expected hierarchy to build toward students’ immediate application of the skills. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, pages xxiv-xxv, in the Scope and Sequence, the phonemic awareness lessons are organized as follows:

  • Unit 1

    • Introduction to Blast Foundations

    • Structure of the alphabet

    • Letters can have names or sounds

    • Introduce Word Sort

  • Unit 2

    • Define phoneme

    • Introduce sound boxes

    • Teach finger-stretching

  • Unit 3 - Short A and Long A

  • Unit 4 - Short I and Long I

  • Unit 5 - Short U and Long U

  • Unit 6 - Short O and Long O

  • Unit 7 - Short E and Long E

  • Unit 8 - Review Short and Long A, Short and Long I.

  • Unit 9 - Review Short and Long O, Short and Long U

  • Unit 10 - Review Short and Long E

  • Unit 11 - Cumulative review of short and long vowels with segmenting

  • Unit 12 - Cumulative review of short and long vowels with blending

  • Unit 13 - Two-sound blends

  • Unit 14

    • Teach Whale Talk

    • Teach Syllable Stomp

    • Teach segmenting syllables

  • Unit 15

    • Review Whale Talk

    • Review Syllable Stomp

    • Teach blending syllables

  • Unit 16

    • Review Whale Talk

    • Review Syllable Stomp

    • Review blending syllables

  • Unit 17 - R-controlled vowel /or/

  • Unit 18 - R-controlled vowel /ar/

  • Unit 19 - R-controlled vowel /er/

  • Unit 20 - Cumulative review of R-controlled vowels

  • Unit 21 - Other vowel /ōō/

  • Unit 22 - Other vowel /oi/

  • Unit 23 - Other vowel /ou/

  • Unit 24 - Other vowel /ŏŏ/

  • Unit 25 - Cumulative review of other vowels

Materials attend to developing phonemic awareness skills and avoid spending excess time on phonological sensitivity tasks. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Introduction, Unit Structure of Blast Foundations, the manual states that the units start with blending and segmenting single-syllable words and then move to phonemic awareness with blending and segmenting multisyllabic words.  

Materials contain a phonemic awareness sequence of instruction and practice aligned to the phonics scope and sequence. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, pages xxiv-xxv, Scope and Sequence, Unit 13, the phonemic awareness skills and phonics concepts both focus on two-sound blends.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 7, Lesson 2-3, the phonemic awareness focus: 

  • Segment phonemes in single-syllable words with short e and long e 

  • Identify the short e and long e phonemes in spoken words

  • Blend phonemes together to produce single-syllable words with short e and long e 

  • Add an initial consonant to a given word to produce a new word 

The phonics focus for Unit 7: 

• Read and spell words where the short e phoneme is spelled with the letter 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 13, Lesson 2-3, the phonemic awareness focus: 

  • Segment words with 2-sound consonant blends 

  • Identify 2-sounds consonant blends in spoken words

  • Substitute one consonant sound at the beginning of a given word

The phonics focus for Unit 13

• Read and spell words with 2-sound consonant blends 

The materials include systematic and explicit instruction in phonemic awareness skills with repeated teacher modeling. The materials also include teacher guidance on corrective feedback through Positive Error Correction teacher tips and additional guidance in the margins or at the end of lessons. 

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

• Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words.

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 7, Lesson 2, after reviewing the short e phoneme, the teacher leads students in segmenting the words met and beg. Next, the teacher reviews the long e phoneme, then guides students to segment the words beet and leap. Last, the teacher leads students to segment words with either long or short e, including the words chef and beach. Students segment the words independently and state whether the vowel is long or short. 

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 9, Lesson 2, students finger-stretch words with the short /u/, long /u/, short /o/, and long /o/ vowel sounds. Students listen carefully to name whether each word has a short u, long u, short o, or long o phoneme. 

• Orally produce single-syllable words by blending sounds (phonemes), including consonant blends.

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 9, Lesson 2, the materials prompt the teacher to state, “I am going to give you a few phonemes and I want you to blend them together to make a real word. I will say each phoneme separately. You will need to be really great listeners. Listen closely as I show you how to blend phonemes into words.” The teacher uses the I Do, We Do, You Do model as students listen to phonemes and blend them to make words. 

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 12, Lesson 2, the teacher models blending the word hip and discusses whether the vowel is long or short. The students blend the word tough with the teacher, and then students blend the words cup, tight, back, met, lake, shack, shut, cube, fog, fin, load, sit, kite, and make independently.

• Isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable words.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 4, Lesson 2, the teacher walks students through finger-stretching the word pit. The teacher reminds students that pit has three phonemes and that they know the vowel phoneme is short /i/ because the middle phoneme is like itch. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 2, Lesson 2, students learn how to stretch phonemes in words with their fingers so that they can clearly hear the phonemes, including the initial, medial, and final sounds. 

• Segment spoken single-syllable words into their complete sequence of individual sounds (phonemes).

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 2, Lesson 2, the teacher says a word, the students repeat the word, and then they finger-stretch the phonemes. The words to segment include bat, sick, wish, mat, sack, sit, rack, and stash. 

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 22, Lesson 2, in the activity Teach Other Vowel /oi/, the teacher models using the finger-stretching technique while segmenting the word toy. 

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

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 1, Lesson 1, the teacher says the word bat and explains that bat has three sounds. The teacher then points to each color tile and says the sounds it represents: /b/ /a/ /t/. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 3, Lesson 2, the teacher reminds students that the word bath has three phonemes, and the vowel is a /aaa/. They then explain the vowel a is short because /aaaa/ is the first phoneme in the word apple. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 7, Lesson 2, the teacher says the short e phenome and makes a short e. The teacher then finger-stretches the word met, beginning with the thumb. The teacher reminds students that met has three phonemes and is short because it sounds like the e in edge. 

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

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 3, Lesson 2, in the activity Short a and Long a Phonemes, the materials state, “If you see a student extend the wrong number of phonemes, you may want to ask your students, ‘How many phonemes do you hear?’ Offer assistance through Positive Error Correction to make sure they are hearing the right number of phonemes. See page 54 for the Positive Error Correction procedure.”

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 9, Lesson 2, students finger-stretch words with the short u, long u, short o, and long o vowel phonemes. In the margin, guidance for Positive Error Correction is provided to the teacher. If a student incorrectly stretches the phonemes: 

1. Tell student which phonemes were correct. 

2. Repeat the word.

3. Student says the word, listening for the missed phoneme(s) and stretches the phoneme again. 

4. If necessary, teacher or other students stretch the phonemes for the student correctly. 

5. Student correctly stretches the phonemes independently. Always finish with the student independently stretching the phonemes correctly. 

The materials include daily lessons in phonemic awareness that correlate to the phonics portion of the lesson. The materials include Articulation Videos and Guidewords, Movement, and Proper Articulation of Sounds document, which includes examples for instruction in phoneme articulation.

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

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 8, Lesson 1, students learn about the letters b, x, and z. The teacher sets up a group of letter tiles, and students say the letter’s name and sound. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 12, Lesson 1, the teacher uses the Letter-Sound Look, Think, Say! routine. The teacher reminds students of the graphemes ff, ss, and ll. Then, the teacher shows students the letter with the letter tiles to build the sounds /f/, /s/, and /l/. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 9, Lesson 1, the teacher says students are going to learn three new letters and their sounds today. They play the game Look, Think, Say! The teacher uses sound boxes for students to say each of the sounds for the letters qu, y, and x. Then, the teacher puts the letters on the board, and the students identify the letter’s name and sound. 

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

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 2, Lesson 1, in the Letter-Sound Fluency Set-up, the teacher explains that the letter m makes the sound /m/. The students then practice saying the sound /m/.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 4, Lesson 1, the teacher points to the letter g and says the sound. Students chorally repeat the sound. The teacher reminds students that if they see the letter written in the sound box, they say the sound, not the letter. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 6, Lesson 3, the teacher introduces the digraph th and the sound /th/. Students say the sound /th/ and point to the letter tile th. Students build words using the th digraph, which includes thin, bath, with, and thud.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 13, Lesson 3, the teacher says that they are going to build the word gust together. They start by stretching the word and then saying the phonemes as they build it. 

Materials include 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 Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 22, Lesson 2, the materials provide instruction for the teacher on how to make the /oi/ sound. The materials state, “The vowel phoneme /oi/ is a diphthong…When a diphthong is articulated, the mouth moves when one sound of the vowel glides into the other. If you put your fingers at the corners of your mouth while saying /oi/, you can feel the corners of your mouth move. Contrast this with long e, in which the corners of your mouth do not change position as long e is articulated.”

• The Blast Teacher Guide, Units 1-14, Videos and Animations, includes animations for short, long, r-controlled, and other vowel sounds.

The materials offer systematic assessment opportunities to evaluate students’ understanding of phonemic awareness. Materials include benchmark and progress monitoring assessments throughout the course of the year with recommendations. Materials also include digital games within the Reading Playground that provide data regarding specific skills correlating to each unit. Assessment resources are available both digitally and in print. 

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 phonemic awareness. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• In Countdown Online, Supply Room, Assessments and Grouping, it is recommended that teachers give students the Phonemic Awareness Assessment at the beginning, middle, and end of the year. 

• In Countdown Online, Supply Room, Assessments and Grouping, the Phonemic Awareness Survey Part 1 assesses students’ phonemic awareness by matching and identifying initial and final phonemes. Part 2 assesses students’ phonemic awareness through blending and segmenting three- and four-phoneme words. Part 2 also assesses students’ ability to manipulate phonemes by adding, deleting, and substituting. 

• In the Countdown Teacher Guide, Book 1, three Reading Playground games for each unit can be used as a formative assessment. They are organized by skill and tell the teacher how students perform on the main skills in the unit. Throughout the year, nine games can be used as formative assessments. 

• In Countdown Online, Supply Room, Assessments, and Grouping, there are two Phonological Awareness Surveys that assess students’ phonological and phonemic awareness skills. Each assessment has a form A and a form B for progress monitoring. 

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

• In Countdown Online, Supply Room, Assessments and Grouping, it states if students score 0-4, they are considered low, 5-10 is considered emerging, and 11-14 is considered on track at the beginning of the year assessment. On the middle of the year assessment, 0-6 is low, 7-13 is emerging, and 14-16 is on track. On the end of the year assessment, low is 0-6, emerging is 7-12, and on track is 13 - 15.

• In Countdown Online, Countdown Skill Analysis, Unit 4, Blending Sounds, the materials state that if students score above 80%, they are nearing proficiency, 60-70% is practice, and less than 59% is re-teach. 

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: 

• In Countdown Online, Countdown Skill Analysis, there are general recommendations per skill. It says if a student is struggling with blending phonemes in syllables, then the teacher can do the Mystery Bag: Blending Compound Words in Unit 2. 

• In Countdown Online, Supply Room, Reading Playground, the Countdown Formative Assessment Guide provides a benchmark chart for countdown games. The chart includes recommendations for specific lesson reviews for student data correlated to nearing proficiency, practice, and re-teach. Examples include touching the number of phonemes. 

• In Countdown Online, Supply Room, Assessments and Grouping, the Kindergarten Foundational Skills Survey and Countdown Guide indicates that if the majority of the class scores 0-4 in phonological and phonemic awareness, the “Countdown’s Environmental Activities beginning on page 195 in Countdown Teacher Guide Book 1,” should be used. Environmental activities include beginning sound isolation and oral segmenting activities. 

The materials provide a clear, evidence-based explanation for the phonics scope and sequence order, which is intentionally ordered from simpler to more complex skills. Phonics instruction is based on high utility patterns and common phonics generalizations. Instruction starts with closed syllables and ends with reading words with inflectional endings.

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

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Research, in the article, “Bringing Research to Practice with Foundational Reading Skills Instruction for Beginning Readers,” under “Phonics,” the article states, “The scope and sequences for Countdown, Blast Foundations, and HD Word progresses from simpler to more difficult concepts. Students begin by learning short vowel sounds and the closed syllable spelling pattern and gradually progress to more challenging long vowel sounds and the multiple spellings of those sounds. By the end of HD Word’s scope and sequence, students as young as second grade have been explicitly taught to decode all six syllable types, including spellings of the short, long, r-controlled, and variant vowel sounds; prefixes and suffixes; and other functional word parts.”

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Research, Notes on our Scope and Sequence, research from Kearns, 2017 finds that closed syllables and short vowels at a single-syllable level are extremely reliable, predictable, and most impactful. More than 91% of all single-syllable, closed syllables had a predictable short vowel. RGR teaches and practices closed syllables extensively to ensure that students have mastered closed syllables. 

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Research, Phonics Scope and Sequence, research states that the scope and sequence is based on well-documented word-level statistics related to frequency of spelling pronunciation patterns in English. The research cited is from Hannah, Hodges, Fry, and Kearns. 

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. The scope and sequence is as follows:

• Unit 1 

  • Short and long vowel sounds and motions

  • Identification of short and long vowel sounds

• Unit 2

  • Closed syllables

  • Reading and spelling closed syllable words with short a and short i

• Unit 3

  • Reading and spelling nonsense words with short a and short i

  • Introduce Detective Work

  • Introduce Phrases and Sentences to Read

• Unit 4

  • Digraph sh

  • Reading and Spelling with short a and short i

• Unit 5 - Reading and Spelling with short u

• Unit 6 - Digraph th

• Unit 7 - Reading and Spelling with short e

• Unit 8 - Digraphs ch and wh

• Unit 9 - Digraph ck

• Unit 10 - Trigraphs tch and dge

• Unit 11

  • Double Trouble Rule

  • Chunk all

• Unit 12 - Short vowel spelling rules

  • Double Trouble

  • Digraph ck

  • Trigraphs tch and dge.

• Unit 13 - Two-sound blends

• Unit 14 - Reading two-syllable words with closed syllables

• Unit15 - Spelling two-syllable words with closed syllables

• Unit 16 - Open syllables in one-syllable words

• Unit 17 

  • Reading two-syllable words with open and closed syllables

  • Chunk ing

• Unit 18 - Reading two-syllable words with schwa

• Unit 19 - Reading one-syllable words with Vowel-Consonant-e

• Unit 20 - Reading two-syllable words with Vowel-Consonant-e

• Unit 21

  • Reading one- and two-syllable words with Long E and Long A Vowel Teams ee, ea, ai, and ay

  • Y spells Long E

• Unit 22 - Reading one- and two-syllable words with Long i Spelling igh and Long o Vowel Team oa

• Unit 23 - Three sounds of suffix -ed

• Unit 24 - Reading words with inflectional endings

• Unit 25 - Cumulative review

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

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Introduction, Blast Foundations Scope and Sequence, the skills that students are introduced to first are closed syllables and digraphs in single-syllable words, which make up 50% of all English syllables.  

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 10, Lesson 3, students work on trigraphs tch and dge. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 22, Lesson 3, students read and spell words with long i spelled with igh and long o vowel team spelled with oa. The teacher reviews open syllables and vowel-consonant-e spellings of long i and long o. Then, students review the long i vowel spelling igh and long o vowel team oa. Students read one- and two-syllable real words with igh and oa. 

The materials do not contain elements of instruction that are based on the three-cueing system for teaching decoding.

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 in Units 6-28. Students practice phonics skills in isolation, phrases, sentences, and decodables. Lesson 5 of any given week reviews phonics skills introduced and practiced during Lessons 1-4. Unit 25 provides a cumulative review of phonics skills as well.  

Materials include reasonable pacing of newly taught phonics skills. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• Students generally spend a week on phonics skills, with frequent cumulative reviews. For example:

  • In Units 1-15, lessons focus on closed syllable words and short vowels. 

  • In Units 16-22, lessons focus on open syllable types, two-syllable words, long vowels, and vowel teams. 

  • In Units 23-24, students focus on inflectional endings. 

The lesson plan design allots time to include sufficient student practice to work towards automaticity. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 5, Lesson 2, the materials review short and long u phonemes. In Lesson 3, students build words with short u. In Lesson 4, students read words with short u. In Lesson 5, students read phrases and sentences with short and long u words. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 12, Lesson 3, students are introduced to the digraph ck, trigraphs -tch, -dge, and double consonants ff, ll, and ss. Students practice for five-10 minutes during the We Do part of the lesson. Then, students have 20-30 minutes of independent practice. In Lesson 4, students practice the phonics skills using Detective Word, Sound Practice, and during Lesson 5, they have a Wrap-Up with a review of phonics skills. The Detective Word routine has students read and find words that start with that sound. The Word Sort contains columns with the sound they are working on, and they sort the words.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Lesson 23, Lesson 3, students practice three sounds of the suffix -ed. Then, they practice the skill again in Lesson 4 and Wrap-Up with review practice during Lesson 5. 

Materials contain distributed, cumulative, and interleaved opportunities for students to practice and review all previously learned grade-level phonics. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 5, Lesson 3, students work with short u. Then, students practice on Day 4 and review with practice in a Wrap-Up activity on Day 5. In Book 2, Unit 25, there is a cumulative review of all skills. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 6, Lesson 5, students review phonics skills introduced in Lessons 1-4. Lesson 2 focuses on short and long o phonemes, and Lesson 3 materials focus on digraph /th/. In Lesson 5, review materials focus on writing words with /o/, /th/, and reading phrases and sentences with /o/ and /th/.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Unit 25 includes a cumulative review of closed and open syllables, vowel consonant e, and vowel team syllables. 

The materials include systematic and explicit instruction in phonics with repeated teacher modeling. Lessons provide explicit instruction in blending and segmenting words using consistent routines. In addition, the materials include phrases and sentences that the teacher can use for dictation. The appendix provides guidance to teachers on providing corrective feedback to students. 

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

• Know the spelling-sound correspondences for common consonant digraphs.

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 6, Lesson 3, the teacher has the option to use the Digraph th animation and /th/ articulation videos as needed to introduce/review. The teacher follows the I Do, We Do, You Do instructional model to build words with the digraph th. The teacher starts by modeling with the word tile. The teacher says the word, stretches the word, and places one colored tile on the board for each phoneme in the word. Then, the teacher spells the word by placing a letter tile above each colored tile while saying the phoneme. The teacher models using Touch and Say to read the word thin. Next, the teacher does the same routine with students using the word bath. 

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 8, Lesson 3, students learn the digraph ch. The teacher models saying the phoneme /ch/ and points to the letter tile ch. Students echo this. The teacher models building words with the digraph ch. Students, along with the teacher, build the words chip, chop, much, chin, and chop.  

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 8, Lesson 3, students learn the digraph wh. The teacher models saying the phoneme /w/ and points to the letter tile wh. Students echo this. The teacher models building words with the digraph wh. Students, along with the teacher, build the words whip, whiz, which, wham, and when.

• Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words.

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 4, Lesson 4, the teacher introduces reading words with the digraph sh. The teacher tells students to underline the digraph in words and then models doing it with the word ash. The teacher says /aaaaa/ while underlining the a and /sh/ while underlying the sh. Then the teacher says ash.  

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 7, Lesson 3, the teacher introduces/reviews the short e phoneme with the short e articulation videos and the short e movement. The teacher follows the I Do, We Do, You Do instructional model to build the word set by saying the word, stretching the word, and placing one colored tile on the board for each phoneme. The teacher then places a letter tile above each colored tile while saying the phoneme. The teacher supports students as they do the word red, and then students practice independently with the following words: den, bed, wet, beg, and hem. 

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 13, Lesson 4, the teacher models decoding the word flap, and students repeat that process with the words: flex, brick, next, crash, quilt, shift, step, grin, hunt, pant, spend, shift, crash, and hunt.

• Know final -e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds.

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 19, Lesson 1, the teacher introduces the vowel-consonant-e pattern. The teacher builds a word then places the letter tile e at the end of the word at, and explains that placing the letter e at the end of the word at changes it to the word ate.  

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 21, Lesson 1, the teacher introduces long e and long a vowel team words. The teacher begins to explain that they are going to review and practice spelling long e and long a words. Students practice with the teacher saying the vowel teams ee, ea, ai, ay, and y with words. 

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 22, Lesson 3, the teacher reviews open syllables and vowel-consonant-e spellings of long i and long o. Then, students review the long i vowel spelling igh and long o vowel team oa. Students read one- and two-syllable real words with igh and oa. 

• Use knowledge that every syllable must have a vowel sound to determine the number of syllables in a printed word. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 14, Lesson 4, the teacher says, “In today’s detective work, we will be reading big words with two syllables. It’s my turn. I will model how to do this one word at a time. Instead of drawing lines under the sounds in the word, we will draw a rectangle, like a SyllaBoard, around each syllable. Watch me as I demonstrate this new concept.” The teacher displays the word catfish and says, “How many vowels do you see in this word? (two) Are they together or apart? (apart)” The teacher circles the vowel letters a and i while saying their names. Then the teacher asks, “How many syllables are in this word? (two)” The teacher draws a rectangle around each syllable, cat and fish, says each syllable as they point to it, cat-fish, and says the complete word, catfish. 

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 20, Lesson 3, the teacher tells students that they first need to break the words into syllables on the SyllaBoards. The teacher displays the word mistake on the board. The teacher tells the students that there are three vowels in the word: i, a, and e, and that the vowel letters are all apart. Explaining the letter i is by itself, and not next to another vowel letter, so it will go by itself on the first SyllaBoard. The teacher continues to think aloud, telling students that they see a vowel-consonant-e pattern at the end of the word. When they see a Vowel-Consonant-e pattern, they know that the vowel, the consonant, and the final e will all be on the same SyllaBoard. The teacher connects the a and the e with a curved line to show that they work together to spell the vowel sound. The teacher writes mis and take on the SyllaBoards. The teacher reads each syllable, with a pause between the syllables. The teacher then uses their hand to sweep under the SyllaBoards to read the word mistake. The teacher practices with the students using the word cupcake. 

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 22, Lesson 3, the teacher explains that each syllable has a vowel spelling. In the word upload, the first syllable up is closed because it has only one vowel letter with a consonant letter after it. The second syllable load is a vowel team.

• Decode two-syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 17, Lesson 3, the teacher writes the word motel on the board and says, “I see two vowels, the o and the e. It is clear that this word has two syllables because there are two vowel letters and they are not next to each other.” The teacher underlines the o and the e and places two SyllaBoards under the word motel. Then, they write one vowel letter on each board and say, “Now I need to fill in the consonants. I’m going to try m-o-t on the first board and e-l on the second board.” The teacher thinks aloud using short o and short e sounds, then models using m-o and t-e-l on the boards. 

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 22, Lesson 3, the teacher tells students they are going to practice breaking words into syllables on their SyllaBoards, then read each syllable and blend them to read the word. With the teacher, they do the word flashlight. 

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 18, Lesson 3, the teacher writes the word wagon. The teacher underlines the vowels and places two blank SyllaBoards under the word. Then, the teacher writes one vowel on each board and asks students to do the same. The teacher writes the consonants on the boards so that there is one syllable on each board. The teacher uses the Touch and Say routine for the first syllable for /w/ /a/ /g/.  

• Read words with inflectional endings.

  • In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 24, Lesson 1, the teacher introduces the endings -er, -s, and -es and guides the students in reading words with all five endings. 

  • In the Blast Foundations Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 24, Lesson 4, students mark words by underlining the base word and circling the special ending before reading the entire word. 

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

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 3, Lesson 3, the teacher and students build the nonsense word fid together. The teacher stretches the sounds and places one colored tile on the board for each sound while saying the sounds. Then the teacher asks different students, “what is the first sound you hear?” The teacher then asks, “what letter spells /ffff/?” They do this with each sound.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 11, Lesson 4, the teacher models segmenting with the word chip, /ch/ /i/ /p/, chip. The students repeat the process for the rest of the words, one at a time.  

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 18, Lesson 3, the teacher models using Touch and Say with the word wagon. The teacher points to each sound and reads the first syllable /w/ /a/ /g/,  then models pointing to the second syllable and sounding out each sound /o/ /n/, and then flexes the vowel to read the second syllable with a schwa. Students use Touch and Say to read the words sandal, along, dragon, helmet, seven, frozen, panda, and dental.

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

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 10, Lesson 5, the teacher dictates the words fetch, catch, pitch, ridge, and edge for students to write.  

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 13, Lesson 3, students build the words the teacher says, including bump, plug, melt, bent, swam, lift, and flip using their tile boards. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 17, Lesson 5, the teacher dictates the words menu, unit, begin, zero, and motel for students to write. 

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

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 2, Lesson 3, at the end of the lesson, there is a section entitled Positive Error Correction for Build a Word. The directions state, “If a reader misspells a word during Build a Word, provide Positive Error Correction,” with instructions as follows:

  • Identify the sounds the student spelled correctly.

  • Repeat the word.

  • Prompt students to repeat the word and listen for the misspelled sound. Then, have the student correct the spelling by changing one or more letter tiles.

  • If necessary, you or another student may identify the misspelled sound and spelling for the student.

  • Prompt student to independently use Touch and Say to read the word correctly. Always finish with the student independently using Touch and Say to verify that the word is spelled correctly.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 15, lesson 3, there is a box for positive error correction that says if the student misspells a multisyllabic word to identify which syllables the student spelled correctly. Then, the teacher says the word and prompts students to repeat the word and then say the misspelled syllable again. The teacher stretches the sound in that syllable and corrects the spelling. 

The materials include opportunities for students to decode phonetically spelled words in lessons throughout the units. Decoding practice focuses on both automaticity and accuracy. In addition, students have opportunities to encode in each unit, which involves segmenting sounds using sound-spelling patterns. Encoding routines include using letter tiles to build words.

Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to decode words with taught phonics patterns. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 4, Lesson 4, students use workbook page 10 words to decode ash, fig, dish, and nine additional phonetically spelled words.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 15, Lesson 4, students use workbook page 1 words to decode two-syllable words, including bedbug, mascot, cobweb, and nine additional two-syllable words.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 20, Lesson 3, students practice reading words with the vowel consonant-e pattern with the following words: unsafe, inflate, reptile, caveman, campsite, lifetime, stampede, and volume.

Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to encode words with taught phonics patterns. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 3, Lesson 3, students build the nonsense words one at a time by stretching the sounds. They build the nonsense words nim, zad, pid, and mav. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide Book 2, Unit 17, Lesson 5, students use workbook page 18 to encode two-syllable words, including menu, unit, begin, zero, and motel. The workbook page includes boxes for each sound. The teacher says the word, students orally repeat the word, the teacher directs students to write one syllable at a time, and students write each sound in the boxes.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 19, Lesson 3, the teacher and students spell the word theme. Students then practice spelling using the words slop, slope, tap, tape, cut, and cute.

Student-guided practice and independent practice of blending sounds using the sound-spelling pattern(s) is varied and frequent. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 15, Lesson 2, students practice blending syllables into multi-syllabic words using SyllaBoards. Students tap each board as each syllable is enunciated and then blend the syllables. The words include hammer, regular, magical, magnet, hornets, palace, monster, fabulous, phoneme, radio, volcano, common, and purple. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 17, Lesson 3, the teacher models blending the two-syllable word motel and the words habit and menu during the We Do portion of the lesson. Students practice blending lilac, event, banjo, baking, and unit during the You Do portion of the lesson.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 22, Lesson 2, the teacher prompts students to blend phonemes into words. The students blend the words join, soil, Roy, coin, toy, boy, oink, and soy. 

Materials provide opportunities for students to engage in word-level decoding practice focused on accuracy and automaticity. Examples include, but are not limited to the following: 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 10, Lesson 4, students decode 12 phrases using words with digraphs ck, dge, and ch. 

• In the Blast Foundations Online,  Unit 16, Lesson 5, students read the decodable passage “The Picnic” and complete the accuracy percentage on a tracking chart. The decodable focus is open single-syllable words and includes sentences such as Flo put the insect in the public trash can.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 17, Lesson 4, students read two-syllable words and phrases on page 15 of the student workbook to practice reading with accuracy and automaticity.

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. There are in-depth explanations of how words follow these generalizations, and students have sufficient opportunities to practice these rules. The weekly spelling lists correspond to these rules or generalizations. Students also have the opportunity to practice spelling words with various activities, including building words with letter tiles, and in small-group spelling practice on Lesson 5 each week during the “Spell It!” routine. 

Spelling rules and generalizations are aligned to the phonics scope and sequence. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 3, Lessons 3-5, words with short a and short i are taught. The spelling words for Unit 3 include single, closed-syllable words with short a and i, such as mad, if, hat, lad, dad, sift, last, raft, fast, fist.

• In the Blast Foundations Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 6, Lesson 3, the phonics skill taught is digraph th. In the You Do section of the lesson, students spell nonsense words with th using letter tiles, including thoz, thath, dith, thox. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 9, Lesson 3, students work on the digraph -ck. In the You Do section, students spell nonsense words by placing one letter tile at a time for the words zick, vack, keck. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 18, Lessons 3-5, students read and spell two-syllable words with schwa. Words used in the spelling list include lemon, frozen, label, adopt, comet, magnet, broken, piglet, signal, adult.

Materials include explanations for spelling of specific words or spelling rules. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 17, Lesson 5, the teacher explains to students that every word they spell will have at least one open syllable. Students are then reminded that an open syllable ends with one vowel letter at the end of the syllable and no consonant letters after it. The students practice with the word menu. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 19, Lesson 3, the phonics focus is one-syllable words with vowel-consonant–e. The materials state, “When a single vowel letter is followed by one consonant letter and the letter e at the end of a word, the vowel sound is usually long like in the words make, eve, fine, note, and cute” and “The spelling pattern is called vowel-consonant-e instead of silent e because the letter e is not truly silent. The letter e works with the vowel letter before the consonant to spell the long sound of that vowel letter.” 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 22, Lesson 3, the phonics focus is long i vowel spelling igh and long o vowel team with oa. The materials contain the following generalizations: 

  • A vowel team is when two vowel letters work together like a team to spell one sound.  

  • In the word night, the vowel letter i works together with the letters g and h to spell one vowel sound, long i.  

  • The letters igh can happen in the middle or end of words. 

  • When we see the letters igh together in a word, they usually spell the long i sound. 

  • The letters o and a work together to spell one vowel sound, long o.

  • The vowel team oa can happen at the beginning or middle of words. 

  • When we see the letters oa together, they usually spell the long o sound. 

Students have sufficient opportunities to practice spelling rules and generalizations. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:  

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 7, Lesson 3, students practice spelling the word red in guided practice. Then, students practice six words independently. Finally, students build the words sep, zeth, and fen independently. Students continue to practice this skill in Lessons 4 and 5.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 12, Lesson 3, students spell words with a short vowel sound containing digraph ck, trigraphs tch/dge, and double consonants. The students spell the words lodge, puff, and spill. 

In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 14, Lesson 5, students spell closed two-syllable words during the Spell It! Routine. The words that students spell include cabin, solid, napkin, picnic, habit, complex, dentist, plastic, public, and radish.

The materials contain decodable texts with phonics aligned to the phonics scope and sequence. The decodable texts begin in Unit 2, with one every week until the final unit. The phonics skill is taught on Day 3, and the decodable text is used on Days 4 and 5. Students have opportunities to practice with the decodable text in Practice-to-Mastery and Small Group Instruction. The majority of repeated rereadings occur during small-group instruction. 

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 the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 4, Lessons 3-5, the focus is on the digraph sh and words with short a and short i. The Unit 4 decodable passage “On the Ship” features words with the digraph sh and short vowels a and i. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 18, Lessons 3-5, the focus is on two-syllable words with schwa. The Unit 18 decodable passage “The Puppet Show” features two-syllable words with schwa and with open and closed syllables. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 22, Lesson 4, the decodable passage for the unit “Trick or Treat” is aligned with the phonics skill focus for the week, vowel teams -igh and -oa. Words in the decodable text that align with the focus include delight, float, fright, road, might, cloak, sight, and oak. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 25, Lesson 4, the decodable passage for the unit “Ruby’s Dreams” is aligned with the phonics skill focus for the week, inflectional endings -er, -ed, -s, -es, -ing. Words found in the decodable text that align with the focus include twitched, dreaming, foxes, painter, cats.

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 the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 3, Lesson 3, during small-group instruction, students read the decodable passage “The Raft.” In Lesson 4, in Practice-to-Mastery, the teacher and students do a scaffolded reading of “The Raft.” In Lesson 5, students have more opportunities to read the decodable, including a warm read during small-group instruction.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 13, Lesson 3, students read the decodable text “Our Plants” as a cold read in small group instruction. In Lesson 4, students read “Our Plants” during the Practice-to-Mastery portion of the lesson with the teacher using the Print Book Reading Routine. In Lesson 5, students read the decodable text during small group instruction.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 17, Lesson 3, students read the decodable text “Robots” as a cold read in small group instruction. In Lesson 4, students read the “Robots” during the Practice-to-Mastery portion of the lesson with the teacher using the Print Book Reading Routine. In Lesson 5, students read the decodable text during small group instruction.

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:

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Instructional Resources, Blast Passages, the resource Blast Decodable Passages (with Fluency Instruction) contains the decodable passages for the units in Blast along with a scaffolded decodable passage reading lesson plan to use with the current unit’s decodable passage. The passages include:

  • Unit 2: “Sam and Tim” 

  • Unit 3: “The Raft”

  • Unit 4: “On the Ship” 

  • Unit 5: “The Rush to Camp”

  • Unit 6: “A New Dog” 

  • Unit 7: “Hens and Pigs” 

  • Unit 8: “The Chimp” 

  • Unit 9: “Tick Tock” 

  • Unit 10: “Fudge”

  • Unit 11: “The Fall” 

  • Unit 12: “A Ball” 

  • Unit 13: “Our Plants” 

  • Unit 14: “The Potluck”

  • Unit 15: “The Attic”

  • Unit 16: “The Picnic”

  • Unit 17: “Robots”

  • Unit 18: “The Puppet Show” 

  • Unit 19: “Take a Trip” 

  • Unit 20: “Camping” 

  • Unit 21: “Beach” 

  • Unit 22: “Trick or Treat” 

  • Unit 23: “Ted’s Bad Day” 

  • Unit 24: “Ruby’s Dream” 

  • Unit 25: “My Siblings”

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 Reading Playground, an online tool, has assessment opportunities for each lesson in a game format for the students. Additional assessment resources are found in the online teacher resources, including the First Grade Diagnostic Decoding Survey, which provides diagnostic assessment data about each student’s decoding ability in words and sentences. Teachers and students are provided with information on students’ skill levels and mastery and understanding of phonics skills. Instructional materials provide teachers with suggestions for reteaching based on assessment results.

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:

• In the Blast Foundation Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 3, Lesson 5, students complete a spelling assessment that evaluates their knowledge of short and long a. 

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Assessments and Grouping, a resource called the 1st Grade Foundational Skills Surveys states that it directly assesses whether students have met the phonics standards from the Common Core Standards. In the section of the surveys addressing phonics and word recognition, students are assessed on skills such as decoding one-syllable words, understanding that every syllable must have a vowel sound, and knowing final -e and common vowel team conventions for long vowel sounds. 

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Assessments and Grouping, the Recommended Assessment Timeline and Flowcharts resource outlines the assessments that should be given over the year and the timeline in which they should be given. Assessments are to be given in Fall, Winter, and Spring and intervention assessment timelines are provided as well. For example, for the fall benchmark, it suggests:

• Blast Beginning of Program Baseline Assessment in the Blast Reading Playground (with 1:1 oral decoding) 

• 1st Grade Foundational Skills Survey, Form BOY1a

• Optional Sight Word Survey: Pre-Primer and Primer

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Assessment and Grouping, the First Grade Foundational Skills Surveys provide diagnostic assessments to measure student acquisition of foundational reading skills. The Foundational Skills Surveys include several informal diagnostic tools designed to help educators determine how well first-grade students are acquiring phonics skills. 

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

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Reading Playground, Blast Oral Decoding Diagnostic Surveys provide an overview of the First Grade Diagnostic Decoding Survey. The assessment analyzes different skills at the Beginning of the Year (BOY), Middle of the Year (MOY), and End of the Year (EOY). 

• BOY-15 Real Words, 3 Sentences, 15 Nonsense Words 

• MOY-24 Real Words, 5 Sentences, 15 Nonsense Words, 6 Real Multisyllabic Words, 3 Nonsense Multisyllabic Words

• EOY-24 Real Words, 5 Sentences, 15 Nonsense Words, 6 Real Multisyllabic Words, 3 Nonsense Multisyllabic Words 

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, the Recommended Assessment Timeline and Flowcharts outlines the results of assessments given over the year and recommendations. For example, at the beginning of the year, the resource says, “Students who are unable to complete the BOY1a or who misread more than half the words are likely to have weaknesses in pre-decoding skills. We recommend administering the Kindergarten Foundational Skills Survey BOYKa Form to gain a better understanding of the students’ pre-decoding skills.”

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Reading Playground, Formative Assessments in the Reading Playground provides a guided tour of the formative assessment supports on the Teacher Dashboard for the Reading Playground. There is also a link entitled “Blast Formative Assessment Guide.” On pages 2-8, the resource provides a chart with information for each unit that includes the benchmark scores for each proficiency level.

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Assessment and Grouping, Grouping Matrix Decoding Levels, information is provided about how The Grouping Matrix places students into decoding levels. The decoding level descriptions are different levels that students might be placed in. Eight levels are provided. For example, slow reading rate is one of the levels, which is categorized as “this student is accurate when reading words from the untimed decoding surveys and accurate when reading connected text on the oral reading fluency assessment but is reading slower than expected (using national norms). They may need fluency instruction to meet oral reading fluency benchmarks for their grade and phase of the year.” 

Materials support teachers with 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 Blast Online, Supply Room, Assessments and Grouping, the resource called Intervention Flowcharts explains how to administer the 1st Grade Foundational Skills Survey (FSS1) BOYa, analyze the results of the survey, and how to plan for interventions based on the results (grouping students, teaching students, progress monitoring, and adjusting instruction as needed).

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Assessments and Grouping, the resource Recommended Assessment Timeline and Flowcharts outlines how to use the results of assessments given over the year. The following is found within middle of the year assessments: “For students who miss 20 or more consonant sounds (initial and/or final), administer the Letter Knowledge Survey for more precise information. Enter the results into the Grouping Matrix to gain a better understanding of the student’s letter knowledge.” 

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Assessment and Grouping, there are Intervention Flowcharts that provide guidance on how to adjust instruction based on students’ assessment skills level. The 1st Grade Beginning of Year Path for Assessment provides a flowchart that contains information on how to adjust instruction through four pathways based on student skill level. For example, if students score severe/significant or still low functional vocabulary, phonemic awareness, or letter knowledge, then begin Blast with Unit 1, Lesson 1, but continue to use Countdown Additional Activities PDF as necessary.

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Assessment and Grouping, Grouping Matrix Decoding Levels, descriptions are different levels that students might be placed in, along with recommendations. The following is listed for Slow Reading Rate: “They may need fluency instruction to meet oral reading fluency benchmarks for their grade and phase of the year.”

The materials provide systematic and explicit instruction of Heart Words (high-frequency words) with consistent, explicit instructional routines repeated each week for Units 3-24. The program provides videos that contain explicit instruction in spelling the Heart Words while connecting the phonemes to the graphemes. Teacher guidance provides instructions for the teacher on how to model reading the Heart Words. Sample scripts are provided to explicitly teach and practice Heart Words each week. The scripts provide explicit steps for the teacher to model connecting the phonemes to graphemes and discuss the irregular part of the word, which will be marked with a heart. Beginning in Unit 3, there are five Heart Words taught each week.

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 Blast Online, Heart Word Magic, Heart Word Magic Compilations by Unit, there are video links for Units 3-24. Each video introduces the Heart Words for that particular week and explains the pronunciations and tricky parts of each word. The videos are consistent from week to week and are explicit in instruction.

• In Blast Online, Heart Word Magic, Blast Heart Words, Blast Heart Word Magic Cards contain word cards for all words instructed each week beginning in Unit 3. The word cards for each unit can be distributed to students after the initial instruction on Day 1 of the unit. The format of the cards matches the format students see in the Heart Word Magic videos. Hearts appear above the tricky parts of the Heart Words. If the sound spelling has not yet been taught, it is marked with a heart. Color tiles represent expected sound-spelling correspondence. The word is given in a contextual decodable phrase or a sentence.

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Heart Word Magic, Heart Word Magic Spelling, Heart Word Magic Spelling contains teacher directions and a sample script for the words said, have, from, the. There is also a template to use with the Heart Words with dots for the phonemes, boxes for the graphemes, and a heart above each grapheme to be colored in when the student identifies the irregular or tricky part of the Heart Word. This script is similar to the explanation found on the Heart Word Magic Videos. The script for said includes: 

  • This is the word said 

  • Said rhymes with head and bed 

  • Said has three sounds (teacher fills in three dots while saying the sounds /s/ /e/ /d/)

  • Touch the dots and say the say the sounds (/s/ /e/ /d/) blend together and say the word said  

  • The first sound I hear in said is /s/, the next sound I hear is /e/, and finally I hear the /d/

  • We all know that /s/ is spelled with the letter s and /d/ is spelled with the letter d. Now let’s take a look at the letters that are spelling /e/. It is not an e that is spelling /e/, it is ai. That is the part we must know by heart. Let’s touch and say together…

  • Now, let’s review the word said. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide Book, Book 2, Unit 17, Lesson 1, students watch the Heart Word magic videos and use Look, Think, Say! to learn the words. The words for the lesson include take, go, see, could, and where. During Pop-Up Heart Word Practice, the teacher moves through the interactive slides, and Heart Words “pop up” on the screen for students to read. 

Materials 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 Blast Online, Teacher Presentation Tool, Unit 8, Lesson 1, students watch the Heart Word Magic video to learn the words one, had, by, but, and not. For the word one, the video explains that it has three sounds, and there are two Heart parts of the word which are over the letters o and e. The /n/ is represented with the letter n, which is a regular sound-spelling pattern. The video for the word had shows that it can be sounded out, by placing a rectangle to represent each phoneme.

• In the Blast Online, Teacher Presentation Tool, Unit 13, Lesson 1, the video explains that students will learn five more heart words. The words are may, no, now, came, and out. The video then pops up the word may, saying that the m is spelled with the letter m. Next, the video breaks down that ay is spelled ay. 

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

• Students are explicitly taught to read five Heart Words in Lesson 1 of every unit (Units 3-24), and they continue to practice those Heart Words throughout the unit.

• In HD Word Online, Supply Room, Heart Word Magic, HD Word Heart Words, a resource lists the heart words for each unit in HD Word. The words are:

  • Unit 3: the, of, you, and, to 

  • Unit 4: in, is, for, that, it

  • Unit 5: he, was, his, on, are 

  • Unit 6: as, with, this, they, if 

  • Unit 7: at, be, or, have, from 

  • Unit 8: one, had, by, but, not

  • Unit 9: what, all, were, we, when 

  • Unit 10: your, can, said, there, down 

  • Unit 11: an, come, which, she, do

  • Unit 12: how, their, want, will, up 

  • Unit 13: may, no, know, came, out 

  • Unit 14: many, these, then, so, some 

  • Unit 15: them, her, would, make, like

  • Unit 16: him, into, put, has, look 

  • Unit 17: take, go, see, could, where 

  • Unit 18: any, about, old, here, saw 

  • Unit 19: little, ask, over, long, very

  • Unit 20: good, around, know, too, every 

  • Unit 21: pretty, away, after, think, going 

  • Unit 22: walk, before, again, who, been

  • Unit 23: goes, always, because, own, only 

  • Unit 24: give, our, both, does, write

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 provide decodable texts containing high-frequency words, which provide opportunities for students to read the words in context. The students have a template to write Heart Words and to mark the irregularly spelled part of the word. The units contain dictation sentences that include Heart Words. Materials also include sentences containing Heart Words previously taught.

Students practice decoding high-frequency words in isolation. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 5, Lesson 1, students use the Look, Think, Say! routine to practice identifying and reading the words he, was, his, on, and are.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 8, Lesson 1, Heart Word Pop-Up, students read the Heart Words be, had, one, not, by, or, but, and at. The words are read in isolation. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 13, Lesson 1, Heart Word Pop-Up, students read the Heart Words came, no, want, out, their, now, will, may, and out. The words are read in isolation. 

Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to decode high-frequency words in context. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 3, Lesson 1, the students read the Heart Words the, of, you, and to. The assigned decodable text includes the Heart Words the, you, to, in, and it. 

• In the Blast Student Workbook, Book 1, Unit 12, Lesson 4, students read phrases and sentences, some of which feature the Heart Words for Unit 12: how, their, want, will, and up.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 13, Lesson 4, students read the Heart Words for the week: may, no, know, came, out. On page 62, four of the 12 phrases contain Heart Words for the week. These sentences include No good fast plan, May thump the chest with zest, Out of milk at dusk, and May send for the rent.

• In Blast Online, Teacher Presentation Tool, Unit 18 Resources, the decodable text “The Puppet Show” contains the word about, which is a Heart Word for the week. It also contains the words go and see, which were both Heart Words taught in Unit 17.  

Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to encode high-frequency words in tasks, such as sentences, in order to promote automaticity of high-frequency words. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Countdown Online, Heart Word Magic, Heart Word Magic Dissect a Word, the PDF document provides suggested directions for the teacher in guiding students to spell Heart Words. The materials state that the activity allows students to practice dissecting Heart Words (high-frequency words) with irregular letter-sound relationships by listening to the individual phonemes in a word and then filling in the corresponding spellings. Students fill in a heart above the irregular part of the word that must be learned “by heart” and write that tricky part again.

• In Blast Online, Teacher Presentation Tool, Unit 18, Lesson 5, Practice to Mastery, students write the Unit 18 dictation sentences. The three sentences provided are: She was silent for a second., Here is the basket with the bacon and We will travel to the rocket contest.  

The materials provide frequent explicit instruction of syllable types and include routines for syllable division that promote the decoding and encoding of words. Gradual release is utilized to establish knowledge of syllable types and divide words into syllables. Multiple and varied opportunities are provided for student practice analyzing vowels and syllable types in words over the year. Instruction is provided in morpheme analysis. 

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

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 14, Lesson 3, the teacher indicates students will read multisyllabic words with two closed syllables. The teacher states every syllable has a vowel, points out the vowels in the word sunset, writes each vowel on a board, and then closes the vowels with consonants, writing the word sunset as two separate syllables.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 17, Lesson 3, the teacher reviews open and closed syllables and teaches chunking. The teacher models breaking a word into syllables using the word motel. The teacher and students practice the routine with the words habit and menu. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 18, Lesson 1, the teacher points to the word pilot on the board. The teacher then explains to try and be flexible with the vowel sounds in a word. The teacher underlines the vowels and then writes each one on a separate SyllaBoard. Then, the teacher adds the consonants, making both syllables closed. Finally, the teacher explains how to differentiate between short and long vowels. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 20, Lesson 3, the teacher introduces the vowel consonant e pattern and explains that the final e works with the vowel in the same syllable. The teacher then writes the word cupcake. The teacher asks students to place two boards on their desks and write one vowel sound on each board. The teacher explains the closed syllable and demonstrates the word cupcake by separating it into two syllables.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 22, Lesson 3, the teacher explains that an open syllable happens when a single vowel letter is at the end of a syllable, and the vowel sound in an open syllable is usually long.  

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

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 23, Lessons 1 and 3, the teacher introduces the suffix -ed, the phoneme-grapheme relationship, and how the suffix may change the number of syllables and the meaning of a base word to indicate a past action. The teacher models using the word tested. The teacher and students practice with roasted and cleaned. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 24, Lesson 1, the teacher introduces the suffix er by explaining it often turns a verb into a noun. The teacher gives the example of help to helper. The teacher displays the word helper, indicating it has two syllables, and underlines er. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 24, Lesson 3, the teacher explains how -ing changes a word into another verb and provides the example send to sending. The teacher asks how many syllables are in the word send and how many are in the word sending. The teacher demonstrates how to break the word floating into two syllables indicating -ing is a special ending and is a syllable on its own.

Multiple and varied 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 the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 14, Lesson 4, the teacher demonstrates how to draw a rectangle around each syllable in the word catfish and asks students how many syllables are in catfish. Students then practice drawing rectangles around the syllables in the words plastic, conflict, rockfish, and eight additional two-syllable words in the student workbook.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 20, Lesson 5, the teacher says a word aloud and then asks students to write the word, syllable by syllable, in the student workbook. Students write the words became, polite, bedside, cupcake, and reptile.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 21, Lesson 3, the teacher models breaking apart multisyllabic words and reading two-syllable words with vowel teams and words that end in y. The teacher and students practice with the words sixteen, complain, and happy. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 23, Lesson 1, the teacher points to the word wished and encourages students to say it with them. Then, the teacher asks students what the base word in wished is. The teacher asks students how the suffix -ed will change the meaning of the base word. 

• In the Blast Student Workbook, page 26, the teacher guides students through a word sort to determine if a word is an open syllable, closed syllable, or vowel consonant e syllable. Students continue the word sort routine independently.

The materials provide regular assessment opportunities, both formative and summative, at the beginning, middle, and end of the year. The materials also include a Sight Word Assessment to be given at the beginning, middle, and end of the year. The materials provide the teacher with instructional suggestions for assessment-based steps to help students progress toward mastery in word recognition and word analysis.

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 Blast Online, Supply Room, Blast Formative Assessment Guide, Reading Playground Game Mapping for Blast, the materials indicate Unit 2, Game 3 is to be used as a tool to formatively assess students’ knowledge of closed vs. non closed syllables in the form of a sort. 

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Reading Playground, Blast Formative Assessment Guide, the materials indicate Unit 15, Game 3 assesses students’ ability to correctly divide words into syllables.

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Reading Playground, Teacher Resources, there are Sight Word Surveys. The directions say to give the sight word assessment to all Grade 1 students who you expect are not making progress.

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:

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Reading Playground, Formative Assessment, Blast Formative Assessment Guide, the materials indicate that in Unit 2, Game 2 students achieving less than 60% need re-teaching in open versus closed syllables.  

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Blast Formative Assessment Guide, Unit 14, Games 2-3, the materials indicate that if students achieve less than 80%, they are nearing proficiency, 60-79% indicates additional practice is needed, and 59% or less indicates reteaching is needed. 

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Blast Formative Assessment Guide, Page 5, Unit 17, Games 1 and 3, the materials indicate if students achieve less than 80% they are nearing proficiency, 60-79% indicates additional practice is needed, and 59% or less indicates reteaching is needed. 

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Blast Benchmark Score document, Unit 20, the students work on word syllable counts. If they score 80% or above, they are nearing proficiency; if they score 60-79%, they need practice; and if they score 59% or below, they need re-teaching. 

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, the Blast Formative Assessment Guide provides guidance for Games in the Reading Playground to be used as a formative assessment. The guidance includes the following: students who achieve less than 80% are nearing proficiency, 60-79% indicates additional practice is needed, and 59% or less indicates reteaching is needed. 

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

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Reading Playground, Formative Assessment, Blast Formative Assessment Guide, Page 2 provides instructional recommendations for students needing practice or re-teaching of identified skills for each set of games. Instruction recommendations include a rewatch of an animation video, a specific lesson review, a specific workbook page review, and a Game in the Reading Playground. 

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Blast Benchmark Score document, if a student scores below 59% on suffixes, they should receive re-teaching using other vowel team animations including /oo/, and /ou/. They should also play Game 2 in the Reading Playground. The teacher is also encouraged to have students complete Unit 24, Lesson 3 again, which teaches inflectional endings. 

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Blast Benchmark Score document, students who score less than 59% on first syllable benchmark assessment should work on open and closed syllables using Game 3 in the Reading Playground and review Unit 18, lesson 3 or Unit 18, student workbook page 20 for word sorts with open and closed syllables. 

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. The consistent fluency routine to develop oral reading fluency is used with phrases, sentences, decodable passages, and decodable texts. 

Materials include frequent opportunities for explicit, systematic instruction in rate, accuracy, and prosody using grade-level decodable connected text. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Blast Online, Teacher Supply Room, Blast Passages, Blast Decodable Passages with fluency instruction, Page xviii, there is a description of the decodable passage fluency routine. This routine indicates that the first modeling of a passage includes the teacher’s first reading with a robotic tone and misreading a word. The teacher stops and points out the mistake, rereading and correcting. The teacher tells students that when a mistake is made, students should “reread the word, phrase, or even the whole sentence.” Materials include one decodable passage for each of the twenty-four units. 

• Blast Online, Teacher Supply Room, Blast Passages, Blast Decodable Passages (with fluency instruction), page xix, provides a sample teacher script for fluency instruction. The script includes asking students about punctuation when reading, going back to reread if words do not make sense, and identifying and discussing difficult words.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 11, Lesson 4, the teacher tells students that the goal is to read the phrases accurately. The teacher models fluent reading of the passages for the students and then tells the students to read the phrases with accuracy the way the teacher modeled.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 21, Lesson 5, materials indicate students use the Decodable Passage Fluency Routine to read the decodable passage. The fluency routine includes the teacher discussing how to address a mistake, guided correction, and self-correction. 

Materials provide opportunities for students to hear fluent reading of grade-level text by a model reader. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Blast Passages, Blast Decodable Passages (with fluency instruction), page xviii, the Oral Fluency routine indicates the teacher models reading the passage fluently and with intonation. The teacher rereads the text “with fluency: prosody, accuracy, and appropriate rate.” The routine occurs with each of the twenty-four passages. 

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Blast Decodable Passages, on pg. vi, it states the teacher should model the fluency passage to the students. The students read it first, then the teacher models reading, and then the students read it again. 

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Blast Decodable Passages, pg. xiv, the teacher, “begins reading through the text with the students stopping at the end of each sentence.” Then, they go back and find any words with the target phonics concept. Finally, they read the whole word fluently.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 10, Lesson 5, materials indicate the teacher uses the Oral Fluency routine to read the decodable passage. The Oral Fluency routine includes the teacher modeling the reading of the passage. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 13, Lessons 3- 4, small group instruction includes student practice of reading the decodable passage “Our Plants.” The routine includes the teacher reading the passage on Day 3, and students reading along with the teacher during the We Do part of the lesson.

Materials include a variety of resources for explicit instruction in oral reading fluency. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The Blast Student Workbook, Book 1, contains phrases and sentences to read for Units 1-14 to practice oral reading fluency in triads. One student reads while the other two students make note of errors and WCPM. The goal of this routine is to achieve an accuracy rate of 98%.

•  In Blast Student Workbook, Book 2, phrases and sentences are provided for students to read for Units 15-25 to practice oral reading fluency in triads. One student reads while the other two students make note of errors and WCPM. The goal of this routine is to achieve an accuracy rate of 98%.

• In Blast Online, Blast Passages contains 24 decodable passages. There is one for each unit, beginning with Unit 2. These decodable passages are found after Lesson 3 for each unit and can be used in the classroom, at home, or in small groups.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 14, Lesson 5, it states that students read sentences provided on workbook page 69. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 19, Lesson 4, it states that students practice reading the phrases provided on page 27 in their workbook. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 23, Lesson 5, it states that students read sentences with familiar phonemes and Heart Words provided in the Student Workbook on page 52.

The materials include varied opportunities throughout the program over the course of the year for students to work on reading with automaticity and prosody. Practice opportunities for oral reading fluency are provided through decodable passages, phrases, and sentences found in student workbooks. Guidance for Positive Corrective Feedback is provided within mini-lesson resources and in the appendices. 

Varied, frequent opportunities are provided over the course of the year for students to gain automaticity and prosody. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 13, Lesson 4, students practice reading phrases independently in the student workbook with a controlled set of Heart Words and grapheme-phoneme combinations.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 16, Lesson 5, students practice reading decodable sentences in the student workbook on page 10.  

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 22, Lesson 4, students read phrases and sentences with open, closed, and vowel team words.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 25, Lesson 3, students complete a cold read of the decodable “My Siblings.”

Materials provide practice opportunities for word reading fluency in a variety of settings (e.g., repeated readings, dyad or partner reading, continuous reading). Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Blast Online, Blast Passages, materials contain 24 decodable passages. There is one for each unit, beginning with Unit 2. These decodable passages are found after Lesson 3 for each unit and can be used in the classroom, at home, in small groups, or in partner reads.

• In Blast Online, Teacher Supply Room, Blast Passages, Blast Decodable Passages, Page xx, the materials explain the procedures for partner reading. Students partner up and one reads while the other draws a slash through any words read incorrectly. Then, students switch roles. The routine indicates students track their accuracy on a chart. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 3, Lesson 5, in a triad read, as the student reads the text if one or both of the checkers in the triad hold their thumbs to the side for an incorrect word, the reader will need to go back and reread the words more accurately. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 18, Lesson 3, students complete a cold read of the decodable “The Puppet Show.” In Unit 18, Lesson 4, students complete a warm read of the same text.

Materials include guidance and corrective feedback suggestions to the teacher for supporting students’ gains in oral reading fluency. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 18, Lesson 4, students read phrases, and if a student misreads a word, materials indicate the teacher follows Positive Error Correction instructions. Positive Error Correction instructions for phrases include telling the student how many words were read incorrectly, asking another student to identify the position of the incorrect word in the phrase, prompting the reader to Touch and Say the word, reread the word, and then read the phrase again. Materials further indicate that if the student misreads again, chorally read the word, ask the student to read the word independently, and then re-read the phrase. 

• The Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 24, Lesson 4, states that the teacher gives students a thumbs up if they read all the words correctly and a thumb to the side if they misread a word. Then, the teacher is to use the Positive Error Correction instructions. The routine is in the Appendix on page 436. It states that the teacher should tell the student how many words they read correctly, and then prompt them to read the word again. If they miss the word again, the teacher chorally reads the word with the student. Then, the student reads the phrase again on their own. 

The materials include systematic assessment opportunities through reading the passages and tracking accuracy. 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. Materials include suggestions for instructional adjustments to help students progress toward mastery in oral reading fluency. The materials provide general guidance for students and teachers on progress toward mastery of oral reading fluency. 

Multiple assessment opportunities are provided regularly and systematically over the course of the year for students to demonstrate progress toward mastery and independence of oral reading fluency. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Instructional Resources, Blast Passages, Blast Decodable Passages (with fluency instruction), page vi, materials indicate the teacher asks a student to read for one minute, and the teacher marks errors. The teacher calculates a percentage for accuracy and words per minute and records both on a tracking chart for each student. Instructions indicate teachers track fluency during the first cold reading of each decodable book.

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Timeline FlowChart, For Intervention, students begin doing Oral Reading Fluency assessments beginning during the Winter Benchmark. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 1, Unit 9, Lesson 5, students are formatively assessed by the teacher and peers by indicating if each sentence is read correctly, which is indicated by a thumbs up or thumb to the side. A thumb to the side indicates the sentence was read incorrectly, and the student must go back and reread.

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 9, Lessons 3-5, students perform a cold 1-minute read of the decodable “Tick Tock” on Day 3,  and the teacher marks errors. On Day 4, students perform a practice read of “Tick Tock,” and on Day 5, students perform a warm read. Over a week, the student’s progress towards 98% accuracy is recorded through a tracking routine. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Unit 16, Lesson 3, teachers instruct students to complete a cold read of the decodable “The Picnic.” An icon in the teacher guide refers teachers to the Oral Reading Fluency routine. Instructions in Blast Passages online indicate how teachers track fluency during the first cold reading of each decodable book.

Assessment materials provide the teacher and students with information about students’ current skills/level of understanding of oral reading fluency. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Instructional Resources, Blast Passages, Blast Decodable Passages (with fluency instruction), page 4, indicates the last reading of the week, known as a warm read, is tracked on the student tracker to determine if a student’s accuracy rate has increased. 

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Instructional Resources, Blast Passages, Blast Decodable Passages (with fluency instruction), page xvi, materials indicate students track their own progress and “see their own progress at a glance,” by looking at the bar chart, which measures an accuracy percentage, and words correct per minute.

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Instructional Resources, Blast Passages, page viii, there is a tracking chart that the teacher and students use to measure accuracy percentage, and words correct per minute. It states that students will mark their practice after the warm and cold reads from one passage. 

Materials support the teacher with instructional adjustments to help students make progress toward mastery in oral reading fluency. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Instructional Resources, Blast Passages, page xvii, it states that students who score 10 or more words below the 50% percentile using the average score of two unpracticed cold reads from grade-level materials need additional assessment and support using the Blast Phrases and Sentences to Read from the Blast Student Workbooks and the Blast Oral Reading Fluency Practice Pages. 

• In Blast Online, Supply Room, Instructional Resources, Blast Passages, Blast Decodable Passages (with fluency instruction), page xvii, the materials include a normed benchmark fluency chart for fall, winter, and spring. Materials indicate students who score below the 50th percentile on the normed chart may need additional support during Blast Phrases and Sentence instruction. 

• In the Blast Teacher Guide, Book 2, Appendix, the teacher is prompted to use the Positive Error Correction for Phrases to Read. If the student misses a word, the teacher is prompted to touch and say to read the word again. If the student reads the word accurately, the student then reads the entire phrase again. If the student reads the entire phrase accurately, they congratulate them. If the students miss the word again, the group chorally reads the word.