The instructional materials reviewed for Kindergarten do not meet the expectation for focus because the materials do not spend the majority of class time on the major cluster of each grade. A review of the table of contents and the author's CCSSM alignment reveals that 59 of the 135 lessons focus on the major work of the grade level. Upon closer scrutiny of the lessons, the review team found that some of the lessons do not accurately reflect the designated CCSSM. For example:

• Lessons 5 and 22 have been aligned to K.CC.A while they actually involve the creation and interpretation of a graph, which is not a Kindergarten expectation. While counting does occur in the graphing lessons, guiding students into arranging items into a graph before counting, limits the future ability of students to learn to arrange items to count on their own. This is one of the major expectations of Kindergarten students.
• There are numerous lessons involving money (including lessons 41, 49, 51, 59, 67 and 68) which have been aligned to K.CC.A by the publisher. While counting by 1 and 10 is major work of the grade level, using money diverts the focus to identifying the coins and knowing coin values before the counting can take place. Additionally, counting by 5 is not major work, yet nickels are also a focus in some of the lessons. Quarters and dollars are included in lessons towards the end of the series, which also exceeds the Kindergarten level.

These misalignments within the activities in the lessons decreases the amount of time that is actually spent on the major clusters of Kindergarten, therefore the majority of class time is not spent on the major clusters of the grade.

The instructional materials reviewed for Kindergarten do not meet the expectations for coherence because the supporting content does not support coherence and focus through the major work of the grade. There were attempts to connect K.NBT.A.1 and work with numbers 11-19 to support the K.OA number work, however it was often displayed in the materials through the use of money. However, the use of money is beyond the scope of Kindergarten and therefore the work does not fully support K.NBT and does not support the K.OA domain.

Further examples of misalignment with supporting and major content include:

• Only four lessons (L65, L80, L110-1 and L132) are correlated with K.NBT.A.1 work with numbers 11-19 to gain foundations for place value. Of these lessons, L65 only provides opportunities to count beyond 10 using money, which is not a Kindergarten expectation. Lessons 80 and 110-1 involve counting objects to 20. Only Lesson 132 provides opportunities to write numbers beyond 10.
• Considering K.MD.B.3, many of the lessons involve only the classifying of objects. Only lesson 11, which involves the counting of the objects in each category, actually supports the major work of K.CC.B.5 (counting objects) and K.OA.A.3 (decomposing numbers).
• There were many missed opportunities to add counting to sorting activities, but instead the activity simply required students to compare amounts by visually looking for the "shortest line," (lesson 22). Using a bar graph as the recording tool for the sorting eliminated the need for any counting in these activities.

The instructional materials reviewed for Kindergarten do not meet expectations for viability of content for the scope of one year. The pacing described in the program overview indicates that four lessons should be completed in a week, with either an assessment or review on the fifth day. Once these 19 review days are added in, the actual number of days needed to complete the curriculum is 154. Although this is a manageable number of days for a school year, such a small percentage of the year's lessons actually delve into the major work of the grade level, so the review team determined that the amount of content was not viable for one school year to foster coherence between Kindergarten and Grade 1. The depth of content needed to prepare students for the next grade level is not present, as cited in 1a, 1b and 1c evidence. Teachers would need to identify additional resources and material in order to cover the major work of the grade.

The instructional materials reviewed for Kindergarten do not meet expectations for coherence and consistency with the progressions. Kindergarten materials cannot be reviewed for relation to previous grade level concepts. Materials were reviewed, however, for development according to the progressions and for the amount of time spent on grade level problems. The review team did not find evidence that would support content development according to the grade-by-grade progression in the standards. The materials address a great deal of off-grade level content, which is not identified as content from another grade. This is found in lessons 51, 65 and 67.

All of these focus on paying for items and trading coins which is the major work of Grade 2, yet they are labeled as aligned to K.CC.A by the publisher. Quite frequently content beyond the scope of the grade is identified by a MP rather than a Content Standard.

The instructional materials do not meet expectations for Kindergarten in fostering coherence through connections at a single grade. In seeking out to evaluate whether the lesson objectives are aligned to the major cluster headings, the review team found that each lesson essentially lacked detailed written objectives. Each lesson included a listing of the CCSSM and a simple title to describe the lesson content, which serves as the objective. In order to verify alignment, an individual must read the lesson to be sure the numbers used and content addressed is within grade level expectations. In most cases, the title wasn't specific enough in order to make a determination of alignment. Examples of vague language can be found in lessons 18, 27, 44, 50 and 60.

Additionally, very few connections were made between targeted clusters. For instance, a number of lessons are identified as aligned to K.MD.B.3, but many of the lessons involve only the classifying of objects.

• Lesson 11 is one instance where connections involve the counting of the objects in each category (K.CC.B.5) and decomposing numbers (K.OA.A.3).
• Lesson 22 misses the opportunity to add counting to sorting activities, instead the activity simply requires students to compare amounts by visually looking for the "shortest line." Using a bar graph as the recording tool for the sorting eliminated the need for any counting in these activities.