Kindergarten Report Overview

The materials for Kindergarten partially meet the expectations for alignment to research-based practices and standards for foundational skills instruction.

The materials include a defined sequence for letter recognition instruction to be completed in a reasonable time frame over the school year. Weeks 1–11 focus on sounds with limited letter recognition. Additional lowercase and uppercase recognition occurs in Weeks 13–20. Instructional lessons utilize an Alphabet Bridge, Letter Sound Posters, Letter Cards, and a Sound Wall Chart to support teachers in providing systematic and explicit instruction for students to recognize and name all 26 lowercase and uppercase letters. The materials also include a defined sequence for letter formation aligned to the scope and sequence of letter recognition. The materials include three assessment opportunities over the course of the year that assess Alphabet Knowledge; however, these assessments do not assess students’ progress toward mastery and independence of letter formation. 

The materials include a clear, evidence-based hierarchy for phonemic awareness instruction and practice. Materials include phonemic awareness activities such as isolating, blending, and segmenting words as part of a warm-up for 8-12 minutes. Materials also include a sequence of instruction in phonemic awareness skills aligned to phonics instruction progression and include opportunities for students to practice connecting sounds to letters. Materials include limited explicit instruction for the teacher to model different types of phonemic awareness activities. Instead, the teacher is guided to begin student practice without modeling first. The materials include access to summative and formative phonemic awareness assessments; however, the materials indicate that these assessments are optional. 

The materials do not contain elements of instruction that are based on the three-cueing system for teaching decoding. The materials include a clearly delineated scope and sequence with a cohesive, intentional sequence of phonics instruction that builds from simpler to more complex skills while also building towards the application of skills; however, the materials have a limited evidence-based explanation for the order of the phonics sequence. The materials include reasonable pacing of newly taught phonics skills. The Instructional Time Guide includes information for the pacing of daily lessons. The Bridge to Reading foundational skills lessons include 20-30 minutes of phonics instruction. The timing of the phonemic awareness and phonics components is indicated in the header of the lesson plans.

The materials contain explicit instructions for systematic and repeated teacher modeling of phonics skills. The materials include a structured, consistent blending routine with teacher modeling, specifically the Finger-Blending Strategy. The materials include instructions for the dictation of words and sentences. A Phonics Instruction Corrective Feedback Guide is included for each unit, providing limited guidance on corrective feedback. The materials provide students with frequent opportunities to decode and encode words with taught phonics patterns through guided practice in the We Do portion of the lesson. The materials introduce spelling rules and generalizations in regular instructional routines in a sequence aligned to the phonics scope and sequence. The materials include decodable texts aligned to the phonics scope and sequence, including passages in the READ books and a Decodables Library; however, the texts in the Decodables Library are briefly mentioned in the lesson plans, and there are no lesson plans for these texts; the materials indicate that these texts are intended to support small group or independent reading practice without clear guidance for use and implementation. The materials include weekly formative assessments in the form of Weekly Checks. These checks include phonetic encoding beginning in Week 12; however, assessments do not include decoding tasks where the students decode words themselves.

The materials include consistent instructional routines to introduce high-frequency words, beginning in Week 5, with four weeks of dedicated review at the end of the year. The materials emphasize phoneme-grapheme correspondence, with scripts for teacher modeling. The materials provide consistent opportunities for students to engage in practice reading high-frequency words in isolation and in the context of sentences and decodable passages. Opportunities to write high-frequency words in tasks are inconsistent and often include tracing words. The materials include explicit instruction and student practice of grade-appropriate word analysis skills. The lessons include CVC and CVCe word patterns and an introduction to morpheme analysis through the introduction of plural nouns. The materials include a Weekly Check that sometimes includes an assessment of the week’s Red Words.