Program Information
- ISBN
- 9781683911128
- Copyright Type
- Proprietary
TEA is now accepting applications( opens in new window) from qualified K–5 English and Spanish reading language arts, K–3 English and Spanish phonics, and K–12 math content experts interested in reviewing materials for the Instructional Materials Review and Approval (IMRA) Cycle 24. Visit the HB 1605 webpage( opens in new window) for more information about IMRA. The TRR reports for K–8 and high school science are now available. to support local adoptions.
The quality review is the result of extensive evidence gathering and analysis by Texas educators of how well instructional materials satisfy the criteria for quality in the subject-specific rubric. Follow the links below to view the scores and read the evidence used to determine quality.
Grade | TEKS Student % | TEKS Teacher % | ELPS Student % | ELPS Teacher % |
---|---|---|---|---|
Kindergarten | 94.64% | 96.43% | N/A | 100.00% |
Grade 1 | 93.33% | 93.33% | N/A | 100.00% |
Grade 2 | 80.65% | 80.65% | N/A | 100.00% |
Grade | TEKS Student % | TEKS Teacher % | ELPS Student % | ELPS Teacher % |
---|---|---|---|---|
Grade 1 | 93.33% | 93.33% | 0% | 100% |
The materials include well-crafted texts of publishable quality. The materials provide engaging content for first-grade students in the form of Flip Books, Big Books, and Readers.
Examples include but are not limited to:
Kate’s Book by Matt Davis and Mary E. Miller. A decodable Reader written in first person about a fictional girl’s travels out west and her imaginative adventures.
The Busy Body Book: A Kid’s Guide to Fitness by Lizzy Rockwell is a richly illustrated informational text about how the body works.
Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China by Ed Young is a Chinese variation of the “Little Red Riding Hood” folktale.
Once Upon a Starry Night: A Book of Constellations by Jacqueline Mitton and Christina Balit traces the origins of constellation myths and includes illustrations and interesting characters and creatures.
A Rock is Lively by Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long is an illustrated guide to different types of rocks and their uses.
A More Perfect Union: The Story of Our Constitution by Betsy and Giulio Maestro is an explanation of the origins of the U.S. Constitution.
The materials include a variety of text types and genres. The selections include fables, poetry, classic stories, as well as informational texts that give students opportunities to recognize characteristics and structures of the text. The materials do not include opportunities for students to analyze the use of print and graphic features in a variety of text types, nor are drama, nursery rhymes, and persuasive texts present in the materials.
The materials provide opportunities to recognize what an author is trying to persuade the reader to think or do but provide no explicit exposure to persuasive texts.
Examples of literary texts include but are not limited to:
Fables by Matt Davis (adaptations of classic fables)
Tunjur! Tunjur! Tunjur! A Palestinian Folktale retold by Margaret Read MacDonald (folk tale)
Gilgamesh the King retold by Ludmila Zeman (myth)
Rain Player by David Wisniewski (legend)
The Great Fairy Tale Disaster by David Conway (fairy tale)
Examples of informational texts include but are not limited to:
The Human Body by Beth Engel (scientific nonfiction)
Early World Civilizations by James Weiss and Catherine S. Whittington (historical nonfiction)
The History of the Earth by Michael L. Ford (scientific nonfiction)
Wonderful Nature, Wonderful You by Karin Ireland (scientific nonfiction)
Lewis and Clark: Explorers of the American West by Steven Kroll (historical nonfiction)
Examples of print and graphical features include but are not limited to:
Core text formats include Flip Books (read alouds), Big Books, and Readers.
Flip Books are paired with read alouds by the teacher, using narration written in the Teacher Guide. Flip Books provide graphic features for students to look at and analyze, but do not contain text. Examples of the graphic features included in Flip Books are photographs, maps, diagrams, tables, and labels. The Teacher Guide for Knowledge 6 instructs teachers to "Explain to students that in the read aloud about the moon they will see both photographs and diagrams used.”
Each Skills Unit includes a student reader to improve fluency, accuracy, and comprehension skills. Graphic features within the readers support students’ comprehension of the text. In Skills Unit 4, the text “Meet Vern” focuses on Vern, a zookeeper. The text includes photographs with captions on almost every page to support students.
The materials include decodable texts with the text complexity features appropriate to the grade level and read alouds with a complexity one to three years above the independent reading grade level average. A Text Complexity Guide provides quantitative, qualitative, and reader and task ratings and descriptions for texts with the Skills strand (decodable Readers) and Knowledge strand (Read Alouds).
Examples include but are not limited to:
Skills 1 contains the decodable Reader Snap Shots with a Lexile level of 450L. The story details a young girl’s trip to the United Kingdom.
Skills 4 contains the decodable Reader The Green Fern Zoo with a Lexile level of 610L. The text provides details about animals that live on land, in the air, and in water.
Skills 7 contains the decodable Reader Kay and Martez with a Lexile level of 630L. The text describes the friendship between a girl and a boy.
Domain 1 contains the Read Aloud Fables and Stories with a Lexile level of 770L. The text explores classic fables and stories and the lessons they teach.
Domain 4 contains the Read Aloud Early World Civilizations with a Lexile level of 950L. The complex text explores the cities and governments of the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Domain 7 contains the Read Aloud A Rock is Lively with a Lexile level of 1110L. The text is an illustrated guide to rocks with the Earth’s crust.
The materials contain questions and tasks to support students in synthesizing knowledge and ideas to deepen understanding and identify and explain themes. Throughout the materials students ask and answer questions about key details in a text. Activities within the units focus on the content presented in the texts and require students to pay close attention to meaning and comprehension. Specifically, the materials label questions about a reading as: Literal, Inferential, and Evaluative, and spiral these question-types throughout each unit and across each strand providing repeated opportunities to build comprehension skills over the course of the year. In addition, the lessons within the theme-based Knowledge units build upon each other and grow students’ understanding of topics because questions for each read aloud are connected under one theme, allowing students’ understanding to grow over the course of the unit.
Examples include but are not limited to:
Knowledge 2 includes read-aloud rhymes to reinforce basic information about the human body. Students use the rhymes and read-aloud texts to answer questions such as “What are some things you can do to keep your body clean?” and “How are Dr. Wellbody’s keys to health the same as the ones you named before hearing the read aloud? How are they different?” These text-dependent questions prompt students to synthesize information gathered from the text selection.
In Knowledge 6, students refer back to the text to demonstrate comprehension when answering questions such as “What do we call a large object in space that revolves around a star?” “On which planet do we live?” and “One way the earth moves is by orbiting the sun. What is the other way it moves?”
Knowledge 8 contains questions to grow students’ understanding of animals and habitats. Students begin by explaining what a habitat is, and each subsequent lesson addresses a new habitat. Students grow their understanding of habitats through questions such as “How are the Arctic and the Sonoran Desert different?” “What can cause a habitat to change?” and “How do people affect habitats?” Late in the unit students use what they have learned thus far to answer the questions “What did you learn about salt in The History of the Earth?” and “Compare/Contrast: How is a saltwater habitat different from a freshwater habitat?”
In Skills 3, students answer questions that require them to recall details from the text and from illustrations, like “What types of things scare the hares?” and “What happens when the hares run off to hide?” Students also synthesize the information they learn by answering the evaluative question “What do you think is the moral or lesson of this fable?” Students also answer text-dependent questions such as "Where did the hares have a chat?"
In Skills 5, the stories focus on the adventures of Kate during summer vacation. Students answer questions after each reading that strengthen their understanding, such as “Who is the narrator of this story? Who is telling the story?” “Kate was sad at the beginning of the summer. Why did she feel this way?” and “Kate said she ended up having a lot of fun. What types of things might she have done with Nan?”
The materials provide some opportunities for students to analyze an author’s choices or implied purpose within a text. A few lessons throughout the Knowledge strand include questions that require students to analyze the work of the author by recalling reasons or facts stated by the author but do not invite evaluation or analysis of an author’s craft. The materials also do not include opportunities to compare and contrast the purposes of different authors writing on the same topic nor do students analyze how an author’s choices influence or communicate meaning.
Examples include but are not limited to:
In Knowledge 3, students are to retell one of the folk tales shared within the unit; this requires the students to pay close attention and demonstrate comprehension.
In Knowledge 9, Fairy Tales, students identify elements in a fairy tale and determine if the predictions they made previously were correct. The teacher is instructed to set the Purpose for Listening: “Remind students that in the previous lesson, they made predictions about what would happen next. Tell students to listen carefully to find out whether or not their predictions are correct.”
In Knowledge 10, the Read-Aloud text “Liberty and Justice for ALL?” includes the question “Why do you think the author chose this title?”
The materials provide repeated exposure to vocabulary throughout the year for students in both the Knowledge and Skills strands. In addition, the example student responses, notes about scaffolds for students, and optional activities provide teachers with a variety of options for differentiating for all learners. The intentional design of the materials also ensures students utilize content-specific vocabulary in discussions, providing evidence of students’ developing vocabulary.
Examples include but are not limited to:
Year-long Scope and Sequences for both the Skills and Knowledge strands outline the vocabulary words addressed in the materials.
The beginning of each Knowledge Teacher Guide includes a reference table of core vocabulary for the unit as well as teacher expectations for the use of vocabulary. The guide states, “The inclusion of the words on this list does not mean that students are immediately expected to be able to use all of the words on their own. However, through repeated exposure throughout the lessons, they should acquire a good understanding of most of the words and begin to use some of them in conversation.” The program identifies each of the core vocabulary words as Tier 1 (everyday speech words), Tier 2 (general academic words), or Tier 3 (domain-specific words) and provides a definition and an example for each word. The read alouds bold core vocabulary and prompt the teacher to define or add clarity to the meaning of a word during the read aloud. Comprehension questions immediately following each read aloud revisit the vocabulary. Teachers are directed: “if students give one-word answers and/or fail to use read-aloud or domain vocabulary in their responses,” they should “acknowledge correct responses by expanding students’ responses using richer or more complex language.” The exemplar student responses given for these comprehension questions showcase the core vocabulary words provided. In addition, “Support” notes within the margin suggest possible scaffolds for students.
After Comprehension Questions, students move into Word Work, which focuses on core vocabulary. Most activities involve six steps. For example, the Teacher Guides provides the following prompts in Knowledge 1 for the target word “waste”:
1. In the read aloud you heard, Medio Pollito says, “Do you think I have time to waste [to help you]?”
2. Say the word waste with me.
3. If you waste something, you use it up carelessly and foolishly.
4. If we don’t want to waste water, we turn off the faucet.
5. Can you think of things that you might waste, or things that you are careful not to waste? Try to use the word waste when you tell about it. [Ask two or three students. If necessary, guide and/or rephrase students’ responses: “I try not to waste paper by…”]
6. What’s the word we’ve been talking about?
The lesson then transitions into an activity on making choices to further use the target word “waste”.
The Skills strand follows a similar set up for vocabulary as the Knowledge strand. The Teacher Guide highlights the core vocabulary for each text organized into Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 categories. Notes within the margin of the Teacher Guide support the teacher as they define the words for students. For example, Skills 1 includes a note in the margin labeled “Support,” and instructs the teacher to “point out the location of the United Kingdom on a world map or globe,” because one of the core vocabulary words for the text Nat is “U.K.”
Materials include a clearly defined plan to support and hold students accountable as they engage in self-sustained reading. Procedures and/or protocols, along with adequate support to guide teachers for implementation, are provided to foster self-sustained reading as appropriate.
The curriculum includes an Independent Reading Facilitation Guide for Grades K-5, organized into seven steps for implementation, which provides teachers with the necessary support to implement a plan to facilitate self-sustained reading as appropriate. In addition, the curriculum provides guidance and resource lists to families to foster independent reading at home, linked to each thematic domain within the Knowledge strand.
Examples include but are not limited to:
The curriculum includes an Independent Reading Facilitation Guide for Grades K-5, organized into seven steps for implementation. Each of the steps (listed below) is explained in detail in its own section, providing guidance and support to teachers as needed.
1. Establish structure and procedures by creating a designated time and place for independent reading.
2. Manage and maintain a successful independent reading program by monitoring, assessing, and encouraging reading experiences.
3. Ensure that students understand that their role as independent readers is to engage, interact, and make good choices.
4. Ensure that there are regular opportunities for conferencing and interaction with students.
5. Maintain regular communications with parents, guardians, and other adults (i.e., a librarian).
6. Set achievable goals for students and monitor outcomes.
7. Communicate the power and joy of reading.
The guide recommends students read independently at least twice a week for 30 minutes and also suggests times for independent reading: “the first 10 minutes of the day” or “right after lunch.”
The Teacher Guide suggests the creation of a classroom lending library to provide opportunities for students to self-select texts for independent reading and instructs teachers to “consider various times throughout the day” when students can select books aligned to the current domain. Trade book lists for classroom library curation are provided in the supplemental document Recommended Resources.
Both the Teacher Guide and the Independent Reading Facilitation Guide provide suggestions and instructions to students to self-select texts and read independently for a sustained period of time.
Over the course of the year, the materials provide an extensive range of activities for students to compose within a variety of genres to communicate their understanding of literary and informational topics. Students have multiple opportunities to experience and engage in correspondence and informational writing. Students only compose a personal narrative once, and do not engage in poetry writing or writing thank-you notes.
Examples include but are not limited to:
In Grade 1, writing opportunities are found in both the Skills and Knowledge strands.
In Skills 3, students write a fictional narrative; the prompt references the text they read the previous day.
In Skills 4, students write a descriptive paragraph about a grape using the information they learned about their five senses in the Knowledge strand.
In Skills 5, students write an opinion piece—a letter describing their favorite elements of a book.
In Skills 6, students write a personal narrative. Students can write about a special holiday, birthday, present, visit, trip, or a special personal achievement.
In Skills 7, students engage in procedural writing. They write a set of instructions for washing hands and drawing a flower.
In Knowledge 2, students collect and synthesize information as a class with a Know-Wonder-Learn chart and draft an informational paragraph about the five body systems.
In Knowledge 6, students write an opinion piece from the perspective of a tree.
In Knowledge 7, students explore writing friendly letters. Students work as a class to write a friendly letter to a geologist, and they work with a partner to write a letter to a paleontologist. Later in the unit, they work with a partner to write a letter to someone with whom they choose to share what they learned about dinosaurs.
In Knowledge 10, students independently plan and write informational paragraphs about the founding of the United States.
The materials provide students with multiple opportunities throughout the Knowledge and Skills strands to engage in the writing process. The included activities allow students to plan and draft writing by speaking, drawing, or writing as appropriate.
Examples include but are not limited to:
In the Skills units, where writing is a focus skill, the process is described in three stages: “plan, draft, and edit.” In the “draft” stage, students brainstorm and/or generate drafts in drawing and/or writing. This begins in Skills 3 with fictional narratives and continues in Skills 4 with descriptive paragraphs. In the “plan” stage, students plan their work by engaging in a whole- class group model before working independently, allowing students to practice planning in speaking, drawing, and writing across multiple drafts. Students also have opportunities to publish their writing. Students work on planning, drafting, editing, and publishing an informational text in Skills 4. In Skills 5, students engage in opinion writing first as a class and then independently.
In Knowledge 10, students draft an informational paragraph. The materials include guidance for the teacher to review “The Writing Process” poster with students, remind them of the planning they did in previous lessons, and support them in the process of drafting from their planning documents. The materials instruct the teacher to “explore various digital tools with students to produce and publish their paragraphs.” Students follow a similar process in Knowledge 9 Fairy Tales and Tall Tales and in Knowledge 7 The History of the Earth, where they draft and publish a narrative retelling of a fairy tale and a friendly letter about fossils, respectively.
The materials provide students with some opportunities to apply conventions to their writing. Grammar, punctuation, and usage are taught in and out of context within the Skills strand through the decodable readers and activity sheets; however, the provided “Editing Checklists” do not provide students with opportunities to address all of the grade level conventions in their writing.
Examples include but are not limited to:
The Grade 1 Knowledge Scope and Sequence lists nouns, verbs, and adjectives as targeted conventions reviewed and assessed in the Phonics and Reading, Grammar, and Writing focus areas. Articles and adverbs are not included in the scope and sequence materials provided. The unit introductions within the Skills strand also include an overview of what conventions will be addressed.
Orally and in written work, students identify conventions. In Skills 1, the primary focus of a language lesson is for students to “identify common nouns that name a person in orally presented phrases.” Later in the unit the work shifts to students verbally naming nouns from visual options presented by the teacher. At the end of the unit, students use their Reader to find words that are nouns written in print.
In Skills 2, students review nouns by sorting words as either common or proper nouns. Later in the unit students see nouns written in a horizontal line and circle the “proper” or “common” noun.
In Skills 6, students draft a personal narrative and edit the draft using an Editing Checklist provided in the Teacher Resources section of the Teacher Guide. This Editing Checklist is written in student-friendly language. Students check to ensure they included details in their writing such as descriptors of who, where, what, and when—this could include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs that convey time. The checklist also includes checks for spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.
In Skills 7, students edit instructional writing. The Editing Checklist does not address conventions such as subject-verb agreement, articles, pronouns, and prepositions.
In the Knowledge strand, the application activities provide opportunities to practice and apply conventions in speaking and writing. For example, in Knowledge 5, when students discuss and write sentences about the Mayan civilization with the goal of creating a written paragraph.
Students are also encouraged to answer in complete sentences when pair sharing or answering questions and prompts. For instance, students respond to a situation using the word “contented” by answering in complete sentences; a sentence frame is provided: “…makes me feel more contented.”
Materials include practice for students to write legibly in print for all uppercase and lowercase letters. The materials do not include diagnostic or ongoing assessment for handwriting development or progress monitoring.
Examples include but are not limited to:
The Skills 1 Teacher Guide explains that students will write several uppercase and lowercase letters including “A”, “a”, “C”, “c”, “G”, “g”, “N”, “n”, and “P”, “p”. Teachers should “Write a large lowercase ‘a’ on the handwriting guidelines and describe what [they] are doing using the numbered instructions below….” The materials follow a similar routine in subsequent lessons with other letters of the alphabet. After all letters have been introduced and reviewed, students continue to practice handwriting as they learn digraphs, vowel teams, and other letter combinations in subsequent lessons.
The Assessment and Remediation Guide includes suggestions and activities for supplemental practice and support for students’ handwriting development.
Throughout the materials students are expected to listen and speak about texts. The Knowledge and Skills strands engage students in activities to understand and share information and ideas about topics from texts.
Examples include but are not limited to:
Skills units provide opportunities for students to listen and ask questions. In each Skills unit, the reading lessons include a section called Wrap-Up Discussion with instructions for the teacher to ask students what questions they have: “Do you have questions you would like to ask to clarify your understanding of the story?”
A Discussion Questions section also accompanies each Skills unit reading lesson. Skills 2 includes questions such as “What did Gran do when she visited the gulf?” and Skills 7 includes questions such as “What did Martez send to Kay in the mail?” and “How does Kay feel when she receives the mail from Martez?”
In addition, each Skills unit contains sections called Exchanging Information and Ideas. Teachers are instructed to prompt students to generate and ask their own questions and to ask questions that build on other students’ responses. In Skills 7, the Teacher Guide states,
“Encourage students to expand and/or build from other students’ responses...after discussion.” The materials provide sentence frames to support this part of the discussion.
Within the Knowledge strand all Flip Book Read Aloud lessons include a purpose for listening. After the read aloud, students answer comprehension questions posed by the teacher. During this conversation the teacher asks students literal, inferential, and/or evaluative questions.
These questions provide opportunities for students to listen actively and to answer questions posed by the teacher. The Comprehension Conversation section is included with every Knowledge unit Flip Book read aloud.
Knowledge 2 includes questions such as “Why do you need food?” and “Are the stomach muscles voluntary or involuntary?”
In Knowledge 6, teachers prompt students to listen carefully “to find out what shooting stars really are.” Materials instruct teachers to ask, “What smaller word do you hear in the word observatories?” and “So if you see a shooting star, what are you really seeing?”
The Knowledge Core Connection sections provide opportunity for discussing unit themes. In Knowledge 7, teachers introduce the unit topic by asking students to name the planet where they live and ask “a few students to briefly share what they might know about rocks and minerals, fossils, volcanoes, and geysers.”
The materials also include guidance for teachers to gain insight into students’ background knowledge in a section titled Introducing the Read Aloud. In Knowledge 9, teachers ask students to “explain why Sleeping Beauty and Rumpelstiltskin are considered fairy tales.” The Teacher Guide also includes questions for after the read aloud—after reading Rapunzel the teacher can ask, “What does the witch name the baby?” and “Does the fairy tale have a happy ending?” Teachers are asked to prompt students to “Think Pair Share” in answering the question “What happens in this fairy tale that is fantasy?”
Knowledge 10 includes the Think Pair Share question “In the beginning of the read aloud, you heard that some people questioned whether the war was worthwhile. How do you think they felt at the end of the war?”
The materials engage students in a variety of collaborative discussions, and students are prompted to apply conventions and answer in complete sentences. The materials also include rubrics for assessing student proficiency in grade-appropriate speaking skills.
Examples include but are not limited to:
The Teacher Guides of the Knowledge strand include consistent opportunities for students to engage in discussion, such as when the read aloud is introduced, during the read aloud, and after the reading. In Knowledge 10, before one read aloud, students discuss what they have already learned. The teacher is prompted to “Divide the class into three groups for discussion of each of the questions below and prompt each group’s discussion with the questions listed.” During the read aloud the teacher asks questions such as “What else have you learned about that happened in Boston Harbor?” After reading, the students answer comprehension questions such as “If you were an apprentice learning how to do something, with whom would you want to apprentice?”
The teacher support materials include a grade-level-specific Speaking and Listening Rubric, divided into three domains: “participation,” “following rules,” and “flow of conversation” and three levels of proficiency: “advanced,” “proficient,” and “basic,” to informally assess grade- appropriate speaking skills during any discussion.
With the units of the Skills strand a teacher-facing resource is provided called Discussion Questions Observation Record. This form is blank and allows the teacher to list the names of all students and record their responses to the three question types (literal, inferential, and evaluative). Teachers can also make an annotation if the student did or didn’t answer a question using a complete sentence. A completed example of the Discussion Questions Observation Record can be found in the Teacher Resource section.
Teacher Guides within the Skills strand suggest taking the opportunity to teach students to answer in complete sentences using provided question stems as the initial part of the answer. Students are often provided these prompts to answer in a complete sentence using a sentence frame during the “turn and talk” strategy within most lessons. Practicing this response protocol
lowers the affective filter for students and allows them to focus on what they want to say (content) rather than how to respond (formatting).
The materials provide limited opportunities to generate and follow a research plan and organize and communicate information in accordance with research. Students were not supported in identifying relevant sources based on their questions. Students generate questions, but these questions do not guide the students’ inquiry.
Examples include but are not limited to:
The Comprehension section of lessons within Knowledge 2 and Knowledge 3 conclude with: “After hearing today’s read aloud and questions and answers, do you have any remaining questions? [If time permits, you may wish to allow for individual, group, or class research of the text and/or other resources to answer these questions.]” The materials provide no other supports or guidance for teachers.
In Knowledge 6, students record observations of objects they see in the sky in a journal, and then return to that work and connect, compare, and contrast the information with readings from the unit. They learn to identify important information before, during, and after informational read alouds. They practice collecting and synthesizing information by note-taking as a group with a “Planets Chart” and other graphic organizers. Students also generate questions for the purpose of comprehension, rather than research such as in Knowledge 6: “Think of a question you can ask your neighbor about the read aloud that starts with the word ‘what.’ For example, you could ask, ‘What does the sun do in the morning?’ Then your neighbor will ask a new ‘what’ question, and you will get a chance to respond.”
The questions and tasks in the materials help students to build and apply their knowledge and skills by giving them plenty of opportunities to listen, speak, read, write, think, and use language. Within every lesson students engage with the text through listening and/or reading and then discuss and/or write about the text. All these tasks give students practice integrating literacy skills and, over the course of the year, students develop increasing independence. In the Knowledge strand students apply their listening, speaking, reading, writing, thinking, and language skills as they participate in read alouds, answer comprehension questions, discuss the topic they are learning about, and apply their knowledge of the topic and vocabulary through application and assessment tasks. In the Skills strand students learn and practice foundational reading skills such as phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition, language skills, and reading comprehension. Students apply their listening, speaking, reading, writing, thinking, and language skills as they learn sounds and their spellings and use them to read decodable stories.
Examples include but are not limited to:
In Skills 2, students “read one-syllable words...listen to and orally produce the /ee/ sound…read and write one-syllable words spelled with digraphs /ee/ > ‘ee’, and identify the features of a sentence as well as answer literal and evaluative questions about key details, characters, and main events of the story.” Students read “Gran’s Trips” and discuss the story as a class; students then answer questions in writing such as “Where did Gran meet a man with wings on his back?” and “Which trip was Gran’s best trip?”
In Knowledge 7, the objectives include speaking and listening about rocks in geology, reading to describe minerals, and writing to record information about minerals. During a read aloud students listen and think as the teacher reads, clarifies vocabulary, and asks questions such as “Do you hear how the beginning sound of ‘Gerry’ and ‘Geologist’ are the same? That's called alliteration,” and “Do you know the names of any of the other planets?” At the conclusion of this same reading, the teacher asks, “What does Gerry the Geologist study?” “How are rocks used by people?” and “When we talk about the history of the Earth, are we talking about a short time or a very long time?” After the discussion students engage in the Multiple Meaning activity, a variation on Word Work. Students review how the word “stick” was used in the text,
listen to three different definitions, and determine which image best exemplifies each meaning of the word “stick.” Students then create a sentence for each meaning of the word “stick” with a partner. The lesson ends with students drawing three details from the text and writing a sentence about each detail.
The materials provide consistent opportunities for distributed practice over the course of the year. Students read, write, speak, listen, and think throughout both the Skills and Knowledge strands. The materials also include scaffolds throughout each lesson to support students as they demonstrate the integration of literacy skills.
Examples include but are not limited to:
In Knowledge Unit 3, students learn about Different Lands, Similar Stories; in Knowledge Unit 4, students learn about Early World Civilizations; and, in Knowledge Unit 5, students learn about Early American Civilizations. These interconnected thematic units allow students to learn about different cultures using similar literary skills. Students learn to compare and contrast similarities and differences, identify characters, and answer questions that require making interpretations from the text. The materials’ consistent lesson format, protocols, and questions throughout these units provide spiraled and scaffolded practice with integration of skills and content.
The materials provide students thorough and explicit instruction in print concepts. The learning experiences offered in the materials provide students opportunities to practice with print awareness and concepts related to print awareness.
Examples include but are not limited to:
In Skills 1, Lesson 4, students read “Meet Vern” from the Reader, and the teacher is instructed to “...ask students to turn to the table of contents in the Reader to locate and read the title of the first chapter in the Reader.” Later in the same set of instructions the teacher is directed to “...have students turn to page 77 at the end of the Reader and remind them that the list of words and pictures is called a glossary.”
Multiple Skills units refer to parts of the book and the information they provide. In Skills 5, the teacher is instructed to “ask students to turn to the table of contents and tell you which story is after ‘The Bone Man.’” In Skills 7, the Teacher Guide instructs the teacher to “Look at the table of contents [with students]. Remind students that the titles of stories often give us a clue as to what each story is about.”
The materials provide explicit instruction in phonological skills and opportunities for student daily practice throughout the Skills strand. Daily routines, systems for introducing concepts, and “Code Flip Books” facilitate explicit instruction.
Examples include but are not limited to:
In Skills 1, students are taught and practice the letter-sound correspondences for all letters of the alphabet, double consonants, initial and final consonant blends, and consonant and vowel digraphs. Warm-Up activities throughout Skills 1 require students to “tap and blend the sounds” in words spoken by the teacher, using their fingers. Notes in the margin remind the teacher that this work “helps students hear and distinguish individual sounds,” and reiterates the importance of students’ both pronouncing sounds and tapping fingers. These activities begin with CVC words in Lesson 1 and increase in complexity to CCV, CVCe, CVCC, and CCVCC words by the end of the unit.
In Skills 1, Lesson 1, students blend and segment eight one-syllable words. In Skills 3, Lesson 1, students work with the /oo/ sound, think of words with that sound, and say the sound several times. Students then compare it to the /ue/ sound from Skills 2. They hear and feel the difference in articulation. Students identify words with both sounds.
Two activities with “Tricky Words” direct the teacher to give students a hint about the target word by stating a rhyme, but there is no explicit instruction or opportunities for students to produce rhyming words as a learning objective.
Students record the consonant and vowel spelling patterns they learn in Flip Books, and reference them throughout subsequent lessons. Code Flip Book pages include the sound and spelling of the sound, and words that include that sound spelling. Lessons in which sound- spellings are introduced direct the teacher to point out all of the items on the chart as well as how to read them. In Skills 1, Lesson 3, the teacher is directed to explain to students the frequency of a spelling pattern by discussing the “Power Bars” at the bottom of the card, a
“very long power bar...stretching almost the entire card” indicates a common spelling. The materials also include “Code Charts” to include in the print environment of the room. These are poster-size reproductions of flip book pages. Lessons begin with Warm-Up activities that reference the Vowel and Consonant Code Flip Books and Charts in a spiraled review. Skills 1 Lesson 3 introduces the /e/ sound. Students learn to read and use the Vowel Code Flip Book.
Then in Lesson 13 students review /e/ and add /w/ to their Consonant Code Flip Book.
Skills lessons spiral the sounds and phoneme patterns taught. Chain and Copy activities allow students to practice sounds and/or phoneme patterns. In Skills 2–10, students build CVC or CCVC words with letter cards organized in a “Chaining Folder.” Students alternate between building words as prompted by the teacher, and then writing them. In Skills 2, Lesson 2, students substitute individual sounds to create two chains, one of which is “fed>feed> need>weed>wed>bed>bet>beet>feet>fit.” Students alternate between building words as prompted by the teacher and writing them. In the chaining sequence in Skills 3, Lesson 10, students begin with the word “nut” and end with “smooch” over the course of eight sound- spelling changes. Then students do the same work with “soon” to “found” over eight changes. This practice also allows students to revisit short and long vowel sounds as well as alternative vowel spellings.
The materials are research-based in their instruction of foundational skills and provide explicit, systematic instruction in phonics and high-frequency word knowledge. Students practice skills in isolation and in context. The materials build spelling knowledge in accordance with, and beyond the scope of, grade-level TEKS.
Examples include but are not limited to:
Skills 1 includes Appendix A “The Core Knowledge Language Arts Program,” which explains the program is based on the research of E.D. Hirsch Jr. and the National Reading Panel. The materials state students must develop decoding and language comprehension skills in tandem to make sense of text. Appendix B provides an overview of the Skills strand scope and sequence for each unit showing sufficient opportunities for student practice to achieve grade-level mastery. Letter-sound correspondence, word building, and sight word recognition skills (to name a few) are introduced in sequence and spiral throughout the year.
The materials distinguish phonics concepts as being part of the “Basic Code” or “Advanced Code.” Appendix A explains that the Basic Code teaches the most common spelling pattern for a single sound. The Advanced Code teaches all alternative spelling patterns for the “44 phonemes in English.” For instance, alternative spellings for long /a/ include “ay,” “ai,” “ey,” “eigh,” “ei,” “aigh,” and “a_e.”
In Skills 6, the Teacher Guide lists the following spelling patterns as objectives within the unit:
/s/ spelled “s”, “ss” (review), “c”, “ce”, and “se” (new).
/z/ spelled “z”, “s”, “zz” (review)
/m/ spelled “m” and “mm” (review)
/n/ spelled “n”, “nn” (review), and “kn” (new)
/ng/ spelled “ng” (review) and “n” (new)
/w/ spelled “w” (review) and “wh” (new)
Over the course of Skills 1–7, students learn and practice the letter-sound correspondences for all letters of the alphabet, as well as double consonant blends, initial and final consonant blends, and consonant and vowel digraphs. These patterns are considered part of the Basic Code. Students record all the sound-spellings they learn in Consonant and Vowel Code Flip Books. Code book pages include the sound, the spelling of the sound, and a word with that sound-spelling pattern. In lessons where new sound-spellings are introduced, the teacher is directed to point out all of the items on the code book page and demonstrate how to read them. The materials also include “Code Charts,” which are poster-sized reproductions of Code Flip Book pages, to be included in the print environment.
The Grade 1 Skills Scope and Sequence indicates students are introduced to closed syllable words beginning in Unit 1, VCe syllables in Unit 2, and vowel teams beginning in Unit 2. Open syllables are introduced as non-decodable “Tricky Words” in Skills 1. Students begin spelling two-syllable decodable words in Skills 4.
Beginning in Skills 1 students read from a decodable anthology of texts, referred to as a “Reader.” These texts align with previously taught phonetic patterns. This allows students opportunities to apply grade-level phonetic knowledge to connected texts and tasks. The texts in Readers grow in complexity throughout the Skills strand as students learn more correspondences. Within the Reader, newly introduced spelling patterns are bolded to support students in making linkages between connected text and explicit phonics instruction. “Beth,” the first text in the Skills 1 Reader contains only short vowels sounds in CVC and CVCC words. Tricky Words are underlined to remind students they do not follow regular phonetic patterns. By Skills 7, the Reader contains more decodable text on the page, and spelling patterns are bolded to catch the attention of the reader and connect back to previous Skills lessons. Tricky Words are no longer underlined. In Skills 7, the Reader text “Meet Vern” focuses on r-controlled vowels, so er within words like “Vern” and “fern” are bolded.
The materials refer to non-phonetic high-frequency words as Tricky Words and begins introducing them in Skills 1 Lesson 3. Tricky Words are introduced in a scaffolded routine. The teacher writes the word, explains how it is pronounced, and calls attention to the fact that the pronunciation and spelling pattern do not match. The “tricky” part of the word is underlined, the word is added to the “Tricky Word Wall,” and finally students read the word in sentences. In Skills 1, Lesson 11, students study the word “is.” The teacher underlines the “s” because it is not pronounced /s/. The word is added to the wall with this marking, and then students read the word in sentences including “It is a bag of chips.” Students also write the word on an index card and add it to a deck of Tricky Words. In lessons where Tricky Words are reviewed, students make flashcards in Activity Pages for practice. Spiraled review of flash cards and reading Tricky Words in isolated sentences allows students to practice reading high-frequency words independently and out of context. Tricky Words are also intentionally used in the controlled text of the Reader for each unit. In Skills 1, Lesson 13, students are explicitly taught the Tricky Word “some.” This word is reinforced in practice throughout Skills 1, and then appears in context in the Skills 2 story “The Swim Meet.”
The Grade 1 Skills Scope and Sequence traces spelling exercises in its own column within the sequencing table. The first spelling activity appears in Skills 1, Lesson 5. Students work with one-syllable, short-vowel sound words. By the end of this unit, in Lesson 30, students have progressed to double-letter spellings. In Skills 2, students spell with long-vowel sounds including vowel teams, digraphs, and VCe words that produce a long vowel sound. Throughout Skills 3–5, students practice spelling r-controlled vowels, initial and final consonant blends, digraphs, trigraphs, as well as closed syllables, open syllables, VCe syllables, and vowel teams. Students also spell high-frequency words. High-frequency words that are not decodable are included alongside spelling words following the targeted pattern. The Tricky Word “because” is included in the Skills 4, Lesson 6 spelling list, “have” in Lesson 16, and “your” in Skills 5, Lesson 11.
The materials provide some opportunities for students to practice and develop fluency while reading grade-level texts. The materials do not, however, support routines for teachers to regularly monitor and provide corrective feedback for fluency. Teachers identify the needs of students without explicit assessments and administer support provided in a supplemental guide.
Examples include but are not limited to:
The materials include fully decodable readers that support fluent reading by students. The materials also provide explicit instruction in grammar conventions including punctuation, which can support fluency. However, little evidence of explicit instruction in fluency was found. In Skills 5, Lesson 15, students read “The Hike” to increase accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression, but other than rereading there is no guidance given to the teacher to support explicit instruction in these skills. Skills 7 (the final unit in Grade 1) includes a fluency assessment but not explicit instruction. Explicit instruction in fluency was not addressed in any other lessons.
In the Skills 7 Teacher Guide, teachers are to provide a Fluency Assessment. The teacher is instructed to pull students “who incorrectly answered two or more of the seven questions in the Silent Reading Comprehension Assessment.” Following the guidelines of the program, only those students who meet this criterion are assessed on fluency. During the assessment the teacher listens as the student reads a provided text and keeps a running record. From this running record, the teacher calculates the Words Correct Per Minute rate. The guide states, “this will provide an indication of fluency.” This Fluency Assessment occurs at the end of Grade
1. No other formal opportunities or routines are available for teachers to regularly monitor and provide support to students in this area.
There are additional fluency resources in the Assessment and Remediation Guide. This guide includes sections for each skill area taught in the Skills strand: Phonics, Fluency, and Comprehension. By using the data from the fluency assessment aligned to the Silent Reading
Comprehension Assessment, the teacher could use this guide to provide instruction to better support fluency instruction; however, teachers are not instructed to use the data in this way or reference the information in the Assessment and Remediation Guide to better support students.
The materials include diagnostic assessments and provide information to assist in foundational skills instruction. The assessments in the Skills strand and the Assessment and Remediation Guide provide information to help teachers ensure students master foundational skills.
Examples include but are not limited to:
The Skills strand provides instruction in foundational skills. Skills 1 provides information on diagnostic assessments and pretests included in the unit. The Skills 1 Teacher Guide explains the Placement Assessment “will be administered to all students during Lessons 6–10” of the unit. Detailed information for administering the assessments is found in Lesson 6. Flow charts indicate which assessments should be administered and how to respond depending on the score. Score thresholds indicate whether the teacher should move on to the next step of the flow chart. There is also information on scoring, analyzing, and interpreting student data, specifically as it relates to grouping students. Teachers use assessment results to identify students as having “outstanding,” “strong,” “adequate,” or “questionable,” preparation for Skills 1. This guide also refers to the Assessment and Remediation Guide to assist the teacher in supporting students who are “questionable” in terms of their preparation for Skills 1. Teachers are provided with a Placement Planning Sheet where they can record each student’s performance on each component of the placement test. This recording table includes a place for the teacher to note group placement based on performance. Teachers can use these assessments, record sheets, and scoring guides to identify students’ current abilities and areas for growth.
Each of the seven Grade 1 Skills units concludes with an assessment measuring proficiency in the objectives of the unit. For example, Skills 6 Lesson 24 assesses “Word Recognition”; students read and identify dictated words form a list of words with similar spellings.
The Assessment and Remediation Guide includes an Instructional Planning section that explains how the guide is organized and provides explicit instructions on how to determine student need. The steps are:
1. Use the Cross Reference charts and Determining Student Need flow charts provided for each component (i.e., Phonological Awareness for both Environmental Sounds and Segmenting Sentences).
2. Consider students’ Level of Instructional Need.
3. Select exercises and assessments and prepare associated materials for instruction and progress monitoring.
4. Use ongoing evaluation of student instructional performance and progress monitoring to facilitate decisions about student progress or ongoing remediation needs.
These steps guide the teacher through assessment of students’ growth and mastery in foundational skills.
The K-2 Program Guide includes a section titled “Supporting a Range of Learners”. The part related to student grouping states: “The Assessment and Remediation Guide also provides explicit guidelines for grouping students according to the skills for which they need support. It provides...reteaching guidance to ensure that students receive the instruction they need…to advance.”
The materials regularly and systematically offer assessment opportunities to measure student progress. The information collected by the teacher can be utilized to inform instruction as indicated by the program scope sequence.
Examples include but are not limited to:
The supplemental Assessment and Remediation Guide (ARG) supports teachers with guidance and directions in responding to individual students’ literacy needs. There is a separate guide for each Skills unit, and each is organized according to the skill areas taught in the unit. Grade 1 Skills ARGs include sections for Phonics and Fluency and Comprehension. Items within each of these sections are: Determining Student Need, Lesson Template, Sample Remedial Lesson, Skills Cross-Reference, Word Lists, Worksheets, Games, and Progress Monitoring.
In the section Determining Student Need, the teacher is given a flow chart with different criteria for using the information. Directions explain, if the “student struggles with” various skills as observed in instructional tasks throughout the unit, the teacher should use the given resources in Section 1. More specific criteria exist for the Weekly Spelling Assessments and the Word Recognition Assessments, which also direct the teacher to “use Grade 1 Skills 3 Section 1: Phonics.”
The tools within the Skills units could assess print concepts. The Teacher Guide for Skills 1, Lesson 6, includes a Word Recognition Assessment. This assessment measures a student’s ability to hear a word and then recognize it in print, but accurate reading of word choice can only occur if the student is reading left to right. In this way the assessment could support teachers in identifying students who have not mastered left to right directionality. Multiple lessons in each Grade 1 Skills unit include Chaining Activities in which students use letter cards to build words
dictated by the teacher. This work aligns with the Word Recognition Assessment, allowing teachers both formal and informal opportunities to assess student progress in hearing phonemes presented orally.
Beginning in Skills 2, students are assessed on their ability to read words with “basic code spellings” and “common spelling alternatives.” These assessments align with the work in each unit and grow in complexity as students learn more spelling patterns. Skills 2 “basic code spellings” focus on long vowel sounds using CVCe spellings. By Skills 7, students are working with alternative vowel spellings for the long /ae/ sound using a variety of spellings.
The Skills 7 Teacher Guide includes instructions for teachers to provide a Fluency Assessment. The teacher is instructed to pull students “who incorrectly answered two or more of the seven questions in the Silent Reading Comprehension Assessment.” Following the guidelines of the program, only those students who meet this criterion are assessed on fluency. During the assessment the teacher listens as the student reads a provided text and keeps a running record. From this running record, the teacher calculates the Words Correct Per Minute rate. The guide states, “this will provide an indication of fluency.”
There are additional fluency resources in a separate document, the Assessment and Remediation Guide. This guide includes sections for each skill area taught in the Skills strand: Phonics, Fluency, and Comprehension. Because there is a fluency assessment aligned to the Silent Reading Comprehension Assessment, the teacher could use this guide to help provide instruction to better support fluency instruction. The Fluency Assessment is only referenced at the end of Grade 1; no other formal opportunities and routines for teachers to regularly monitor and provide support to students in this area were found.
The materials provide opportunities to support students demonstrating above-level proficiency. Sidebars note opportunities to differentiate, with a focus on scaffolds for students. Teacher notes suggest pairing/grouping students based on their levels. The materials also include Pausing Point days within each unit to provide time for extension and enrichment for students who have “mastered” the unit materials. Most suggestions focus on reading extra books or completing extra tasks similar to those in the unit, often called “Challenge” activities.
Examples include but are not limited to:
The Program Guide describes opportunities for student enrichment: some lessons “offer opportunities for independent and small group research that can be extended by asking for alternative sources or deeper analysis.” The guide also provides examples of what advanced students can do to enhance their writing, such as using more complex and unusual descriptive vocabulary, figurative language, complex sentences, longer and richer text, and text features such as headers and bullets.
In each unit throughout the year, the materials include time for a Pausing Point to provide additional activities and the reading of more complex text. The Pausing Points include enrichment activities from which teachers can choose to challenge students performing above grade level. At the beginning of each description of the enrichment activities, it is mentioned that if students have mastered the skills in that particular unit teachers may enrich their experience of the concept by using the activities. For example, in Knowledge Unit 5 a Pausing Point recommends students retell the read aloud using images and/or pretend they lived with the Maya people by describing what they would have seen and heard had they been at a historical event depicted in the unit read alouds (such as the Festival of the First Star in Baakal). In Knowledge Unit 8, a Pausing Point recommends students read additional trade books about animals from a particular habitat.
The lessons contain support notes about modifying instruction to accommodate student needs; however, very few focus on students already mastering the skills within the unit. In Knowledge Unit 11, a challenge suggests asking students to explain why the Appalachian Mountains were a natural barrier, during a read aloud about Daniel Boone and the opening of the American West. In Skills Unit 2, during an activity in which students identify spoken words with medial sounds /ee/ or /e/, a suggested challenge is to have students segment each word before deciding if it contains a medial /ee/ sound.
The materials provide supports for students demonstrating literacy skills below grade level. The Teacher Guide provides guidance for teachers on supporting students performing below grade level, in sidebar notes labeled “Support.” The teacher can decide which supports are necessary for students based on the students’ knowledge and skills. Pausing Points in each unit provide time to review, reteach, and differentiate instruction. The Assessment and Remediation Guide provides additional lessons for students who need extra practice or remediation on particular foundational or comprehension skills.
Examples include but are not limited to:
The Assessment and Remediation Guide states the Guide is “not intended for use with students who are significantly below grade level. The Guide is intended for use with students who have mastered some or most of the letter-sound correspondences in the English language, but who are not yet fluent readers because they lack specific decoding skills and/or have not had sufficient practice in reading decodable text.” At the end of each section in the Guide are assessments that may be used for both pre-tests and post-tests. It is suggested that teachers always administer a post-test following any remedial instruction to document student progress or lack thereof. Teachers receive instructions as to how to use the Guide and assessment results.
The Pausing Points included throughout the units serve as an opportunity for reteaching, remediation, and extension related to Content, Reading Comprehension, Fluency, and Writing. Sample guidance Content includes referring back to the lessons in the unit for elements in need of reteaching or remediation. Teachers are advised to focus more heavily on the questions labeled as “support.” Sample guidance for Reading Comprehension includes advising teachers to consult the Decoding and Encoding Remediation Supplement. For Fluency, the guidance suggests teachers give multiple opportunities for students to reread a particular text from either the Reader or from the Fluency Supplement. The Writing guidance refers teachers to individual lessons in which particular skills are addressed. Teachers can create specific writing prompts targeting the particular skill in which students need additional practice.
Every lesson contains support notes about modifying instruction to accommodate student needs. For example, in Knowledge Unit 4 Lesson 1, a support provided in the sidebar during the read aloud prompts the teacher to explain a word that has multiple meanings (“The word ‘banks’ can also refer to places where people keep money”). In Lesson 4, a support provided in the sidebar suggests the teacher explain who is speaking or providing information in each section of the read aloud. In Lesson 8, a support provided in the sidebar prompts the teacher to provide additional background context about the read-aloud topic (“Note that the Great Pyramid has that name because it was the biggest pyramid that was built”). In Lesson 10, a support provided in the sidebar prompts teachers to allow students to use image cards to help them add information to a chart about leaders of ancient civilizations.
The materials provide some support and scaffolding for English Learners. The Teacher Guide provides guidance for teachers on specific strategies for emerging, transitioning, and bridging language learners. The materials do not include support commensurate with the various levels of English language proficiency as defined by the ELPs (beginning, intermediate, advanced, and advanced high); rather, these supports are differentiated into three levels. The student readers include images to support comprehension of text, and teachers have access to a digital version for projection. Bilingual dictionaries and thesauri are not mentioned in the materials. There is no evidence of a strategic use of students’ first language to enhance vocabulary development.
Examples include but are not limited to:
The K-2 Program Guide states: “English Language Learners (ELLs) of varying levels of proficiency are supported through the language acquisition strategies integrated in each lesson of both the Skills and Knowledge strands. Access supports provide further guidance to educators seeking to meet the specific needs of ELLs by helping them adjust the pacing of instruction, providing more specific guidance and explicit instruction for Tier 2 (broadly academic) and Tier 3 (domain- specific) vocabulary words, and offering deeper support for syntactic awareness.” The Program Guide also states that the materials include instructional tools to adjust required modes of participation (for example, using visual supports), expressive language demands (for example, providing sentence frames), and timing/immediacy of support during read alouds (for example, use of pictures or props).
In the Teacher Guide for each lesson, there are differentiated supports for students with linguistic needs. These supports provide scaffolds for students to access the learning at their language ability. They are broken down into three ability levels “entering/emerging,” “transitioning/expanding,” and “bridging.” They are listed from greatest need for linguistic accommodations, to least support. For example an “entering/emerging” scaffold might ask students for a yes/no answer, a “transitioning/expanding” might give students a sentence frame for their response (such as “The characters are…”), and a “bridging” may ask students to expand or build from other students’ responses.
Access Supports listed in a sidebar in each lesson are represented with a hand in a circle. In the Program Guide it states these supports provide guidance “to adjust pacing of instruction, providing more specific explicit instruction for Tier 2 (broadly academic) and Tier 3 (domain- specific) vocabulary words, and offering deeper support for syntactic awareness.” Each reading lesson lists the vocabulary words in a tier chart. For example, the Knowledge Unit 5 Lesson 6 reading lesson on “The Floating Gardens of Xochimilco” includes a vocabulary chart that lists words such as “abundance, float, dredged” as Tier 2. Many Knowledge lessons also include a Word Work section focused on a specific word. During read alouds students receive support throughout the lesson using pictures or props with attention being paid specifically to vocabulary.
In the Teacher’s Edition, the section Advance Preparation contains information on Universal Access. This section provides teachers with advice on what to prep in advance specifically for English Language Learners. Within the lessons the materials provide sentence frames and starters for writing and speaking tasks and numerous graphic organizers and other tools that promote the activation of background knowledge.
The digital component of the materials offers a mode of presenting images from the text as well as the text itself to support learning. “Images used during instruction connect to the text and support comprehension.” All units have a glossary at the end of the Teacher’s Edition. The words in the glossary have been bolded in the student reader. This helps the student recognize that the word needs special attention.
In Knowledge Unit 7, Lesson 7, the writing component portion of the lesson includes a sidebar to modify the lesson for English Language Learners. The entering/emerging support directs students to create sentences about fossils using familiar vocabulary and dictate the sentences to a teacher to be recorded; transitioning/expanding students should create sentences about fossils using familiar vocabulary and dictate the sentences to a peer to be recorded; and bridging students should independently write sentences about fossils using familiar vocabulary.
The materials provide assessments and guidance for teachers to monitor student progress. Teachers are given instructions on how to interpret and act on any data found through the assessments. While the assessments are aligned in purpose and use, they are not aligned to the TEKS. The materials provide instructions and multiple charts on which to track and disseminate data. Beginning, middle, and end-of-year assessments are provided for placement of students based on need. Formative assessments occur throughout every unit and lesson in the form of worksheets in the Activity Book and Checks for Understanding built into the lessons. The assessments are connected to the regular content and support student learning.
Examples include but are not limited to:
The materials include Beginning-, Middle-, and End-of-Year (BOY, MOY, and EOY) Skills assessments. The BOY Skills placement test in Unit 1, Lesson 6, includes questions on letter sounds/names, word recognition, story comprehension, pseudoword reading, and sound-spelling. The MOY assessment in Unit 4, Lessons 26–28, focuses on word reading and reading comprehension and provides a checkpoint on student progress with Grade 1 content to inform pacing, small groups, and other differentiation in Units 5–7. The EOY assessment in Unit 7, Lesson 19 includes questions/tasks on reading comprehension, fluency, and word reading.
Each Knowledge and Skills unit also contains an end-of-unit assessment assessing the primary focus for each component of the unit. Knowledge Unit assessments include text comprehension and vocabulary questions about the text in addition to grammar and morphology. Skills Unit assessments include phonics, reading, grammar/language, spelling, and writing. Students also complete performance tasks and writing assessments throughout the units. The materials provide rubrics to score and analyze student assessments.
Formative assessments occur throughout the Student Activity Books to keep track of students’ progress toward the objectives of each lesson. Teachers are provided with an answer key or rubric for all formative assessments, found within the Teacher Resources section at the end of every unit.
The materials provide a year-long plan for teachers to provide differentiation. In the Program Guide, supports noted in the sidebar of the teacher edition and integrated into the lessons provide suggestions for differentiation and grouping structures. The Lesson at a Glance also includes the amount of time needed for each portion of the lesson and how students should be grouped. Ancillary materials include instructions for implementation and use.
Examples include but are not limited to:
The program guide provides information on how to support students who are at different levels. Within the guide, sections titled Amending Instruction, Supporting a Range of Learners, and English Language Development outline the ways the materials provide support through multiple opportunities for formal and informal assessment, teacher and peer-to-peer feedback, differentiation, enrichment, and progress tracking.
In the unit introductions of each Teacher Guide, a section outlines which units in previous grades correlate with the one being taught. The materials embed modeling throughout the reading lessons. The supports in the sidebar provide guidance to support students with comprehension and skill development. Specific close reading lessons provide students opportunities to reread a text with teacher guidance. The materials also include Pausing Points within the reading where the teacher is prompted to either ask a question or point out a vocabulary word. Graphic organizers throughout the activity pages offer additional scaffolds to support students. Supports for writing assignments include sentence frames, graphic organizers, prewritten discussions, and content-specific word lists.
The Assessment and Remediation Guide is an online resource for each Skills unit that provides resources for reteaching and reinforcement of previously taught foundational reading skills content.
struggling students with supplemental instruction while still providing them continuity with the core whole group instruction. The guide includes reinforcement and reteaching lesson structures and a variety of small group lesson activities and worksheets to target specific skills.
The materials are divided into units. Each unit has approximately 10 to 30 lessons. On average there are 1-2 days of Pausing Point lessons in each unit. Pausing Points give the teacher an opportunity to reteach, enrich, and master the information learned in the unit. These lessons address enrichment and/or remediation in foundational skills, reading comprehension, speaking, listening, language, vocabulary, and writing.
Supports provided in the teacher materials titled “Access, Support and Challenge” are represented by an icon located in the sidebar. The supports during daily instruction are in the form of questions and activities. In Knowledge Unit 3, Lesson 2, a support provided in the sidebar of the read aloud suggests the teacher acknowledge a multiple-meaning word in the text (“The word ‘duck’ also has other meanings. It can also mean a bird that swims and quacks”).
The materials include a grade-specific scope and sequence outlining the skills taught in the program and the order in which they are taught. The scope and sequence is not aligned with the TEKS. Each individual unit includes an introduction that shows connections to prior CKLA learning. Teacher implementation support includes summaries provided at the beginning of each unit and lesson. Teachers also receive additional support in the Teacher Resource section located at the end of every lesson and other resources located on the Amplify website. No evidence was found of support for administrators to support implementation. The materials include pacing guidance and routines to support a 180-day schedule, but not a 220-day schedule.
Examples include but are not limited to:
The scope and sequence for both Knowledge units and Skills units is located online on the 2nd edition website under each grade level. They are not aligned to the TEKS. Each scope and sequence begins with a description of the components of each unit, including lessons, unit assessment, and Pausing Points. The Knowledge Scope and Sequence includes a summary of the theme of the unit and a chart displaying each lesson component: text analysis/comprehension, speaking and listening, language and vocabulary, and writing. The Skills Scope and Sequence includes a chart displaying each lesson component: phonics and reading, grammar/language, spelling, and writing.
Assessments and Pausing Points are also noted. Students’ expectations for each lesson are listed.
The materials include a Unit Introduction for each unit. The introductions provide a summary of the theme of the unit, how long the unit should last, and if it contains Pausing Points. The skills taught during the lesson are summarized. Each skills component of the lesson includes the expectations of the unit. A section also explains why the unit is important and lists the prior CKLA knowledge students should be bringing based on learning in previous grades. The materials also describe Writing, Performance Tasks and Assessments, and Fluency. The academic and core vocabulary for the unit is listed in a chart and by lesson.
On the Amplify website, a tab labeled “Resources” to help teachers contains a Program Guide, Research Guides, Pacing Guides, Standards Alignment, Scope and Sequence, Professional Learning Resources, Independent Reading, Social Emotional Learning, and Multimedia Resources. The Program Guide gives an overview of the whole program, including philosophy, how the lessons work, and more. The Research Guide details the research behind CKLA and its philosophies. Under Professional Learning Resources, different titles are available based on specific help a teacher might need. It also has many titles for initial training.
At the beginning of each lesson, there is an overview provided for teachers. The Primary Focus of the Lesson section provides student expectations for each component of the lesson along with a hyperlink to the description of state standards that fits that expectation. Formative Assessments for the lesson include hyperlinks to the activity page where it can be located. The Lesson at a Glance chart shows the lesson components: Speaking and Listening (Read Aloud), Reading (activities are linked to Read Aloud), Foundational Skills, Language, Writing, and Spelling. There is also a materials list with hyperlinks when available.
At the end of each unit there is a Teacher Resource section that includes links to resources such as glossaries and activity answer keys. The resources available depend on the unit and what is being taught and assessed. In Skills Unit 1, this resource section includes a sample anecdotal reading record and a discussion questions observation record.
In addition, the materials provide a teacher planner available for all grade levels. The planner contains: a year-long pacing guide, and lesson planning pages. The pacing guide online in the 2nd edition website shows each unit in weeks to create a visual of how long each unit should last. Pausing Point days are also included. As noted in the Program Guide and indicated on the Pacing Guide, the materials are designed for 180–185 days of instruction and include Pausing Point days.
The materials for Grade 1 include image cards, student workbooks, texts, and photographs, simply designed to not distract from learning. Graphic elements are maintained across the materials. Each unit utilizes white space to support students in finding and understanding information. Student Readers, Student Workbooks, and Flip Books use bold print and photographs that are centered on the page to enhance readability. The graphics and white space on the pages ensure that the student can readily find what they need without distraction.
Examples include but are not limited to:
In Knowledge Unit 2, the Flipbook contains a labeled diagram of major organs and the image cards include illustrations of the human body with the focus organs outlined with red circles.
In Skills Unit 3, the Big Book and Reader illustrations provided for the fable “The Dog and The Mule” closely support the text to aid students in decoding.
In Skills Unit 6, the Activity Book worksheets include tables and text boxes that provide ample space for students to write their responses.
In Knowledge Unit 10, the Flip Book materials enhance the learning experience by providing a map of the North American continent with the United States highlighted in red.
The materials do not include student-facing technology components.
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