Program Information
- Copyright Type
- Proprietary
ELAR: Phonics
KindergartenPublisher: Savvas Learning
Copyright: 2020
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.
Section 1. Phonics-Related Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) and English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS) Alignment
Grade | TEKS Students % | TEKS Teacher % | ELPS Student % | ELPS Teacher % |
Grade K | 100% | 100% | Not Reviewed | 100% |
Grade 1 | 100% | 100% | Not Reviewed | 100% |
Grade 2 | 100% | 100% | Not Reviewed | 100% |
Grade 3 | 100% | 100% | Not Reviewed | 100% |
Section 2. Instructional Approach
Section 3. Content-Specific Skills
Section 4. Progress Monitoring
Section 5. Supports for All Learners
Section 6. Additional Information: Resources
Section 7. Additional Support
● The publisher submitted the technology, price, professional learning, additional language supports, and evidence-based information.
Phonics rules based on 19 TAC 74.2001(1). Program does comply ("yes") or does not comply ("no").
Phonics rules based on 19 TAC 74.2001(3)(A). Program does comply ("yes") or does not comply ("no").
Grade | TEKS Student % | TEKS Teacher % | ELPS Student % | ELPS Teacher % |
---|---|---|---|---|
Kindergarten | 100% | 100% | N/A | 100% |
The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials include systematic, year-long plans for phonics instruction.
Materials include a cohesive, TEKS-aligned scope and sequence that outlines the essential knowledge and skills that are taught throughout the year. Materials clearly demonstrate vertical alignment that shows the progression of skill development from year to year. Lessons follow a developmentally appropriate, systematic progression from simple to more complex concepts (e.g., CVC words before CCCVCC words and single-syllable words before multisyllabic words).
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials include a cohesive, TEKS aligned scope and sequence that outlines the essential knowledge and skills that are taught throughout the year.
Materials clearly demonstrate vertical alignment and that shows the progression of skill development from year to year.
Lessons follow a developmentally appropriate, systematic progression from simple to more complex concepts (e.g., CVC words before CCCVCC words and single syllable words before multisyllabic words).
The materials partially meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials provide some direct (explicit) and systematic instruction in developing grade-level phonics skills within and across lessons.
Lessons include detailed guidance for each component of the gradual release of responsibility model. Materials contain a teacher edition with some annotations and suggestions on how to present the content in the student materials.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Lessons include detailed guidance for each component of the gradual release of responsibility model.
Materials contain a teacher edition with ample and useful annotations and suggestions on how to present the content in the student materials.
The materials partially meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials include some guidance that supports the teacher’s delivery of instruction.
Guidance for teachers includes some information about common phonics pattern misconceptions and guiding principles related to specific phonics skills. Guidance for teachers provides detailed, specific instructional strategies with consistent routines for teaching each phonics skill. Materials include some guidelines for feedback but do not include specific guidance for providing students with immediate, corrective feedback. Materials provide detailed guidance for connecting previously taught phonics skills to new learning. Materials provide some guidance for lesson pacing, but they do not include clear guidance on how to pace each lesson, including specific time suggestions for each component of the gradual release model.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Guidance for teachers includes information about common phonics pattern misconceptions and guiding principles related to specific phonics skills.
Guidance for teachers provides detailed, specific instructional strategies with consistent routines for teaching each phonics skill.
Materials include specific guidance for providing students with immediate, corrective feedback.
Materials provide detailed guidance for connecting previously taught phonics skills to new learning.
Materials include clear guidance on how to pace each lesson, including specific time suggestions for each component of the gradual release model.
While there is a time suggestion for the lesson, there is not a time suggestion for components of the lesson. For example, in Unit 3, Week 1, there is a lesson on “Phonological Awareness: Syllables” and a mini-lesson on “Phonics: Introduce Jj.” Both lessons include Focus and Model and Practice sections, neither of which has a suggested time length or clock icon to indicate how long the lesson or components of the lesson will be.
The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials include frequent and distributed review of phonics skills with cumulative practice opportunities with decodable text.
Materials include intentional cumulative review and practice activities throughout the span of the curriculum. Practice opportunities include only phonics skills that have been explicitly taught. Decodable texts incorporate cumulative practice of taught phonics skills.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials include intentional cumulative review and practice activities throughout the span of the curriculum.
3, Week 2, during the Model and Practice section, the teacher says: “Listen carefully as I read the word: /f/ /u/ /n/, fun. Do you see any of the letters you have learned already?” The teacher then has a student volunteer identify that they have learned the letters f, u, n in the word.
Practice opportunities include only phonics skills that have been explicitly taught.
Decodable texts incorporate cumulative practice of taught phonics skills.
The materials meet the requirements of this indicator. Materials provide systematic and direct (explicit) instruction, practice, and review related to alphabet knowledge.
Materials provide a research-based, systematic sequence for introducing letter names and their corresponding sounds. Materials provide scripted direct explicit instruction for teaching the identification of all 26 letters (uppercase and lowercase) and their corresponding sounds. Materials provide direct explicit instruction on forming the 26 uppercase and lowercase letters. Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and reinforce (through cumulative review) alphabet knowledge in isolation and in the context of meaningful print.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials provide a research based, systematic sequence for introducing letter names and their corresponding sounds.
Materials provide scripted direct (explicit) instruction for teaching the identification of all 26 letters (uppercase and lowercase) and their corresponding sounds.
Materials provide direct (explicit) instruction on forming the 26 letters (uppercase and lowercase).
Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and reinforce (through cumulative review) alphabet knowledge in isolation and in context of meaningful print.
The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials provide systematic and direct (explicit) instruction, practice, and review related to the alphabetic principle.
Materials systematically introduce letter-sound relationships in an order that quickly allows for application to basic decoding and encoding. Materials provide scripted direct (explicit) instruction for connecting phonemes to letters within words. Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and reinforce (through cumulative review) their understanding of applying letter-sound correspondence to decode simple words both in isolation and in decodable connected text.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials systematically introduce letter sound relationships in an order that quickly allows for application to basic decoding and encoding.
Materials provide scripted direct (explicit) instruction for connecting phonemes to letters within words.
Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and reinforce (through cumulative review) their understanding of applying letter sound correspondence to decode simple words both in isolation and in decodable connected text.
The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials provide systematic and direct (explicit) instruction, practice, and review to support the development of oral syllable awareness skills, as outlined in the TEKS.
Materials provide a systematic sequence for introducing oral syllable awareness activities that begins with simple skills (detecting, blending, and segmenting syllables) and gradually transitions to more complex skills such as adding, deleting, and substituting syllables. Materials include scripted direct (explicit) instruction for teaching oral syllable awareness skills. Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and reinforce skills (through cumulative review).
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials provide a systematic sequence for introducing oral syllable awareness activities that begins with simple skills (detecting, blending, and segmenting syllables) and gradually transitions to more complex skills such as adding, deleting, and substituting syllables.
Materials include scripted direct (explicit) instruction for teaching oral syllable awareness skills.
Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and reinforce skills (through cumulative review).
The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials provide systematic and direct (explicit) instruction, practice, and review to support the development of phonemic awareness skills, as outlined in the TEKS.
Materials provide a systematic sequence for introducing phonemic awareness activities that begins with identifying, blending, and segmenting phonemes (the smallest unit of sound) and gradually transitions to more complex manipulation practices such as adding, deleting, and substituting phonemes. Materials include scripted direct (explicit) instruction for teaching phonemic awareness. Materials include direct (explicit) detailed guidance for connecting phonemic awareness skills to the alphabetic principle, helping to transition students from oral language activities to basic decoding and encoding. Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and reinforce skills (through cumulative review).
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials provide a systematic sequence for introducing phonemic awareness activities that begins with identifying, blending, and segmenting phonemes (the smallest unit of sound) and gradually transitions to more complex manipulation practices such as adding, deleting, and substituting phonemes.
Materials include scripted direct (explicit) instruction for teaching phonemic awareness.
Materials include direct (explicit) detailed guidance for connecting phonemic awareness skills to the alphabetic principle, helping to transition students from oral language activities to basic decoding and encoding.
Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and reinforce skills (through cumulative review).
The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials provide systematic and direct (explicit) instruction, practice, and review to develop students’ knowledge of grade-level sound-spelling patterns, as outlined in the TEKS.
Materials provide a systematic sequence for introducing grade-level sound-spelling patterns, as outlined in the TEKS. Materials provide scripted direct (explicit) instruction for grade-level sound-spelling patterns. Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and reinforce skills (through cumulative review). Materials provide a variety of activities and resources to decode and encode words that include taught sound-spelling patterns in isolation (e.g., word lists) and in decodable connected text that builds on previous instruction (e.g., within sentences or decodable texts).
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials provide a systematic sequence for introducing grade level sound spelling patterns, as outlined in the TEKS.
Materials provide scripted direct (explicit) instruction for grade level sound spelling patterns.
Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and reinforce skills (through cumulative review).
Materials provide a variety of activities and resources to decode and encode words that include taught sound spelling patterns in isolation (e.g., word lists) and in decodable connected text that builds on previous instruction (e.g., within sentences or decodable texts).
The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials provide systematic and direct (explicit) instruction, practice, and review related to accurately identifying, reading, and writing regular and irregular high-frequency words.
Materials provide a systematic sequence for introducing regular and irregular high-frequency words. Materials provide scripted direct (explicit) instruction for decoding and encoding regular and irregular high-frequency words. Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and reinforce skills (through cumulative review). Materials provide a variety of activities and resources for students to recognize, read, and write high-frequency words in isolation (e.g., word lists) and in connected text (e.g., within sentences or decodable texts).
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials provide a systematic sequence for introducing regular and irregular high frequency words.
Materials provide scripted direct (explicit) instruction for decoding and encoding regular and irregular high frequency words.
Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and reinforce skills (through cumulative review).
Materials provide a variety of activities and resources for students to recognize, read, and write high frequency words in isolation (e.g., word lists) and in connected text (e.g., within sentences or decodable texts).
The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials provide frequent opportunities for students to practice and develop word reading fluency, by using knowledge of grade-level phonics skills to read decodable connected texts with accuracy and automaticity.
Materials include embedded modeling and practice with word lists, decodable phrases/sentences, and decodable connected texts in the lesson. Materials provide practice activities for word reading fluency in a variety of settings (e.g., independently, in partners, in guided small groups, etc.). Materials provide a variety of grade-level decodable connected texts that are aligned to the phonics scope and sequence.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials include embedded modeling and practice with word lists, decodable phrases/sentences, and decodable connected texts in the lesson.
Materials provide practice activities for word reading fluency in a variety of settings (e.g., independently, in partners, in guided small groups, etc.)
Materials provide a variety of grade level decodable connected texts that are aligned to the phonics scope and sequence.
In Unit 4, Week 6, word lists emphasize the medial /ĕ/ and medial /ē/, such as fed, feed, bead, bed. First, the teacher reviews the sounds /ĕ/ and /ē/ with the students, and the students repeat the sounds. The teacher says: “Listen to the middle sound as I say the word red: /r/ /e/ /d/. Does the word red have the middle sound /ĕ/ or /ē/?” Students answer /ĕ/. Instruction on the medial /ē/ continues. The teacher reads the word read and says: “Listen to the middle sound as I say the word read: /r/ /ē/ /d/. Does the word read have the middle sound /ĕ/ or /ē/?” Students answer /ē/. Then, the teacher divides the students into an /ĕ/ team and an /ē/ team. The teacher says several words with medial sounds /ĕ/ and /ē/. Students listen for their team’s sound and stand when they hear it. The teacher uses the following words: fed, feed, bead, bed, bet, beat.
The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials include developmentally appropriate diagnostic tools (e.g., formative and summative) and guidance for teachers to measure and monitor student progress.
Materials include a variety of diagnostic tools that are developmentally appropriate. Materials provide clear, consistent directions for accurate administration of diagnostic tools. Materials include data-management tools for tracking individual and whole class student progress.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials include a variety of diagnostic tools that are developmentally appropriate.
Materials provide clear, consistent directions for accurate administration of diagnostic tools.
Materials include data management tools for tracking individual and whole class student progress. ●
The materials partially meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials include some integrated progress monitoring tools, with specific guidance on frequency of use.
Materials include progress monitoring tools that systematically and accurately measure students’ acquisition of grade-level skills in phonemic awareness, phonics, or morphology. Materials include some guidance on determining frequency of progress monitoring, but it is not based on students’ strengths and needs.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials include progress monitoring tools that systematically and accurately measure students’ acquisition of grade level skills.
Materials include specific guidance on determining frequency of progress monitoring based on students’ strengths and needs.
The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials include guidance for teachers to analyze and respond to data from diagnostic tools.
Materials support teachers’ analysis of diagnostic data to inform response to individual students’ strengths and needs. Diagnostic tools provide teachers with guidance on how to plan and differentiate instruction based on student data. Materials include a variety of resources that align to data, allowing teachers to plan different activities in response to student data.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials support teachers’ analysis of diagnostic data to inform response to individual students’ strengths and needs.
Materials tools provide teachers with guidance on how to plan and differentiate instruction based on student data.
Materials include a variety of resources that align to data, allowing teachers to plan different activities in response to student data.
The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials include guidance, scaffolds, supports, and extensions that maximize student learning potential.
Materials provide targeted instruction and activities to scaffold learning for students who have not yet mastered grade-level foundational phonics skills. Materials provide targeted instruction and activities to accelerate learning for students who have achieved grade-level mastery of foundational phonics skills. Materials provide enrichment activities for all levels of learners.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials provide targeted instruction and activities to scaffold learning for students who have not yet mastered grade level foundational phonics skills.
and long o. If the students are struggling, the teacher revisits instruction using the specified pages for small group instruction.
Materials provide targeted instruction and activities to accelerate learning for students who have achieved grade level mastery of foundational phonics skills.
Materials provide enrichment activities for all levels of learners.
The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials include a variety of instructional methods that appeal to a variety of learning interests and needs.
Materials include a variety of developmentally appropriate instructional approaches to engage students in mastery of the content. Materials support a variety of instructional settings (e.g., whole group, small group, one-on-one).
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials include a variety of developmentally appropriate instructional approaches to engage students in mastery of the content.
Materials support a variety of instructional settings (e.g., whole group, small group, one on one).
The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials include supports for Emergent Bilinguals to meet grade-level learning expectations.
Materials include linguistic accommodations (communicated, sequenced, and scaffolded) commensurate with various levels of English language proficiency as defined by the English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS). Materials encourage strategic use of students’ first language as a means to linguistic, affective, cognitive, and academic development in English.
Evidence includes but is not limited to:
Materials include linguistic accommodations (communicated, sequenced, and scaffolded) commensurate with various levels of English language proficiency as defined by the English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS).
Materials encourage strategic use of students’ first language as a means to linguistic, affective, cognitive, and academic development in English.
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