Into Reading Texas Grade 1

Evaluation for 2.1
Materials include systematic, year-long plans for phonics instruction.

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.

• Each grade-level provides a detailed Foundational Skills Scope and Sequence. The scope and sequence chart is categorized by module, week, and foundational skill. Two of the skills listed in the chart are phonics and phonological awareness. For phonological awareness, the chart indicates that students learn to segment syllables, onset-rime, and adding, deleting, changing, or isolating phonemes. By Module 5, Lesson 1, students work with initial blends, as stated on the foundational skills chart. For phonological awareness skills, students manipulate phonemes by blending, adding, segmenting, or counting phonemes.

• In the phonics column of the grade 1 Foundational Skills Scope and Sequence, it shows that students review consonants, digraphs, and vowel patterns of VCV and VCVe before moving into trigraphs, inflectional endings, blends, vowel digraphs, r-controlled vowels, and two-syllable words.

• The Teacher’s Guide provides a TEKS document that identifies the TEKS and lists a column for student materials and teacher materials of where that TEKS is taught. This document lists the resource and page number in which the TEKS is taught. For example, the chart lists Literacy Centers in Module 1, Word Work TEKS 1.2B(vi), 1.2C(i), and 1.2C(iii).

• The scope and sequence chart for the grade 1 introductory unit indicates that students learn to identify and blend words with consonants m, s, t, b, and vowel short a during week 1 and additional consonants n, d, p, c /k/ in week 2. Additionally, phonemic awareness objectives and high-frequency words, which are explicitly taught during each week are listed in the chart.

Materials clearly demonstrate vertical alignment that shows the progression of skill development from year to year.

• Grade 1: Foundational Skills Scope and Sequence phonics begins with a review of the letters/sounds learned in kindergarten utilizing the same sequence of letter/sounds learning along with digraphs and the CVC and CVCe vowel pattern before going into new learning.
  In grade 1, Foundational Skills Scope phonological awareness reviews syllables, onset/rime, and phonemes work before spending additional time in blending, segmenting, deleting, and manipulating phonemes.

• In grade 1, students begin phonological awareness with a review of skills presented in grade K during the final modules. Students review the phonological awareness skills learned in kindergarten in regard to syllable and phoneme counting, blending, and segmenting, deleting, and manipulating. They spend additional time working at the phoneme level by counting phonemes along with segmenting, blending, deleting, and manipulating phonemes. The skills follow the progression from the largest part of words (syllable) to the smallest part of words (phoneme). At the end of grade 1, students learn prefixes, suffixes, and two-syllable words.

• Materials clearly demonstrate vertical alignment that shows the progression of skill development from year to year. The materials note in the Grade 1: Foundational Skills Scope and Sequence that the last module, Module 12, lessons include suffixes -ful, -less, -ly, -y, prefixes un-, re; two-syllable words CV, CVC; syllable division; suffixes -er, -est; spelling changes; and inflections. In the first modules for grade 2, the Foundational Skills Scope and Sequence includes a review of consonants; short and long vowels; and then moves into suffixes -er and -est; initial blend with l, r, s; inflections -s, -es; final blends; and closed syllables.

• The materials include an Into Reading Alignment Chart that shows all of the foundational skills taught in each unit of each grade-level so that teachers can see what students should know when they start the year and what they need to know before the end of the school year to be prepared for next year. This chart includes phonological awareness and phonics skills.

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).

• Lesson objectives for grade 1 systematically progress from simple to more complex concepts. Lesson objectives begin with a review of skills taught in kindergarten, such as blending and segmenting phonemes, then emphasize decoding and encoding single-syllable words with common phoneme-grapheme correspondences, such as initial and final consonant blends and digraphs with short vowel sounds. Then objectives progress to silent-e syllables with long vowel sounds and vowel digraphs.

• The grade 1 Phonological Awareness objectives begin with blending onset/rime, segmenting syllables onset/rime, alliteration, and isolating and blending phonemes. The objectives then move into identifying the vowel when isolating phonemes, identifying and producing rhyme, digraphs, and manipulating phonemes.

• In grade 1, students begin with commonly used consonants such as m, s, t, b, n, d, p, c, and short vowel a. Students focus on decoding VC, CVC, CCVC, and CVCC words. Then, students progress to silent-e syllables with long vowel sounds and vowel digraphs.

Evaluation for 2.2
Materials provide direct (explicit) and systematic instruction in developing grade-level phonics skills within and across lessons.

The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials provide 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 ample and useful 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 mode.

• The grade 1 lessons are formatted in a gradual release model and include specific phrasing and statements that teachers can use during core instruction to guide students’ practice and application of new phonics skills. The phonics lessons are divided into three steps: I Do It, We Do It, and You Do It.
  1. In I Do It, the script says, "Spotlight on Letters. Display the Sound/Spelling Card for g: goat. Name the picture, say the hard /g/ sound, and give the spelling.” The teacher says, "Goat begins with the /g/ sound. The letter g is a consonant. It can stand for the /g/ sound at the beginning or end of a word.” The script says, "Write gap. Say the letter sounds and blend the word.” The teacher says, “The word gap begins with the letter g and the sound /g/.” The script says, " Point out the vowel and the final consonant.” The teacher says, “When there is only one vowel and it is followed by a consonant, what sound does the vowel usually stand for? (the short vowel sound) Blend the word with me: /g/ /ă/ /p/, gap.” The script says, “Repeat for k, using Sound/Spelling Card kangaroo and the word kit.”

  2. In We Do It, the script says, “Write gas and use Letter Cards g, a, s with the Sound-by- Sound Blending routine below to model blending the word:

     • Display cards as shown, g, a, s. Say the first letter and sound.

     • Slide the second letter over. Say its sound. Then blend the two sounds.

     • Slide the last letter over. Say its sound. Say the first two blended sounds, the last sound, and the blended word: /gă/ /s/, gas. Display cards as shown. Say the first letter and sound. Slide the second letter over. Say its sound. Then blend the two sounds. Slide the last letter over. Say its sound. Say the first two blended sounds, the last sound, and the blended word:” The teacher says, “/gă/ /s/, gas.”

     • The script says, "Sound-by-Sound Blending. Repeat the Sound-by-Sound Blending routine with cards for the words kid and gab, having children say the sounds and blend.”

  3. Finally, in You Do It, independent practice, the script says, “Blending Practice. Write the words below. Then choose two volunteers to model the activity. The first child points to any word and says the letter sounds. The second child blends the sounds to read the word. Children then switch roles to choose and read another word. Continue until each child has had a turn and all words (bag, gap, gag, kid, kit, pig, kin, kim) have been blended and read.”

• In Module 7, week 2, Lesson 7, Phonics, the lesson provides specific instructions and a script for a guided release of responsibility.

  1. The I Do It section guides the teacher to “write cheek for children to see, and use the Continuous Blending routine below to model blending the word using Letter Cards ch, ee, k.” For the first part of this section, the teacher “display(s) Letter Cards as shown.” (Materials show Letter Cards /ch/ /ee/ /k/.) The materials instruct the teacher to “say the letter names and sounds” and then “sweep (their) hand below the letters. As (they) point to each letter, slowly blend each sound. Then read the word naturally: /ch/ /ē/ /k/, cheek.” The teacher then “guides children to blend the sounds and pronounce the word: Blend the word with me: /ch/ /ē/ /k/, cheek.” The materials state to “repeat the routine with the cards for peach and sleeve.”

  2. In the We Do It section of the lesson, students read words with the teacher from the Project Display and Engage: Blend and Read 7.6, such as eat, meat, keep, jeep, and seal and discuss “How are the words alike? How are they different?”

  3. Finally, in the You Do It section, the materials state that students can either “write the column headings ee and ea on a sheet of paper,” and then “list the long e Blend and Read word by vowel team,” and “have partners compare lists and check each other’s work” or “children (can) complete Know It, Show It page 191.”

Materials contain a teacher edition with ample and useful annotations and suggestions on how to present the content in the student materials.

• The grade 1 materials contain a teacher edition with ample and useful annotations and suggestions on how to present the content in the student materials. For example, Teacher Tips are included in the Teacher’s Guide. In Module 6, Lesson 12, a Teacher Tip says, "Now decodable! Children can now decode the high-frequency words home, like, ride, side, time, and white. Children will practice these words along with the other high-frequency words for this week to build fluent word recognition.” In Module 8, Lesson 4, a Teacher Tip says, "Bulletin board blends! Create a bulletin board display of blends children encounter throughout the week. Write s-blends, l-blends, and r-blends as column heads. Then have volunteers add words with blends to the appropriate columns. Then, highlight the blends in each column.”

• Correct and Redirect sections can be found in the modules to help scaffold the learning or give a suggestion of how else to teach the concepts to ensure students are correctly responding to the learning. An example of this is “CORRECT & REDIRECT. If a child mispronounces a word during blending practice, make note of the error type and address it. If a child reads, bag as gab, cover the word and blend it together as you uncover one letter at a time, left to right. Then have the child blend and read the word. If a child reads pig as pick, contrast the /g/ and /k/ sounds, using the Sound/Spelling Cards goat and kangaroo. Use sound-by-sound blending to read the word, having the child repeat the steps after you.”

Evaluation for 2.3
Materials include detailed guidance that supports teacher’s delivery of instruction.

The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials include detailed guidance that supports teacher’s delivery of instruction.

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 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, but there are no 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.

• The materials include information for teachers about common misconceptions related to specific phonics skills. The Module 4 opener includes Implementation Support for blending instruction. For example, the Teacher's Guide directs the teacher to "make sure not to add a vowel sound after consonant sounds (‘buh’ for /b/, ‘puh’ for /p/).”

• Lessons provide a Correct and Redirect section that prompts teachers on how to provide additional support regarding the skill of the day. For example, a Correct and Redirect section may state, "If children have difficulty sorting words, remind them that words with consonant blends have two consonants next to each other.” The teacher is prompted to say, “Listen: slide. Do you hear two consonant sounds next to each other in the beginning of the word?”

• Teacher Tips and Correct and Redirect help guide teachers towards possible misconceptions such as Now decodable! in Module 3, Lesson 4: “After this lesson, children will be able to decode the high-frequency words big, ran, sit, did, and its! Children will practice these words along with the other high-frequency words for this week to build fluent word recognition.”

Guidance for teachers provides detailed, specific instructional strategies for teaching each phonics skill.

• The materials include an explanation or overview of the instructional routines used consistently throughout the program. The Teacher’s Guide in each module includes a Teaching with Instructional Routines section, where the “focus routine” for the module is explained in detail. Each routine overview includes the routine purpose, the materials needed, and an example of the Routine in Action. For example, in Module 4, teachers are directed to “use the first sound blending routine to provide opportunities to practice blending words with target sound- spellings.” The routine materials include Letter Cards and a pocket chart. Per the lesson script, teachers will refer to the Routine in Action for each routine step and “model language” for instruction. For example, in step 3, teachers will point to each Letter Card and blend the sounds; Listen: /f/ /ôr/, for. Now you say it. (/f/ /ôr/, for). Once introduced, the routine is referenced throughout the materials to support students’ decoding.

• The Teacher’s Guide provides a Teaching with Instructional Routines resource. Teachers may become familiar with instructional routines that are utilized throughout the module and understand how to implement them successfully. Scripted examples of how to implement the instructional routines are included in the resource. Instructional routines for echo reading, syllable division, choral reading, repeated reading, high-frequency words, and Word Cards are included. For example, the Word Cards routine is used in Module 1, Lesson 4, where the teacher uses Word Cards way and am to “Review the vowel sounds, blend the sound, and give a sample sentence: ‘I am a member of this class.’” In Module 6, Lesson 1, the teacher uses the High-Frequency Word routine with words such as gave, own, and read. The routine steps are: “teach the word, say the word, spell the word, write and check the word.”

• Grade 1 utilizes Sound/Spelling Cards when introducing and reviewing the sounds made by the letter, along with a picture that aligns to the sound. If the sound can be spelled more than one way, the card includes the various ways to spell the sound. For example, in Module 7, Lesson 1, the Word Cards c, u, t, and e are used following the Sound-by-Sound Blending routine. The steps of the routine are: “display the Letter Cards, sweep your hand under the cards as you blend the sounds, guide children to blend the sound, and pronounce the word.”

Materials include specific guidance for providing students with immediate, corrective feedback.

• The materials provide specific examples of how to provide immediate, corrective feedback. For example, the lesson plans contain a Correct and Redirect information box or section for each phonics lesson. In Module 2, Lesson 2, Foundational Skills, Decoding: Consonants g, k, the example for Correct and Redirect is, “If a child mispronounces a word during Blend and Read, make note of the error type and address it. If a child misreads the final sounds in gas, gab, and gap, make sure the child is blending the whole word and not partially blending and then guessing. Model blending the first two sounds, and then the last. Have children repeat. Point to each word and say: /gă/ /s/; /gă/ /b/; /gă/ /p/. How are the words alike? (same beginning sound and vowel sound) How are they different? (different ending sounds).”

• In Module 9, Lesson 4, teachers are directed to provide support to students having difficulty segmenting words into phonemes. The lesson script reads as follows: “Listen to this word: pride. I hear /p/ at the beginning of pride. Pride. The next sound I hear in pride is /r/. /p/, /r/. Pride. The next sound I hear is /ī/. Pride. /p/, /r/, /ī/. I hear /d/ at the end of pride. The sounds in pride are /p/, /r/, /ī/, and /d/. Say the sounds with me again, and let’s count the sounds this time. (/p/, /r/, /ī/, /d/; 4) Yes, there are four sounds in the word pride.''

• Another example of a Correct and Redirect recommendation is, "If children have difficulty distinguishing between Y and V, point out the similarities and differences between the letter forms. Y and V both have slanted lines, but Y has a straight line down."

Materials provide detailed guidance for connecting previously taught phonics skills to new learning.

• The materials provide detailed guidance for connecting previously taught phonics skills to new ones. For example, in Module 2, Lesson 4, Foundational Skills, Phonic Review, the teacher script states, “S SOUND-BY-SOUND BLENDING routine to review this week's phonic elements: short vowels a, i, and consonants g /g/ (hard g), k. Model blending bag with Letter Cards (or display the written word). Say the first two sounds separately, then together; then say the last sound and add it to the blended sounds. Repeat for Kim.”

• The materials provide detailed guidance for connecting previously taught phonics skills to new ones. For example, after learning to decode words with long o in Module 8, Lesson 2, Word Work, the decodable text instructional routine includes a Connect to Phonics section, where students “take turns using Letter Cards to build words with the oa or ow vowel team."

• In Module 8, Lesson 1, the Teacher’s Guide explicitly states: “Remind children that vowels can stand for long and short sounds and explain that they will be reading words with the long o sound. Then have them practice identifying the vowel sound in words you say.” Additionally, the Teacher's Guide asks teachers to “Remind children that they have learned some ways the long vowel sound /ō/ is spelled in words.”

Materials include clear guidance on how to pace each lesson, including specific time suggestions for each component of the gradual release model.

• Each section of the materials is marked with a clock showing the length of time to be spent teaching that skill that day. For example, the phonemic awareness timestamp is 5 minutes, the phonics timestamp is 10 minutes, high-frequency word practice is 5 minutes, and spelling is 10 minutes. This is found in each lesson throughout the modules.

• The materials include guidance on the recommended length for each lesson. For example, the Week at a Glance shows the recommended daily schedule with time allotments:

  • Build Knowledge and Language/Vocabulary: 10-15 minutes

  • Foundational Skills: 15-30 minutes

  • Reading Workshop: 60-70 minutes

  • Writing Workshop: 20-30 minutes

• The HMH Into Reading Texas Overview document breaks down time for the program as 15-20 minutes for whole-group mini lessons, 45-60 minutes for small group and independent work, along with 5 minutes for a wrap-up.

• The Welcome Into Reading document breaks down time for the program as whole group instruction containing 15-30 minutes as foundational skills time with an additional 50-75 minutes covering Knowledge/Language, Reading Workshop, Writing Workshop, 45-60 minutes of a cycle of independent practice, collaborative work, and teacher-led small group time with an additional 5 minutes.

Evaluation for 2.4
Materials include frequent and distributed review of phonics skills with cumulative practice opportunities with decodable text.

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 only include 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.

• Phonics lessons use a gradual release of responsibility model. The lessons provide an I Do, We Do, and You Do section. This is a routine that is regularly followed when learning new phonics skills. Additionally, students use the “display, sweep, and guide” routine as they blend words. This is called the Continuous Blending routine that is suggested to be done throughout the school year.

• Review of previously taught phonemes and graphemes are noted in the Grade 1: Foundational Skills Scope and Sequence. For example, short vowels are reviewed in Module 2, while sh, ch, and th are reviewed in Module 3 and 4, and st, sl, cl, and fl are reviewed in Module 5. In Module 3, Lesson 3, students review short e, i, o, and u through the gradual release model. The phonics lesson concludes with students reading words with short e, i, o.

• Materials for grade 1 include intentional cumulative review and practice activities throughout the span of the curriculum. In the Teacher’s Guide, Welcome to the Module, there is a Teaching with Instructional Routines section, which lists several routines available, including Blending: Sound-by-Sound; Blending: Continuous Blending; and Blending: Vowel-First Blending. The Blending: Sound-by-Sound routine states to "lead children to decode unfamiliar one-syllable words, using consistent language." For example, in Module 5, Lesson 7, the Phonics: Initial Blends with r, Spotlight on Letters instructs the teacher to "review Picture Card frog. Name the picture and say the r blend.” The teacher “write(s) frog for children to see, and use(s) the SOUND-BY-SOUND BLENDING routine below to model blending the word using Letter Cards f, r, o, g.”

Decodable texts incorporate cumulative practice of taught phonics skills.

• Start Right Readers (such as “Fox in A Fix!”), iREAD books (such as “Fish Shop”), and Printables (such as “Car Wash”) all contain decodable text based on skill in the lesson. These resources are aligned with the Grade 1 Foundational Scope and Sequence in regard to containing words aligned with the phonic skills being taught. For example, in Module 3, Lesson 4 uses “Fox in a Fix!” during small group time to review or reinforce blending and decoding words with short vowels e, i, o, u and consonants qu /kw/, x /ks/, z /z/, which was the focus of the lesson on phonics review of short vowels and qu /kw/, x /ks/, z /z/. Previously learned words/phonics skills are also included in the book. For example, short a words, along with high-frequency words: day, every, fly, have, look, made, they, and write are included.

• Decodable texts for grade 1 incorporate cumulative practice of taught phonics skills. Many iRead Decodables are available with the instructional materials. For example, “Decodable Book Cake Bake features words with long a (a_e)” and includes “decoding words with short, long, or variant vowels.” These concepts are taught or reviewed in Module 6, making it the ideal time to incorporate these readers. “Decodable Book ‘Chick and Chuck’ features words with initial and final digraph ch'' and includes “decoding words with initial and final consonant blends, digraphs, and trigraphs.” This reader can be used during or after Module 4 when ch is taught.

• Lessons use consistent routines to introduce and review phonics skills that include different modalities. For example, the lesson plans include or refer to resources such as decodable sentences, passages, poems, or books that are specifically connected to the phonics objective. In Module 8, Lesson 1, students practice reading words with long o spelling patterns, such as show and coat, in “Will It Be Fun?” Long vowels have been previously taught and reviewed in Module 8 in kindergarten.

Evaluation for 3.A.1
Materials provide systematic and direct (explicit) instruction, practice, and review related to alphabet knowledge.

Evaluation for 3.A.2
Materials provide systematic and direct (explicit) instruction, practice, and review related to the alphabetic principle.

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 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.

• Letters are presented in an order that starts with high-utility letters (i.e. letters that can be used right away to decode and spell CVC words when enough have been introduced). In Module 1, Lessons 1, Foundation Skills, Phonics: Consonants m, s, t, b; Short a, children learn the letters m, s, t, b, and a so that from the very beginning, they are able to utilize those Letter Cards and begin Sound-By-Sound Blending through guided and independent practice words that contain those letters. An example would be the word mat: the teacher utilizes the Letter Cards m, a, and t to model sliding one Letter Card at a time from the right to the left while saying the sound of that letter and then blending all the sounds together to read the word. This is repeated with the words bat and Sam. Students then read words containing the letters m, s, t, b, and a from a page of words like mat, Sam, bat, sat, tab, at, Tam, and am.

Materials provide scripted direct (explicit) instruction for connecting phonemes to letters within words.

• Materials provide clear, precise instructions and directions for connecting phonemes to letters within words. In Module 1, Lesson 6, Phonics Instruction, the teacher displays the Sound/Spelling Card for short a: alligator. The script directs the teacher to “write at. Say the letter sounds and blend the word: /ă/ /t/, at. Point out the vowel and consonant. Say: ‘Remember, a is a vowel, so it can stand for many sounds, and t is a consonant. When there is only one vowel in a word, and it is followed by a consonant, the vowel usually stands for the short vowel sound.’” The teacher continues with the letters c, d, n, and p. In the We Do It section, the teacher is directed to display the Sound/Spelling Cards n, a, and p to blend the word nap by sliding the letters together one at a time. The final step says, “Slide the last letter over. Say its sound. Say the first two blended sounds, the last sound, and the blended word: /na/ /p/. nap.”

• In Module 2, Lesson 7, Foundational Skills, Phonics: Consonants l, h; Short o, the teacher projects the Display and Engage: Blend and Read that contains the words/sentence Row 1 - hot, lot, lit, lip, hat; Row 2 - had, hid, him, lid, mom; Row 3 - fog, rig, fan, fig, rag; Row 4 - top, stop, slap, lap; Row 5 - Pop sits on a cot. The children read line 1 and discuss how the words are the same/different. They then continue with the other rows. Children go on to write a rhyming word for each of the words: hot, lid, and top from the words on the displayed list. Children complete the Know It, Show It workbook page by naming each picture on the page and filling in the missing letter of the word. For example, there is a picture of a dog with __og; the children are to write in the letter d.

• The Teacher’s Guide provides picture examples for Sound-by-Sound Blending by scooping a finger from one sound to the next before sweeping across the entire word. In Module 5, Lesson 1, teachers are directed to “ write flip and use Letter Cards f, l, i, p with the Sound-by-Sound Blending routine below to model blending the word." Per the lesson script, teachers will refer to the Routine in Action and follow each routine step as follows: “Display cards as shown. Point to f, l, and say the sounds. Remember, the consonants in a blend keep their own sounds, said closely together: /f//l/, /fl/. Slide the vowel letter over. Say the sound, reminding children that one vowel followed by a consonant usually has the short vowel sound. Then blend the sounds: /fl/ /i/, /fli/. Slide the last letter over. Say its sound. Say the blended sounds, the last sound, and the blended word: /fli/ /p/, flip.”

• In Module 5, Lesson 12, Blend, decode, and build regularly spelled one-syllable words with final blends, the teacher script includes explicit and precise statements that may be used during instruction. The lesson includes the gradual release of responsibility model. The teacher begins with I Do It. As stated in the script, the teacher displays Letter Cards m, i, l, and k, and says, “This is the /m/ sound.” While you slide over the letter, move the i over and say, ”The sound of short i is /i/.” Then say, “One vowel followed by a consonant usually has the short sound.” Then blend the two sounds. /m/ /i/, /mi/. Then slide the blend over. “Say the consonant sounds and blend. Finally, blend the first two sounds and the consonant blend: /mi//lk/.”

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 connected text.

• In Module 1, students write CVC words on a board and write “yes” or “no” next to the word to show if the word is spelled with a short a. The students use words like bat, dad, cat, and beg for this activity.

• In Module 1, Lesson 9, the students write the words is, man, and no. Then they write the following sentences: My dog is big. There are no apples in my house now. The man in the picture is my dad. The students then use the Write and Reveal procedure to check their work. Students see the teacher write the sentences they are about to write. The teacher covers the correct sentences written on a large tablet, and the students write their sentences. Then, they compare their sentences to the teacher’s correct sentence.

• In Module 3, Lesson 1, Foundational Skills, Link to Small-Group Instruction: Reinforce Foundation Skills, the teacher uses small group time to review or reinforce blending and decoding words with final consonant blends st, sk, nd, nt, ft, st, mp, ng, and nk. The teacher meets with children to work through the story or assigns it as independent work.

• In Module 5, Lesson 1, students blend sounds and decode regularly spelled one-syllable words that contain initial consonant blends with l, including trigraph spl. The teacher guides students to use the Sound by Sound Routine to model blending the word. The student reads the words plan, clam, and splat from the cards shown by the teacher. As independent practice, the teacher will “explain that you (the teacher) will point to two words in random order, and the child will read them aloud and identify the two- or three-letter consonant blends with l.” Students practice spelling initial blends with l words using dictation sentences. Students practice the spelling words using Module 5, Lesson 1, Spelling.

Evaluation for 3.B.1
Materials provide systematic and direct (explicit) instruction, practice, and review to support the development of oral syllable awareness skills, as outlined in the TEKS.

The 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 transition 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 transition to more complex skills such as adding, deleting, and substituting syllables.

• Oral syllable awareness activities presented earlier in the year through Module 1 ask students to segment and blend syllables, such as the two syllables in mailbox, then later lessons in Modules 9-12, including adding and deleting syllables such as, “say football without the ball.” The materials provide a table scope and sequence of foundational skills that starts with segmenting and blending syllables and then continues with syllable manipulation, such as adding and deleting syllables.

• A systematic sequence, as seen in Phonological Awareness in Module 1, starts off by segmenting and blending syllables. In Module 1, Lesson 1, students blend syllables. The Teacher’s Guide states, "Tell children that we can break longer words into parts, called syllables. They will clap for each syllable they hear in the words that you say.” The teacher says, “For each syllable in a word, clap one time. Listen as I say this word: rainbow, rain-bow. The first part is rain-. The second part is -bow. The syllables in rainbow are rain- and -bow.” Under Word Work Warm-Up, the Phonological Awareness section provides lessons that follow a systematic sequence. These lessons focus on blending syllables and segmenting syllables. In Module 5, the more complex skill of deleting syllables is taught in words such as mailbox. The teacher asks students to say the word mailbox without the mail.

• Module 9 moves into segmenting and counting syllables along with blending and adding syllables. In the scope and sequence for Module 9, week 3, students “blend syllables,” “add syllables,” “segment and count syllables,” and “delete syllables.” During Module 9, Lesson 11, students first blend syllables. Students say note and book and then blend the syllables and say the word notebook. Then, in the second part of Lesson 11, students add syllables by blending the syllables bur and ger together to say the word burger and then adding the syllable ham onto the beginning of burger to say the word hamburger. In Lesson 15, students add syllables, such as time on the end of the word summer, and delete syllables, such as -ing from the word pulling.

Materials include scripted direct (explicit) instruction for teaching oral syllable awareness skills.

• In Module 1, Lesson 1, Foundational Skills, Phonological Awareness, Segment Syllables, the teacher begins by stating the lesson objective: “Tell children that we can break longer words into parts, called syllables. They will clap for each syllable they hear in the words that you say.” The teacher displays the Picture Card for rainbow and says, “Listen as I say this word: rainbow, rain-bow. Clap for each syllable. The first part is rain-. The second part is -bow. The syllables in rainbow are rain- and -bow.” Then, the teacher displays Picture Cards for elephant, flowers, hammer, nightlight, and slipper. The teacher says, “Now let’s do one together. Listen to the picture name. Then clap for each part: flowers, flow-ers. How many times did we clap? (2) What are the two parts of flowers? (flow-ers). Your turn. I'll say a picture name. You repeat the word and clap for each part: nightlight, night-light. How many claps? (2) What are the two parts of nightlight? (night-light). Let’s keep going. Remember to clap for each word part you hear slippers (slip-pers), elephant (el-e-phant), hammer (ham-mer).”

• In Module 1, Lesson 2, the Teacher’s Guide directs the teacher to model how to segment the syllables in words. The lesson script reads as follows:

  • Say: I will say a word. You will say the word and clap once for each syllable you say.

  • Listen as I do the first one: backpack, back-pack.

  • Clap for each syllable. I clapped two times. Backpack has two syllables. The first part is back-. The second part is -pack. Backpack, back-pack.

The lesson scripts are located in the Teacher’s Guide in the Word Work Warm-Up section.

• In Module 5, Lesson 3, the teacher is instructed to show a picture of a paintbrush and say, “This is a paintbrush. Clap for each syllable you hear. The first part is paint and the second part is brush. Now put it together. What word? Paintbrush.”

• In Module 9, week 3, Lesson 15, the teacher asks children to add syllables to words to say new words: “add -time to the end of summer (summertime); add fire- to the beginning of fighter (firefighter).” The teacher continues this lesson by “hav(ing) children delete syllables from these words: beaches, delete -es and pulling, delete -ing.”

Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and cumulatively reinforce skills.

• In Module 2, Lesson 12, in the Daily Show and Teach Slides, there is a warm-up slide that contains an image of a hand moving across the screen, which is meant to help students segment syllables in words. The teacher says the syllables are “jum, ble, nib, ble, and mas, ter.” After saying each word broken into syllables, the teacher asks, “What word?” This activity is repeated as a warm-up in Module 5 with words plas, tic, men, tion, and par, a, chute. The students segment each syllable orally, then blend the syllables to make words.

• To review syllable blending in Module 9, Lesson 12, students match Picture Cards to the syllables they blend. The lesson script reads as follows: 

  • Divide children into five groups and give one Picture Card to each group: camel, eraser, hammock, peanut, taxi, volcano.

  • Say: “It’s your turn! Blend the syllables to say the word. If your group has the matching Picture Card for the word you say, hold it up. Not every word you say will have a matching Picture Card. Let’s begin: cam-el (camel), swim-ming (swimming), e-ras-er (eraser), fit-ness (fitness), sleep-ing (sleeping), pea-nut (peanut), tax-i (taxi), run-ner (runner), vol-ca-no(volcano), ham-mock (hammock).”

• Materials include a Phonological Awareness printable resource for students. Several pages provide opportunities for syllabication work. For example, on the page titled Segment, Count Syllables, students listen to words and color in a circle for each syllable. Then they blend syllables and color the picture of the word they say. Examples are ladder, uniform, volleyball, and hammock.

Evaluation for 3.B.2
Materials provide systematic and direct (explicit) instruction, practice, and review to support the development of phonemic awareness skills, as outlined in the TEKS.

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 transition 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 transition to more complex manipulation practices such as adding, deleting, and substituting phonemes.

• The instructional materials for grade 1 provide a systematic sequence for introducing phonemic awareness activities that begins with identifying, blending, and segmenting phonemes and gradually transitioning to more complex manipulation practices such as adding, deleting, and substituting phonemes. In Modules 1-3, students work on isolating, blending, and segmenting phonemes. First, they start with blending onset-rime in Module 1, week 1. In Module 4, students learn to manipulate phonemes by adding and changing phonemes along with counting phonemes; in Modules 5-10, students work on earlier phoneme skills along with deleting phonemes.

• Materials provide a “Foundational Skills” chart that lists phonemic awareness activities in a systematic sequence. In Module 2, Lesson 7, students blend phonemes to say one-syllable words. Then in Module 4, Lesson 15, students segment spoken one-syllable words into individual phonemes and count phonemes in one-syllable words. By Module 8, Lesson 12, students change phonemes in words to say new words. In Module 11, Lesson 6, students add phonemes to words to say new words. The phonemic awareness continuum is structured from least complex to more complex. All phonemic awareness activities are aligned with the TEKS.

Materials include scripted direct (explicit) instruction for teaching phonemic awareness.

• Lesson plans include specific and precise terms, phrasing, and statements for teachers to use during instruction. For example, when isolating phonemes in Module 3, Lesson 8, the materials direct the teacher to “model how to isolate initial, medial vowel, and final phenomes in spoken one-syllable words.” Per the lesson script, the teacher says, “Here is the first card: boat. What is the first sound you hear in boat? (/b/).” After modeling, the teacher is directed to “call on children to choose a card and say the beginning sound and whether it belongs with the boat.” If not, the teacher begins a new pile. After the sort is complete, children say the shared beginning sound for each set of Picture Cards. The teacher follows a similar procedure to have children sort the cards for final sounds and then for medial vowel sounds.

• Also, when deleting phonemes in Module 6, Lesson 14, the materials direct the teacher to “model how to delete phonemes from words to say new words.” Per the lesson script, the teacher says, “I will take away a sound from a word and say a new word. Listen: slime. If I take away the /s/ from the beginning of slime, I say the new word lime. Ready to try? The word is blink. Take away /b/ from the beginning. What is the new word? (link).” The teacher is directed to “repeat the process with words such as /s/, steak (take); /l/, plop (pop); /s/, steam (team)” with students for guided practice.

• Module 11, Lesson 1 begins by asking the teacher to clearly state the phonemic awareness skill. Teachers are instructed to "Tell children that today they will be blending sounds to say words.” The teacher first models the activity and says, “Listen as I blend these sounds: /s/ /ā/ /v/, save. What word did I say? (save) That’s right!” The teacher displays Picture Cards boat, cup, farm, grapes, hive, log, peach, and slide and explains that some of the words children blend will be picture names. The Teacher’s Guide prompts the teacher to say, “If a word you say has a Picture Card match, point to the matching Picture Card. Ready? Blend these sounds: /b/ /ō/ /t/ (boat), /k/ /l/ /ou/ /d/ (cloud), /k/ /ŭ/ /p/ (cup).” The lesson provides a Correct & Redirect section that prompts the teacher to guide children who have trouble changing a phoneme to make a new word by segmenting the word before replacing the vowel sound. The teacher script for this section of the lesson states, “The word is coach. Let’s say all of the sounds in coach: /k/ /ō/ /ch/. Say them with me: /k/ /ō/ /ch/. Now we are going to replace /ō/ in the middle of coach with /ou/. I will say the sounds again, but with /ou/ in the middle. Listen: /k/ /ou/ /ch/. Blend the sounds and say the new word with me: /k/ /ou/ /ch/, couch.”

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.

• In Module 3, Lesson 1, the Phonological Awareness part of the lesson is on blending sounds where the script instructs the teacher to say the sounds “/f/ /i/ /sh/,” and the students must blend the sounds to say the word fish. Then, in the Phonics section of that same lesson, the script says, "Write red. Say the letter sounds, and blend the word: the teacher says ‘/r/ /ĕ/ /d/, red.’” The teacher continues this blending of sounds and saying the word for the words zip and quit. The students then go on to use Letter Cards to blend sounds into words.

• In Module 4, Lesson 3, the materials direct the teacher to “tell children that they will be reading words with the sounds for the letters ch and sh. First, they will practice identifying the beginning consonant sounds in words you say.” Per the lesson script, the teacher says, “I am going to say a word, and you will say the beginning sound. I will do the first one. Listen: shack. The beginning sound is /sh/. Listen again, and repeat after me: shack, /sh/. Now you try it. Tell me the beginning sound in words I say. Listen: chap (/ch/); cheek (/ch/); sheet (/sh/); chess (/ch/); shoe (/sh/); shark (/sh/); chip (/ch/). Later, in the corresponding phonics lesson, students practice decoding words such as cash, shed, and shrug.

• In Module 7, Lesson 3, the phonics lesson begins with a Spotlight on Sounds. The teacher says, “I am going to say two words. You will say if the end sounds are the same or different. Listen: big/log. Are the end sounds in big and log the same or different? (same).” The teacher continues with the words big/ridge, place/rice, badge/page, pack/cage, rug/bridge, and ledge/judge. Later, the teacher displays Letter Cards p, a, and ge. The teacher is scripted to ask the students to “say the letter names and sounds.” The teacher then says, ”The letters ge often stand for the /J/ sound.” Students sweep their hands below the letters to blend the letter sounds and read the word page. Later in the lesson, the teacher writes words such as judge, ridge, and badge. The teacher is prompted by the script to say, “I will point to a word. You read the word and tell me the spelling for the /g/ or /j/ sound.”

Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and cumulatively reinforce skills.

• Phonological awareness skills are reviewed at the end of each week. For example, in Module 2, Lesson 15, Foundational Skills, Word Work Warm Up, Phonological Awareness, the script says, “In Lessons 11–14, children practiced blending and isolating phonemes, segmenting phonemes, and identifying vowel sounds. Use the following to gauge children’s facility isolating initial and final phonemes.” The first activity is Isolate Phonemes. Children identify the beginning sounds in bug (/b/) and side (/s/). Then children identify the ending sounds in note (/t/) and bill (/l/). The script guides the teacher to use the phonological awareness printable to gauge which other phonological awareness tasks need reinforcement. The teacher asks students to blend, segment, and isolate phonemes in order to check for understanding.

• In Module 4, Lesson 1, students play “Simon Says.” The teacher states the directions from the lesson script, “I will be Simon. As I give directions, I will say the sounds in one of the words. You blend the sounds to say the word and follow the direction—but only if Simon says! Let’s do one together first: Simon says pat your /h/ /ĕ/ /d/. What did Simon say to pat? (head) Great! Simon says pat your head. Let’s do it together!” Then students continue playing the game with phrases such as, “Pretend that you can /f/ /l/ /ī/. (fly) Simon says stack some /k/ /ŭ/ /p/ /s/. (cups).”

• In Module 7, Lesson 12, students learn to blend phonemes to say one-syllable words. In this lesson, students use Picture Cards duck, stove, tank, and wheel. As a support for English learners, students choose a Picture Card and do a related pantomime for better understanding of the word.

Evaluation for 3.C.1
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.

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.

• In the Additional Resources section, there is a Foundational Skills Scope and Sequence, which consists of a chart by module and week with a column devoted to phonics. The lesson objectives are aligned to grade-level TEKS spelling patterns and progress from less to more complex phonics skills. Modules 1-4 teach consonants, short vowels, consonant digraphs (sh, ch, th, wh), trigraph -tch, and initial blends with s. Modules 5-7 teach initial blends with f and r, final blends, and long vowels (CV, VCe, and ea, ee, ai, ay). Modules 8-10 teach long vowels (oa, ow, oe, ie, igh, y), r- controlled vowels, two-syllable words (VCCV pattern), final blends ng, nk, consonant + le, and vowel pattern oo (oo, ou, ew, ue, and u). Modules 11-12 teach diphthongs.

• A Reading Alignment Chart is provided in which the foundational skills are listed by grade-level. The skills increase from least complex to more complex. There are a total of 12 modules. Students begin Module 1, week 1 with consonants m, s, t, b, and short a. In week 2, students learn n, d, p, c /k/ and practice short a with m, s, t, c /k/. The phonics progression continues from learning consonants and short vowels to learning digraphs in Module 3, week 2. In Module 4, week 2, students learn trigraph tch. In Module 7, students are learning CVCe with long u and CV, CVCe with long e.

Materials provide scripted direct (explicit) instruction for grade-level sound-spelling patterns.

• In Module 4, Lesson 14, Foundational Skills, Phonics: Review sh, th, st, the teacher tells the children they will be reading more words with sh, th, and st. In the I Do It part of the lesson, the teacher reviews the Sound/Spelling Card for sh, shark and reviews that the children know the consonant letters sh together can stand for the /sh/ sound at the beginning or the end of the word and how they also know the sound for sh is different from the separate sounds for s and h. In the We Do It part of the lesson, the teacher and children use Letter Cards and the Sound-By- Sound Blending routine by sliding Letter Cards over one at a time to say and blend sounds to decode words. In the You Do It section, the teacher writes the words wish, stack, them, with, shock, still, just, and last, then gives a clue to have the child find a word that describes the word and then read the word (clue example: /sh/, final sound).

• In Module 6, Lesson 7, after reviewing the Sound/Spelling Card for long a, acorn, and using the Sound-by-Sound Blending routine to blend and read long a words, students read and discuss, “How are the words alike? How are they different?” For the Project Display and Engage: Blend and Read section, students read the words on line 1, which contains the words cake, wade, wake, trade, and brake and then discuss the similarities and differences they notice, such as: same: long a vowel sound; VCe pattern; rhyming words cake/wake/brake, wade/trade or different: beginning, ending consonant sound; trade and brake have consonant blends.

• In Module 7, Lesson 11, Foundational Skills, Phonics: Long a (ai, ay), the teacher displays the Sound/Spelling Card for long a, acorn. The teacher writes the word cake and says, “One spelling for long a is the vowel a followed by a consonant and e.” The teacher then writes the word pain and says, “The letters ai are a vowel team and the first letter stands for the long sound and that the second letter is silent. The vowel team ai usually stands for the long a sound in the beginning or middle of words.” The teacher then writes the word stay and says, “The consonant y is sometimes a vowel and can be a part of a long vowel team as in this example ay found at the end of a word.”

Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and reinforce skills (through cumulative review).

• In Module 5 Lesson 1, the teacher introduces initial blends with l. To identify relationships between sounds and letters, the teacher uses Picture Cards (fly, sloth), printables (Manuscript Mm, Nn; Word List 13), and Know It, Show It. In this lesson, the teacher administers a pretest, and if children do well, they are assigned the Challenge Words. The Teacher’s Guide provides Dictation Sentences. These sentences are categorized in levels: Basic, Review, and Challenge. A Teacher Tip is provided at the end of the lesson stating, "Explain that if children know how to spell flap, they can spell clap, gap, lap, map, nap, rap, sap, and tap.”

• In Module 7, Lesson 1, Foundational Skills, Spelling: Long u; VCe Pattern, Word Sort, the teacher displays the Word Cards flute, wake, hike, and woke as column headings and explains to the children that they will read through other words and decide if they hear the same vowel sound in which of the heading words. The teacher models using the Word Card cute by saying cute has a long u sound like in the heading word flute and places the Word Card cute under flute. The children work together to repeat the sort process using the spelling Word Cards from Word List 19 which are: cute, Luke, tube, use, white, drive, joke, home, bake, and game.

• After learning to decode words with long o in Module 8, Lesson 2, Word Work, the decodable text instructional routine includes a Connect to Phonics section where students will "take turns using Letter Cards to build words with the oa or ow vowel team.” Students build words such as boat and cow.

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).

• Materials for grade 1 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). In Module 5, Lesson 9, Foundational Skills, Phonics Review, in the I Do It section, the teacher uses the continuous blending routine to review long i patterns i, i-e, ie, igh, y in one-syllable and multisyllabic words with Letters Cards to blend each syllable separately then connect the syllables with the words deny, retie, midnight, siren. In the We Do It section, the teacher writes a list of words and sentences for the children to discuss how the words are alike, different, and what spelling patterns are noticed. Children read the words chorally and, through volunteering, then identify the word/syllable with the long i sound. In the Option 1 section of You Do It, children take turns reading a long i word from the Blending Practice rows or sentences for the partner to write the word. In Option 2, children complete the Know It, Show It by reading the sentence, deciding the word that completes the sentence, and writing it in the blank space.

• Printables are included with the lessons such as Know It, Show It: Long u; VCe Pattern for Module 7, Lesson 2. For this Know It, Show It, students write each basic and review spelling word in the correct column. Students write the words from a word bank under the appropriate column for: words with long u, words with long a, words with long i, and words with long o. Words from the basic list include flute, cute, Luke, tube, use, woke, wake, hike, bake, and game. Words from the review list include white, drive, joke, and home.

• In Module 9, Lesson 6, students view Letter Cards after reviewing r-controlled vowels. The teacher follows the continuous blending routine to display the letters, sweep under the letters, and guide students to blend and read the words such as hers, shirt, and curb. Students spell words such as her, fern, girl, and stir as part of this lesson. In addition, students have an opportunity to read The Hurt Bird, which includes words such as chirp, hurt, and bird.

Evaluation for 3.C.2
Materials provide systematic and direct (explicit) instruction, practice, and review related to accurately identifying, reading, and writing regular and irregular high-frequency words.

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.

• In the Additional Resources section, there is a Foundational Skills Scope and Sequence, which consists of a chart by module and week with a column devoted to high-frequency words. This column lists the high-frequency words taught each week. Some of the high-frequency words covered in the grade 1 materials include reviews of kindergarten words such as go, is, like, see, the, this, am, and at. Eventually, more complex words are introduced such as could, know, some, there, were, and would. High-utility words are taught early in the year such as for, many, one, she, and said. The fully decodable high-frequency words from each week are indicated by the word Decodable.

• Many of the decodable high-frequency words introduced each week follow the sound-spelling patterns taught during those same weeks. For example, in Module 3, week 2, students learn the spelling pattern ck. High-frequency words that week include back and pick. In Module 4, week 1, students review the digraphs sh and ch. The decodable high-frequency words are much and such.

• In each module’s opening pages, starting with Module 1, the Developing Knowledge and Skills sections include a Words to Know section, which introduces the high-frequency words in each module. They do not note which words are decodable or irregular.

Materials provide scripted direct (explicit) instruction for decoding and encoding regular and irregular high-frequency words.

• In Module 1, Lesson 1, Foundational Skills, Word Work Warm-Up, High-Frequency Words, the teacher uses Word Cards: go, is, like, see, the, this, to, and we to model the High-Frequency Words routine.

  • See the Word: The first step is for the teacher to display the Word Card. Then, the teacher says the word, and the children repeat the word twice.

  • Say the Word: The second step is to have the children repeat the word chorally by repeating a sentence the teacher says with the word in it. The teacher has a sample sentence provided: “I will go to my desk. Where will you go?”

  • Spell the Word: The third step is for the teacher to point to the letters and have the children spell the word aloud. The teacher points out any familiar spelling patterns. The teacher script says, “Go begins with g. Who has a name that begins with G? Do you know any other words that begin with g?”

  • Write and Check the Word: In the fourth step, the teacher hides the word and the children write and reveal the word. Then the children check the word against the Word Card.

• In Module 2, Lesson 9, Foundational Skills, Word Work Warm-Up, High-Frequency Words, the teacher repeats the High-Frequency Words routine to review this week’s high-frequency words: answer, find, its, miss, old, round, then, until, what, and young. In the Raise the Roof activity, the teacher chooses one of this week’s high-frequency words and holds up the corresponding Word Card. The teacher tells the children that they will spell the word together. As each letter is said, the children will push their hands upward toward the ceiling to “raise the roof.” After spelling the word, the students say the word as a group. This is repeated for all of the week’s high- frequency words.

• In Module 3, Lesson 6, teachers focus on the Words to Know instructional routine to introduce the high-frequency words in each module. In step 4 of the routine, the teacher is directed to “hide the word, and have children use the Write and Reveal routine to write the word. Then have them check it against the Word Card.“ (e.g., “Now it’s your turn to spell the word go. Write go. Now show me. Look at the word go. Everyone say the letters. (g-o) Check to make sure you spelled the word g-o.”)

Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and cumulatively reinforce skills.

• In Module 1, Lesson 2, the teacher reviews and teaches the week’s high-frequency words: go, is, like, see, the, this, to, and we, and the decodable high-frequency words am and at. The children play a “Card Flip” game in small groups. The game cards have each of the high-frequency words from the review. The cards are laid face-up and the children take turns using the words in a sentence. The other children find the word and flip it over. At the end of the lesson, the children read the Start Right Reader titled “Sam at Bat” to practice high-frequency words such as a, had, he, and I.

• In Module 1, Lesson 12, students play "Guess the Word.” Children cut out cards for each of the high-frequency words from a printable. The teacher writes a dash on the board to represent each letter in the mystery word. Students take turns suggesting letters from their Word Cards, and the teacher writes the correctly called letters. The game continues until a child correctly guesses the word.

• In Module 4, Lesson 3, students practice reading high-frequency words such as here, play, and started. Then students work with a partner to write 2-3 short sentences with the high-frequency words that can easily be acted out. The partners act out their sentences for the rest of the class who try to guess which word the partners used. Finally, volunteers write their sentences on the board, and other students circle the high-frequency words.

• In Module 6, Lesson 14, students play “Fireworks,” after a review of high-frequency words from the week, which includes carry, draw, eight, and goes. The teacher writes a high-frequency word on the board. Students whisper-read it and then pretend to be exploding fireworks as they say the word loudly.

Materials provide a variety of activities 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).

• In Module 3, Lesson 6, students use Word Cards to review the high-frequency words all, down, four, from, her, now, saw, and went. They add these cards to their individual Word Rings after writing a sentence or drawing a picture about the word on the back of the card. In Reinforce Foundational Skills, students read the decodable text “Big, Big Bus.” In this book, students practice reading the same high-frequency words in context that were taught in the previous part of the lesson. The words four and her are highlighted in the book.

• In Module 4, Lesson 11, the lesson objective is to identify and read high-frequency words: after, before, does, don’t, grow, into, no, and wash. The directions tell the teacher to "point out the word don’t, and explain that it is a contraction, a short form of two words, do and not. Tell children that the vowel sound in the word do changes from /oo/ to /ō/ in the contraction don’t.” The student sees the word, says the word, spells the word, and writes and checks the word. The children add this week’s words to their individual Word Rings. The teacher then tells students to write a word on the front of each card and write a sentence or draw a picture about the word on the back. The children complete the Know It, Show It workbook page on which students choose the best high-frequency word to complete sentences such as “I (don’t, wash) know how she does it!”

• Teachers are encouraged to send home the printable versions of the Start Right Readers, such as “Rush, Chick,” so children can practice reading them with their families. The materials include word lists for speed drills with target words and previously learned words, and lessons include a Dictation routine for practicing targeted spelling patterns.

• Children practice reading and writing high-frequency words from the lesson in the Know It, Show It workbook pages. For example, in Module 8, Lesson 1, students learned the high-frequency words along, answer, children, going, mother, talk, upon, and woman. In the Know It, Show It work pages, they circle words that complete sentences, and all of the words from the lesson are included.

• Students can use Leveled Readers during all modules, such as “Boss is Hungry” or “Grandpa,” to practice reading high-frequency words like my, here, or see.

Evaluation for 3.C.3
Materials include systematic and direct (explicit) instruction, practice, and review related to using knowledge and application of syllabication to decode and encode one-syllable or multisyllabic words.

The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials include systematic and direct (explicit) instruction, practice, and review related to using knowledge and application of syllabication to decode and encode multisyllabic words.

Materials provide a systematic sequence for introducing grade-level syllable types and syllable division principles, as outlined in the TEKS. Materials provide scripted direct (explicit) instruction for applying knowledge of syllable types and syllable division principles to decode and encode one-syllable or multisyllabic 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 practice decoding and encoding one-syllable or multisyllabic words, using knowledge of syllable types and syllable division principles, 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 syllable types and syllable division principles, as outlined in the TEKS.

• The Foundational Skills Scope and Sequence shows that students begin with a focus on decoding and encoding single-syllable words starting with closed syllables such as cat and adding open syllables such as go, VCe syllables such as cake, vowel teams such as boat, and r-controlled syllables such as star as the modules progress.

• In the grade 1 scope and sequence, the syllable types are taught in order from easier to more complex skills starting with CV and CVe in Module 6, moving to r-controlled and VCCV in Module 8, consonant + le and vowel teams in Module 10, and CV and CVC in two syllable words in Module 12. Syllable division, which is not included in the first grade TEKS, is taught in the final module, Module 12.

Materials provide scripted direct (explicit) instruction for identifying syllable types and applying knowledge of syllable division principles to decode and encode multisyllabic words.

• In Module 3, Lesson 3, Phonics, Review Short e, i, o, u,

  • In the I Do It section, the teacher displays the Sound/Spelling Card one at a time for short e, i, o, and u and reviews the short sound and that the letter/sound can be found at the beginning or the middle of the word. The teacher writes words such as wet, win, jog, and hum, reads the word, points to the vowel, and says the vowel sound. The teacher’s instructions say, “Remind the children that when a word has one vowel, and it is followed by a consonant, the vowel usually has a short sound."

  • In the We Do It section, the teacher and students use Letter Cards and the Sound-By- Sound Blending routine to blend through and read the word one card/sound at a time for the words: ten, pit, and mop.

  • In the You Do It section, the children read words aloud from a list of words. 

• In Module 6, Lesson 1, the long vowel sounds are introduced for the first time in the program. In the I Do It section of the lesson, the teacher uses the long e Sound Card with a picture of an eagle to demonstrate the long vowel patterns.

  • The teacher says, “Eagle begins with the long e sound, /ē/. The letter e can stand for the sound /ē/ at the beginning or end of a word.”

  • Then the teacher writes we on the board. The program says, “Say the letter sounds, and blend the word: /w/ /ē/, we. Point to the long e in we and on the Sound/Spelling Card.”

  • Finally, the teacher says, “The word we has a consonant, w, followed by one vowel, e. When there is only one vowel in a word and it is at the end, it usually stands for the long vowel sound.”

  • Students are not told that this is an “open” syllable as opposed to a “closed” syllable.

• In the Module 8 Welcome to the Module pages, the Syllabication: VCCV instructional routine is introduced. The instructions provide a routine for explicitly teaching the whole class or small groups to decode two-syllable words with the VCCV syllable pattern. First, the teacher is directed to "display the cards in order. Leave a space between the two syllables" (rab-bit). As the teacher models with rabbit, the lesson script directs them to think out loud about their approach to syllabicating the word and segmenting the phonemes in each syllable: "I see two vowel spellings, so there are two syllables. I break the word between the two middle consonants. Blend each syllable with me: /r/ /ă/ /b/, rab; /b/ /i/ /t/, bit. Blend the two syllables and say the word with me: /răb/-/bit/, rabbit. When the two middle consonants are the same, we say the sound just once"). *Note that first grade TEKS do not include teaching syllable division patterns.

Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and cumulatively reinforce skills.

• In Modules 1-5, students review short vowel and consonant phonemes, so students work with closed syllables in these modules. For example, in Module 1, Lesson 11, students work to spell short a and i in CVC words by reading and writing each word in the correct column, either short a or short i.

• In Module 6, Lesson 6, students use spelling Word Cards with the long e spelling patterns for a word sort. Words include vowel team ea (read, eat, mean), open syllable words ending in e (she), and vowel team ee (tree, keep, see). Students sort their Word Cards and then read each column with the group. The children participate in a discussion about what they notice about each column, and then they repeat the word sort. Finally, they use the Long e Patterns page to complete a written word sort using a list of words with e, ea, and ee.

• In Module 9, Lesson 10, the lesson plans include dictation lists of single-syllable words to practice and reinforce students’ knowledge of r-controlled syllables er, ir, ur, (e.g., "Burn. The logs will burn in the fire; Swirl. She put a swirl of icing on the cake; Fern. A fern may grow under a tree.")

• In Module 12, students are introduced to 2-syllable words with CV and CVC syllables as well as multisyllabic words with suffixes and prefixes. In Module 12, Lesson 6, You Do It section, after the teacher explicitly teaches students how to break apart and read 2-syllable words, the teacher calls on children to read two randomly selected 2-syllable words from a list. Then, the children read a decodable reader that includes 2-syllable words with a variety of syllable types, such as under, over, slowly, and music.

Materials provide activities that encourage students to practice decoding and encoding multisyllabic words, using knowledge of syllable types and syllable division principles, in isolation (e.g., word lists) and in connected text that builds on previous instruction (e.g., within sentences or decodable texts).

• In Module 6, Lesson 2, the teacher asks students to read a line of words with long e, o, and i sounds that were first introduced in Lesson 1 of Module 6. Students read two lines of words with open syllables (e.g., be, hi, she, no, me) and the irregular word, do. They have a discussion about similarities and differences they notice. Then the students read two lines of closed syllable words (e.g., tuft, grid, trot, lug, notch). Later in the lesson, students read the decodable reader “Houses That Go Up” which contains the words practiced during the group activity.

• In Module 7, Lesson 1, students learn the long u sound-spelling patterns and review the long e patterns. They practice blending words with varied syllable types through a whole-group activity in which the teacher calls on students to read randomly selected CVe words such as Pete, flute, and theme, closed syllable words such as shut and luck, and the open syllable word Stu. Later, students complete a word sort in the workbook that includes long u and VCe patterns. Finally, students read the decodable book "Pete Duck" in which they practice reading words with several VCe words (Pete, cute, shake, froze) and many words with short vowel sounds.

• In Module 12, Lesson 5, students recognize the CV, CVC syllable types, and their vowel sounds, and use them to describe two-syllable words. Students blend and decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with the CV, CVC syllable types. This activity helps children divide each word and read one syllable at a time. During independent practice, the teacher displays the words cactus, music, focus, remix, hotel, shady, bonus, and tiny. The teacher points to two words in random order, and the child will read them.

Evaluation for 3.C.4
Materials connect phonics instruction to meaning by providing systematic and direct (explicit) instruction, practice, and review related to developing morphological awareness.

The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials connect phonics instruction to meaning by providing systematic and direct instruction, practice, and review of morphological awareness.

Materials provide a systematic sequence for introducing grade-level morphemes, as outlined in the TEKS. Materials provide direct (explicit) instruction for supporting recognition of common morphemes. Materials provide direct (explicit) instruction for using the meanings of morphemes (e.g., affixes and base words) to support decoding, encoding, and reading comprehension. 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 decode and encode words with morphemes 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 morphemes, as outlined in the TEKS.

• In the Foundational Skills Scope and Sequence, the skills students learn become progressively more complex. Inflection -s is covered in Module 1, inflection -es is in Module 4, inflection -ed is in Module 5, possessives with ‘s are in Module 6, suffixes -er and -est are in Module 10, along with contractions ‘re and ‘ve, while prefixes un- and re- are addressed in Module 12. Compound words are introduced in Module 5, week 2.

• In grade 1, there is a scope and sequence in which teachers explicitly focus on morphology toward the end of the modules. Students focus on prefixes such as -un and -re. Students also focus on suffixes such as -ful, -ly, and -y. Students work on inflections -ed and -ing using basic words such as flying, jumped, keeping, mailed, needed, seeing, showed, stayed, staying, and wishing.

Materials provide direct (explicit) instruction for supporting recognition of common morphemes.

• In Module 4, Lesson 2, students learn the endings -s and -es. The teacher writes bell on the board and reads it. The teacher then points to the word and the picture and says, “The word bell names one bell.” Then the teacher writes bells beneath bell and reads it. The teacher says, “I see the -s ending on the word bells, and in this word the -s has the /z/ sound.” The teacher “point(s) out that the -s ending can change a base word to mean ‘more than one.’” The teacher repeats this process with the word brush and brushes. The script says, “Listen as I name more than one brush: brushes. What sounds did I add?” (/ĕ/ /z/). The teacher writes brushes and reads the word. The script says, “Sometimes when we want a word to mean ‘more than one,’ we have to add the syllable /ĕz/, spelled -es.” The teacher then points out the word pairs: run/runs, hatch/hatches and has children identify the ending, the final sound(s), and the number of syllables in each inflected word: run/runs (-s, /z/, 1); hatch/hatches (-es, /ĕz/, 2).

• In Generative Vocabulary, Module 5, Lesson 4, the teacher introduces the suffixes -er and -est and writes the words happy and messy on the board. In the We Do It part of the lesson, the teacher script says, “Ask(s) volunteers to ‘Add the suffixes -er and -est to each word and explain what they mean.’ Students add the suffixes to messy and happy to make the words messier, messiest, happier, and happiest.” The teacher and students discuss the meaning of each new word they made and use each word in a sentence. In the I Do It part of the lesson, students either complete the Know It, Show It work page for this lesson or use index cards to write new words by adding the suffixes -er and -est to the words slow, bright, and sleepy. “Then partners take turns using the words in sentences and explaining what the words mean.”

• In Module 10, Lesson 3, students blend and decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with suffixes -er and -est. In the Spotlight on Sounds lesson, the teacher is directed to tell children that they will read words with suffixes, or word parts added to the end of words. First, they will say and count the syllables in words. “Listen as I say and clap each syllable in a word. The word is quicker. Say the syllables, and clap for each one: quick-er. How many times did I clap? (two) That’s right. There are two syllables in quicker. Say and clap quicker with me: quick-er. Now you try it. I’ll say a word, and you say and clap each syllable. Then tell how many syllables there are. Listen: shorter (short-er, 2); slow (slow, 1); kitten (kit-ten, 2); dark (dark, 1); sweeter (sweet-er, 2); thickest (thick-est, 2). Next, have children say the syllables in these words: weaker (weak-er); brighter (bright-er); kindest (kind-est); fast (fast); oldest (old-est).”

Materials provide direct (explicit) instruction for using the meanings of morphemes (e.g., affixes and base words) to support decoding, encoding, and reading comprehension.

• In Module 1, Lesson 9, Generative Vocabulary, Inflection -ed, the teacher projects the Display and Engage card with a story and words that follow the learning, and the teacher explains, per the script, “when -ed is added to the end of a verb or action word, it means it happened in the past. ‘I wished I had taken a longer trip this summer.’ Wished means something you had hoped to do, with -ed meaning in the past.” The teacher then reads aloud the story and example 1 from the Display and Engage card and models determining the meaning of jumped by thinking about its base word and ending. The teacher is prompted by the script to say, “Jumped is made from the verb jump and the ending -ed. Jump tells about something that is happening now. Jumped tells about something that happened in the past.” In the We Do It section, the children use the words walk, cook, learn, and talk in a sentence, and there is a discussion about whether it is something happening now or in the past. The scripted part of the lesson tells the teacher to ask volunteers to add -ed to the words and discuss if the new word is happening now or in the past. In the You Do It section, Option 1 is to have the children read the words fill, plant, turn, and clean from a card, add -ed to the word, say the new word, and use it in a sentence. In Option 2, children complete the Know It, Show It work page by reading the sentence and choosing the correct word (verb with or without -ed) to write in the blank.

• In Module 4, Lesson 9, Generative Vocabulary, students read compound words. The teacher reads an introduction to compound words: “Compound words are made up of two smaller words. The smaller words are clues to the meaning of the compound words.” The teacher discusses the example of bodysurf. The instructions say, “Point out that the word body can be combined with the word surf to make up the compound word bodysurf.” Then the teacher models how to determine the meaning of bodysurf: “I know that body means 'all the parts that make up a person,’ and surf means ‘to ride a wave.’ So I think bodysurf means to ride a wave using your body.” The teacher continues modeling with other example compound words: raincoat, playground, lighthouse, and beehive by discussing the word parts and how the smaller words contribute to the meaning of each compound word.

• In Module 5, Lesson 4, the suffixes -er and -est are introduced. During the I Do It section of the lesson, the teacher discusses the words busy, busier, and busiest with the students. The Teacher’s Guide states the teacher should “explain that when you add the suffix -er to busy, it changes it into a word that compares two things. It makes the word mean ‘more.’” Next, the teacher is to “repeat, explaining that the ending -est is used to compare three or more things. It makes the word mean ‘most.’“

• In Module 9, Lesson 9, students study the meanings of words with the prefix un-. The teacher is directed to “explain that when the prefix un- is added to the base word sturdy, it forms the new word unsturdy. Unsturdy means ‘not sturdy,’ or ‘the opposite of sturdy.’ The chair
  is unsturdy, or not strong.” Then, they are instructed to “model determining the meaning of unsafe by thinking about its word parts.” They do so by explaining how unsafe is made from the prefix un- and the base word safe. Because students know the meanings of these two word parts, they can tell that unsafe means ‘not safe’ or ‘the opposite of safe.’ Teachers model using unsafe in a sentence. They continue with unsafe, unkind, unfold, and unfair in the same way, using the prefix and base word to determine each word’s meaning.

• In Module 12, Lesson 1, the Teacher’s Guide directs the teacher to say, “Today they will learn about words with suffixes or special ending syllables.” The teacher also writes the suffixes -ful, -less, -ly, and -y. “Point to each one, read it, and have children repeat. A suffix is a syllable added to the end of a base word to make a new word with a new meaning.” Teachers may also use “Why Rabbits Have Short Tails” during the small group time to review or reinforce blending and decoding words with the suffixes -ful, -less, -ly, and -y.

Materials incorporate a variety of activities and resources for students to develop, practice, and cumulatively reinforce skills.

• In Module 1, Lesson 9, Generative Vocabulary, inflection -ed, children read words fill, plant, turn, clean from note cards and then add -ed to the end. Children then use the word in a sentence and draw a picture to illustrate the word. They then share their drawing with the class and explain the meaning of the word. In Module 1, Lesson 13, children read “Tin Cans Tip” from the Start Right Reader to review and reinforce blending.

• In Module 9, Lesson 9, students identify the prefix and base word in un-. The teacher is directed to “write the following words on the board or chart paper and read them aloud with children: unload, unplug, unable, unsure. Guide children in identifying the prefix and base word in each word. Underline the prefix un- in one color and the base words in a second color. Next, help children use the word parts to determine the meaning of each word. Remind them that they can use a dictionary to figure out the meanings of unfamiliar words. Together, use a print or digital dictionary to learn the meaning of unplug by looking up the base word plug. Finally, ask volunteers to use the words in phrases, for example: unload a truck, unplug a television, and unable to sleep.”

• In Module 12, Lesson 11, the teacher guides students to blend and decode regularly spelled base words with suffixes such as -er, -est. "Write the words fast, faster, fastest one under the other. Point to each word in turn as you discuss it. The word fast is a describing word. A car is fast.” The teacher uses Letter Cards such as a, e, h, i, l, l, n, n, o, r, s, t, t, and th to blend syllables with suffixes -er and -est. “Guide children to connect the syllables to pronounce the word: /thin/-/nĕst/, thinnest. Remember, when we put the syllables together, the sound for n is only pronounced once: thinnest.” Students practice reading the focus words in context by using Claws Swipe decodable.

Materials provide a variety of activities that encourage students to decode and encode words with morphemes in isolation (e.g., word lists) and in connected text that builds on previous instruction (e.g., within sentences or decodable texts).

• Students complete Know It, Show It pages by reading words such as spot, spotless, wonder, and wonderful with and without -less and -ful to determine which word makes sense in the sentence. The teacher projects the Display and Engage card or words such as opens, opened, needs, and needed, which are written on cards for the children to read and then add inflectional ending -s or -ed to then read the words such as opens and opened. The students then determine if the word means one or more than one or if the word means it is happening now or in the past.

• In the Vocabulary Interactive Practice for Module 10, students review the meaning of the prefix re-. Students review pictures of how adding the prefix re- + work makes a new word. They then read sentences using the words refill, retrain, and rewrite and choose the correct definition for each word.

• In Module 11, Lesson 6, Spelling, the teacher focuses instruction on compound words and determining their meaning. The students then complete a word sort with compound words. The first two columns of the word sort are the individual words in compound words (e.g., see, saw; sun, set), and the third column is the compound word created with the two individual words (seesaw, sunset). Students then complete a Know It, Show It work page on which they write compound words made from two shorter words. Some of the words are bathtub, backpack, raincoat, and himself.

• In Module 12, Lesson 4, during the Spotlight on Letters, students use the Continuous Blending routine to review the week's phonic elements: base words with suffixes -ful, -less, -ly, and -y and prefixes un- and re-. The teacher is directed to “model blending cheerful with Letter Cards (or display the written word). Repeat, having children blend neatly, rusty, painless, reheat, unplug. Help children read the words one syllable at a time, and have them give the new word meanings.”

Evaluation for 3.D.1
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.

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 decode texts with accuracy and automaticity.

Materials include embedded modeling and practice with word lists, decodable phrases/sentences, and decodable 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 texts in the lesson.

• In Module 1, Lesson 8, Foundational Skills, Fluency, Reading Rate, the teacher uses a decodable reader to model fluent reading and to provide guided and independent practice.
  • In the I Do It section, the teacher explains that “with practice, good readers learn to read at a smooth, regular rate, reading the words at about the same speed as when they are talking naturally. Explain that this pace helps both the reader and listeners understand what is happening in a story or other text.” The teacher is prompted by the script to “Ask the students to ‘follow along and pay attention to pace as I read ‘Tab Can Tap, Tap, Tap’ from the Start Right Reader.” The teacher is directed to “point out that punctuation can be a signal to pause at the end of each sentence.” The teacher uses the Choral Reading routine to reread the pages with the children.
  • In the We Do It section, the children follow along on page 48 as the teacher models the appropriate reading rate, paying attention to punctuation. Then children use the Partner Reading routine to read pages 49 and 50 to each other, and the teacher is directed to circulate and say, “Use a smooth regular rate to make the reading sound natural.”
  • In the You Do It section, the children use the Echo Reading routine to reread one of this week’s Start Right Reader stories. The teacher reminds children “to read at a rate that a listener can easily understand.”
• Echo Reading Routine:
  • “Listen as I read aloud one sentence or phrase at a time. I will point to the words as I read, modeling fluent reading.”

  • “Let’s pretend we’re in a cave and you all are my echo. So, when I pause, everyone repeats what I read at the same time. I think we were missing some voices that time. Let’s try again.”

• In Module 3, Lesson 3, Foundational Skills, Fluency, Reading Rate, the teacher uses a decodable reader to model fluent reading and to provide guided and independent practice.

  • In the I Do It section, the teacher is scripted to “remind children that good readers read at a smooth, regular rate, not too fast or too slow, saying the words at the same speed as when talking naturally.” Explain that this speed helps both readers and listeners understand what is being read. Ask children to follow along and to pay attention to your rate as you read Start Right Reader on page 13. The teacher should read “Run, Rex!” “very quickly and then very slowly,” and then ask students what they noticed about each reading. “Guide them to point out that in the first reading, they may have missed details because the reading was too fast. The second reading was so slow that it was hard to follow what was happening.” The script asks the teacher to read page 13 at an appropriate rate and say: “This speed is like speaking naturally, which makes the reading easy to follow and understand.”

  • In the We Do It section, the children follow along on page 14 as the teacher models an appropriate reading rate. Children use the Partner Reading routine to read pages 15 and 16 as they read to each other. The teacher is directed to circulate and say, “Use a smooth, regular rate to make your reading sound natural.”

  • In the You Do It section, the children use the Echo Reading routine to reread one of this week’s Start Right Reader stories and read at a rate listeners can easily understand.

• Partner Reading Routine:

  • Partner up - “I will assign numbers. Partner 1’s are closest to the calendar. Partner 2’s are closest to the clock. Partner 1’s hold up 1 finger. Partner 2’s hold up two fingers.”

  • Take turns reading - “Partner 1 reads first. Partner 2 listens and follows along. Read one page. Then switch so that the other partner reads the next page.”

  • Read the text again - “This time, Partner 2 read first.”

• In Module 4, Lesson 1, students learn the consonant digraph /ch/. At the end of Lesson 1 for the Independent Application, students read the decodable book “Chop! Chop! Mix. Mix.” Within this decodable lesson, the teacher is prompted to say, “List words with the /ch/ that you find in the story.”

• In Module 4, Lesson 2 includes a review of words with the consonant digraph ch. Students read “Chick Jam, Chick Dip.” For this story, there is a Make Minutes Count section, with a Connect to Phonics lesson. Students use Letter Cards to build these words: check, chin, inch.
  The Teacher’s Guide states to “have children blend and read each word. Then have them tell whether the /ch/ sound is the initial or final sound in the word.”

• While the teacher meets with small groups, the remaining students work independently in Literacy Centers to practice and reinforce the foundational skills learned earlier in the week. For example, in Module 7, after instruction on how to blend words with long u (CVe pattern), students choose an activity (from the Spelling and Handwriting printable) to practice writing this week’s spelling words in their best handwriting. The directions say, “Write each word. Circle the consonants.”

Evaluation for 4.1
Materials include developmentally appropriate diagnostic tools (e.g., formative and summative) and guidance for teachers to measure and monitor student progress.

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.

• The Screening Assessments document says to use these assessments early in the school year to obtain preliminary information about children’s performance, screen all children for intervention, and determine flexible groups for foundational skills instruction. This assessment includes the areas of letter identification, phoneme segmentation, nonsense word reading, word identification, and oral reading fluency.

• Diagnostic Assessments administer the diagnostic assessments as needed to follow up with children who score below expectation on screening assessments and obtain information to inform skills-based groups and targeted instruction. This assessment includes the areas of print concepts, letter-sound correspondence, and phonological awareness. The areas of phonological awareness assessed are: words in a sentence; syllables: blend, segment, delete; rhyming words: recognize, produce, categorize; onset and rime: blend, segment; isolate sounds: initial, final, medial; phonemes: identify, categorize, blend; and phonemes: segment, delete, add, substitute.

• The materials include an Interactive Early Literacy Assessment online during the beginning, middle, and end of the school year to gain an understanding of students’ strengths and weaknesses with foundational skills.

  • In the BOY assessment, students are given prompts such as:

    • “Choose the lowercase letter n.”

    • “Choose the letter that can stand for the sound you hear; /m/.”

    • “Choose the picture that has the same beginning sound as the word you hear; bear: rock, boat, car.”

  • In the EOY assessment, students are given prompts such as:

    • “In this task, you will hear a word. Choose the word you hear: bear.”

    • “In this task, you will hear a made up word. Choose the word you hear: hune.”

    • “In this task, you will change the sound at the beginning of the word. Then choose the picture that shows the new word.”

    • Then select the correct answer on the screen.

Materials provide clear, consistent directions for accurate administration of diagnostic tools.

• The Benchmark Evaluation Guide offers teacher-scripted guidance by providing an overview of the selection, assessing oral reading by having the child read aloud while they mark errors, prompting the child to retell the selection, reading aloud comprehension questions and marking responses, using results to determine the child’s guided reading level. Every Leveled Reader also has a corresponding Oral Reading Record so that teachers can monitor children’s reading as frequently as needed.

• The Diagnostic Assessment provides teacher-scripted directions. For example, in the Phonological Awareness Inventory in the area of identifying phonemes, the script says:

  • “Task: The child will listen to a target word’s initial phoneme and then listen to a set of words to identify words that have the same initial phoneme.”

  • “Model: Say: I am going to say a word. Listen carefully for the beginning sound: ball. Now I am going to say a group of words. Listen for the word that has the same beginning sound as ball. Listen carefully: fast, big, top. The word that has the same beginning sound as ball is big. The words ball and big begin with the same sound, /b/.”

  • “Sample: Then say: Listen to another word, fun. This time you tell me the word that has the same beginning sound as fun. Listen carefully: fast, read, jump. What word has the same beginning sound as fun? Pause and wait for the child to respond. (fast) You’re correct. The words fun and fast both begin with the same sound, /f/. If the child cannot identify the word, provide the correct answer, name the same beginning sound, and supply another group of words: hop: line, pat, hid (hid). Then say: Now listen to some more words. Tell me the word that has the same beginning sound as the first word.”

• In the Introduction and Test Overview document, there is an overview of all assessments (screening and diagnostic) and general guidelines for administering the assessments. Screening assessments consist of Kindergarten–Grade 1: Letter Identification; Kindergarten–Grade 1: Phoneme Segmentation; Grade 1: Nonsense-Word Reading; Grade 1: Word Identification; Grade 1: Oral Reading Fluency.

• Administering and Scoring the Assessments provide general guidelines as well as specifications for administering Diagnostic Assessments. General guidelines include finding a quiet place to test, being familiar with the test directions and items, and administering a timed section. General directions explicitly state that the teacher should duplicate a copy of the Recording Form, explain to the student that the teacher will take notes during the assessment, and they will not provide any help with test items. During the letter-sound correspondence assessment, the guide instructs the teacher to point to individual letters, and the student names the letter. The teacher asks, “What letter is this?” The guide instructs the teacher to wait five seconds and then point to the next letter if the student does not know the word. As additional notes for the teacher, the guide provides the tip that states, “You may point to the letter, or use index cards or an index card with a ‘window’ cut in it to show one letter at a time.”

• In the Phonological Awareness Inventory section, the Administering and Scoring the Assessment guide states the following procedures:

  • Directions - The teacher will follow the Task, Model, and Sample script on each form.

  • Recording - On Administering and Recording Form page 6, indicate correct responses with ✓. If a student gives an incorrect sound, record the sound the student gave. If a student tells you the name of the letter, remind him or her that you want to know the sound. Write 0 if the student does not respond.

  • Discontinue - Discontinue testing if a student is unable to identify any of the first three word sounds or if the student becomes frustrated.

  • Scoring - Score one point for each correct response. There is only one correct response for each item, and the student must give all three or four phonemes.

  • Interpretation - Use the following chart to help assess students’ performance.

Materials include data-management tools for tracking individual and whole-class student progress.

• The Summary Recording for the Screening Assessment is provided for each grade-level. Use this form to gather the scores from each assessment type and from the subtests of the assessments and compare the student’s progress with curriculum-based goals. You can also use this form to identify student trends in the classroom and modify instruction. For example, teachers can track fluency scores, phonological awareness scores, knowledge of high-frequency words, phonics, and comprehension scores. Depending on students’ individual scores, teachers mark down “Move Ahead” or “Needs Reteaching” to guide their instructional practice. These forms can also help identify student trends in the classroom to modify instruction.

• The Screening Guide provides individual student record forms for the areas or letter identification and phoneme segmentation. In addition, the materials contain an electronic Growth Report where teachers can view tracking for the whole class or for individual students. The first section shows the Current Proficiency by Lexile for all the students in the class. The next section of the report has a bar graph that shows the Change in Lexile from Previous Test by individual students. Lastly, the report shows a table with the State Forecasted Proficiency.

Evaluation for 4.2
Materials include integrated progress monitoring tools, with specific guidance on frequency of use.

The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials include integrated progress monitoring tools, with specific guidance on frequency of use.

Materials include 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.

Evidence includes but is not limited to:

Materials include progress monitoring tools that systematically and accurately measure student’s acquisition of grade-level skills.

• The Progress-Monitoring Assessments Overview states that for “grade 1, these assessments provide checks on students’ ability to decode words and read high-frequency words and sentences and culminate with Oral Reading Fluency passages.” For example, in Form 1 in Sessions 121–232 Progress-Monitoring Assessments, Forms 1-19, students read ten decodable words, such as fan, Dan, fad, nap, pad, dad, tan, pan, sat, and Nan, with the goal of reading 8 out of the 10 words.

• At the beginning of each module, there is a section on Assessment and Progress Monitoring. The understanding of each week’s instruction can be monitored through tools such as running records and 1:1 observations.

• The high-frequency words for the Screening Assessment Form include and, be, help, with, you, and play, with the goal of reading 5 out of the 6 words. The teacher tells the students that they have learned those words, then points to the words, and has the students read them. In Sentence Reading, the student looks at the sentence and reads the words.

• Progress-Monitoring Assessments contain 415 forms that may be used according to the progress of each student.

• In the Progress Monitor Assessments Forms 1-19, three reading sentences are included with a goal of reading 13 of the 15 words to be read for all three sentences. An example of one of the sentences is, Nan and Dan can help you.

Materials include specific guidance on determining frequency of progress monitoring based on students’ strengths and needs.

• In the Intervention Assessments document, it states: “The Progress-Monitoring Assessments provide biweekly checks on students’ progress. These oral reading tests are administered individually and assess students’ growth in pre-reading/reading skills throughout the school year.” The students are given a passage that has up to 120 words to read in one minute. The students read as the teacher times the reading and marks where the student stopped.

• In the Assessment and Differentiation document, it states: “Progress-Monitoring Assessments: Administer these three- to five-minute oral assessments to individuals approximately every two weeks to: measure growth in pre-reading skills, identify challenging areas for reteaching, review, and extra practice, provide checks on children’s beginning reading skills, monitor progress of children who are receiving intervention, and help determine when children are ready to exit intervention.” The progress monitoring forms include assessment sections that present material from least complex to most complex. The Teacher’s Guide suggests administering each assessment orally.

• The Guiding Principle and Strategies document states, “Weekly and Module Assessments: Weekly Assessments 1 per week; 36 total and Module Assessments: 1 per module.”

Evaluation for 4.3
Materials include guidance for teachers to analyze and respond to data from diagnostic tools.

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 responses 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.

• The Administering and Scoring document has a section on adjusting instruction based on the outcome of the assessment: “Analyze a student’s errors and self-corrections in each section to identify problem areas and a starting point for reteaching, review, and extra practice. For decoding errors, provide additional word-blending activities using word lists that feature target phonics skills. The goal here is for the student to be able to read approximately one word per second. For errors in recognizing high-frequency words, supply brief cumulative lists (approximately ten words) of high-frequency words to read and reread with increasing speed and accuracy. For improving rate, provide texts at a student’s independent reading level for repeated or coached readings.”

• Summary Recording Forms correspond to the Progress Monitoring Assessments. The Summary Recording Forms document states: “A Summary Recording Form is provided for each grade- level. Use this form to gather the scores from each assessment type and from the subtests of the assessments and to compare the student’s progress with curriculum-based goals. You can also use this form to identify student trends in the classroom and to modify instruction.” A Summary Recording Form for grade 1 provides space to document data from Progress Summary Assessments, Forms 1-19. On this form, teachers record the number of correct responses for each category out of the total number of responses as well as words correct per minute for Forms 11-19. Then teachers check the appropriate “student action,” either “move ahead” or “needs reteaching” for the specific progress monitoring assessment.

• The materials include a data analysis section that supports the teacher’s analysis. For example, the Module Assessments Guide provides the following suggested steps for teachers to follow or questions to ask themselves when analyzing student data:

  • Duplicate the Answer Key.

  • Circle the question numbers answered incorrectly for each assessment and compare the corresponding skills indicated.

  • Look for patterns among the errors to help you determine which skills need reteaching and more practice.

Materials tools provide teachers with guidance on how to plan and differentiate instruction based on student data.

• The materials include a Recommendations for Data-Driven Instruction which "provide(s) an overview and detailed recommendations for data-driven intervention.” For instance, one of the recommendations for students who need more practice in “Phoneme Segmentation” is to “administer the corresponding lessons in Foundational Skills and Word Study Studio.”

• For students who do not meet the oral reading fluency goal, the materials direct the teacher to “administer the Screening Assessments: Word Identification tests to determine whether they would benefit from additional high-frequency word instruction, letter-sound instruction, or testing.”

• The Recommendations for Data-Driven Instruction document provides instructional suggestions and additional assessments if the student scores below a specified score in the Screening Assessment. For example, if a student scores below the goal on Screening Assessment for Nonsense Word Reading then:

  1. IDENTIFY STUDENT NEEDS. Administer Diagnostic Assessment: Letter-Sound Correspondence to identify missing skills and knowledge about phonic elements.

  2. TEACH TO THE NEED. Identify the phonic elements the student struggled with and administer those lessons in Foundational Skills and Word Study Studio, Sessions 56–230.

  3. SCAFFOLD THE CORE. Provide scaffolded support, which may include small group work and/or strategic intervention, to help students access core instruction.

  4. MONITOR PROGRESS with Progress-Monitoring Assessments and core assessments.

• The report tab on the teacher dashboard gives the teacher access to the following reports:

  • Assessment Report, which highlights the standards on the test that students struggled with most and allows the teacher to review responses to each item. This also allows teachers to automatically create groups based on students’ scores, so that the teacher can target the areas of greatest need.

  • Standard Report, which has data to show how students are responding to the instruction. It shows where there are continued areas of need, and what resources the teacher can use for additional differentiation support.

  • Growth Report, which shows growth by standards as students are given additional instruction.

Materials include a variety of resources that align to data, allowing teachers to plan different activities in response to student data.

• Grade 1 provides Blend-It Books, which are resources used any time a child needs extra practice reading words with a specific pattern. Teachers may use these to informally assess children’s understanding of a new skill by having them read a book aloud. The Teacher’s Guide also provides a Link to Small-Group Instruction section, which the teacher may use to help reinforce foundational skills.

• Additionally, the Teacher’s Guide provides an Options for differentiation section that guides teachers to meet with guided reading groups or differentiate instruction based on student need. The teacher may use Just Right books that are used to provide instruction at the student’s current reading level and are based on skill, topic, or genre that the student may need to review. The materials also include Take and Teach Lessons that provide instruction based on the need.

• As a digital, foundational reading program, iRead provides daily practice, as well as acceleration for children who are ready and early intervention for those at risk. iRead is a supplemental program to use in tandem with the K–2 Into Reading classroom.

• Foundational Skills and Word Study Studio is a resource to help teachers plan activities based on student needs. It is broken into sessions that follow this pattern: teach/model, guided practice/apply. Session 1 is titled Print Concepts: What Is a Word? Starting with Session 5, teachers can take students through lessons with every letter of the alphabet, starting with Letter Knowledge: Letter Name Bb.

• Leveled Readers are included for every grade-level based on reading levels. Teachers use the Benchmark Passages/Books and Running Records (Levels aa-J) to place students in leveled readers. The teacher first selects a passage or book that best approximates a student's reading level. Then they use the running records that accompany each passage or book to score a student's reading behavior.

Evaluation for 5.1
Materials include guidance, scaffolds, supports, and extensions that maximize student learning potential.

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 and enrichment for all learners. 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.

• The Guiding Principles and Strategies document has instructional focus suggestions and ways to support the lessons in regard to meeting the needs of the special population. The special populations mentioned are children who may be unmotivated, children with learning disabilities, and children with dyslexia. “Many districts use a multi-tiered system of support to ensure timely, targeted interventions for children who struggle. However, the first requirement for all children, regardless of their abilities or disabilities, is an evidence-based, engaging core curriculum, with differentiation in pacing and grouping strategies. While children with challenges may require different levels of intervention throughout the school day, ensure all children have opportunities to: participate in whole-class discussions and projects, demonstrate standards-based learning via multiple assessment measures, strive for learning goals, and receive instruction based on achievement data.”

• In each lesson of each module, there is a section on the page titled Reading Skill and Strategy Support. The suggestions provide ways to teach a skill or strategy that children have not yet mastered or suggestions on how to connect to the day’s whole-group skill lesson with scaffolded support to reinforce learning. Teachers can also reinforce the skill from whole-group Reading Workshop lessons using the Scaffold and Extend options in the Teacher’s Guide.

• Materials provide additional lessons for targeted instruction that include differentiated instructional approaches. For example, the small group instruction boxes at the bottom of the Foundational Skills sections provide suggestions for differentiating instruction based on student responses. For example, in Module 4, Lesson 4, teachers reinforce previous learning by practicing building words with consonants g and k. The lesson script reads as follows, “SUPPORT: unscramble display Letter Cards t, k, and i, and review the letters and sounds. Ask the group to unscramble the letters to build the word kit. Repeat with letters g, s, a (gas); g, i, p (pig); etc.”

• Know It, Show It pages can also be used for additional practice to reinforce skills. The Short i page is a review of the short i sound. Students write the missing i in the blank of words, such as him, it, and rip. Then, students read the word.

Materials provide targeted instruction and activities to accelerate learning for students who have achieved grade-level mastery of foundational phonics skills.

• The Guiding Principles and Strategies document gives a definition of accelerated learners and explains ways to provide accelerated learning. “Simply put, accelerated learners are children whose skills are above grade-level. They haven’t necessarily been identified as ‘gifted,’ but they’re clearly ready for accelerated learning experiences, such as more challenging books, opportunities to read to their peers, and leadership roles in group projects.” It goes on to say, “The daily options for differentiation in Into Reading provide support for above-level learners who are ready for more through: Targeted Skill Practice to Extend; Little Books; iRead (adaptive software); Inquiry and Research Projects along with flexible grouping to allow children who have mastered skills to engage in different options. As a digital, foundation reading program, iRead provides daily practice and acceleration for children who are ready.”

• The Teacher’s Guide includes a Teacher Tip section that provides suggestions for teachers on how to challenge students who have mastered the skill, such as: “Challenge children to look for multisyllabic words that have long vowel team syllable types as they read texts in other subjects. Write the words on paper strips, and have the child who finds the word divide it into syllables. Use the strips to make a word wall.”

• The Scaffold and Extend section includes Book Club discussion guides. For example, discussion Guide 10, The Girl Who Could Dance In Outer Space, has questions for five sessions. In this book, students review r-controlled vowels as they read ar words such as star and scare and ir words such as girl and whirl. At the end of each meeting, students agree on what pages they will read before they meet again and set the next meeting date.

• There is also an Options for Differentiation section in the teacher materials. For example, in Module 1, students read “Ralph Tells a Story,” and participate in a student-led book club. Students use the discussion guide to facilitate discussions after each chapter and have a variety of group projects to choose from at the conclusion of the book. This activity is for students who need acceleration.

• In Module 4, Lesson 1, students practice reading long a words such as game and make through the optional reader’s theater play, “A Game of Tag.” Students are instructed to write in missing parts to make their play unique.

Materials provide enrichment activities for all levels of learners.

• iRead Experience (digital learning) is a supplemental program for providing enrichment activities for all learners. The first time children log on, they will be taken to the iRead Screener. Once children have completed the screener, they are placed at the appropriate place in the Instructional Software Scope and Sequence–based on their screener results. As children progress through the Instructional Software series and topics, they will be brought back to where they left off after their last session.

• The Teacher Tip circles included in the Teacher’s Guide give some additional knowledge and teaching suggestions. For example, the Teacher Tip for Module 5, Lesson 9 suggests allowing students to “be the teacher! After a few rounds of Raise the Roof, have volunteers choose each word for the group to spell aloud. The ‘teacher’ can also give the group different movements to make as they spell.” For the Phonological Practice Independent Activity, teachers enrich learning by having "partners choose and write three compound words from the Blend and Read lines then list the two words that make up each compound. Have partners check their spelling against the Blend and Read lines."

• The teacher manual has suggestions for Literacy Centers (e.g. word sorts, word building, read- alouds, etc.) in which students apply their phonics knowledge independently. In Module 8, students create “Silly Word Stories” using some or all of the high-frequency words for that week.

Evaluation for 5.2
Materials include a variety of instructional methods that appeal to a variety of learning interests and needs.

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.

• The materials for grade 1 include a variety of developmentally appropriate instructional approaches to engage students in mastery of the content. Lessons such as Module 6, Lesson 12, Phonological Awareness are presented in a game format. After a lesson on blending sounds to say words, students listen to sounds the teacher says and blend the sounds together to say a word. Then they use Picture Cards to help find the “mystery word.” The materials instruct the teacher to “display Picture Cards hoe, mule, peas, vest, vine, and whale on the chalkboard ledge, and tell children that they will play a game.” The teacher says sentences, leaving out one word in each. The teacher “will only say the sounds. Children will blend the sounds to say the mystery word and complete the sentence.”

• Lessons in grade 1 include opportunities for students to practice phonics in engaging ways. After a letter and sound are introduced, such as in Module 1, Lesson 6, consonants n, d, and p are reviewed. After the teachers demonstrate the sounds for each and display Picture Cards, the students can watch Articulation Videos with a close-up of a mouth and a clear pronunciation of each letter sound.

• In Module 1, Lesson 7, students play a game called “Word-O.” Students cover high-frequency words such as man, was, and my as the teacher reads the words. This game is played after a whole group review of the week’s high-frequency words.

• In Module 9, Lesson 7, students Letter Cards to build a word that has the /ûr/ sound spelled er, ir, or ur. The other partner then uses one letter in the word to start a new word. For example, one partner might build chirp, and the next might use the ch to build churn. Have partners read all the words they build. This game is played after a whole group phonics lesson review on r-controlled vowels.

• The materials provide a section in every module titled Literacy Centers. In this section, the suggested centers are:

  • Reading Corner, where students may engage in activities that target the lesson objective. These activities may include singing a song, writing a book review, or pretending to be a teacher.

  • Word Work, where students may play games such as “Go Fish” using VCe words, use syllable squares, or play a memory game to review multiple-meaning words.

  • Writing Center, where students may practice handwriting or have time to write about a specific topic.

  • Creativity Corner, where students may engage in activities such as creating a mural or being part of a dramatic play.

Materials support a variety of instructional settings (e.g., whole group, small group, one-on-one).

• The materials for grade 1 provide phonics lessons that can be used for either whole group, small group, or one-on-one instructional settings. For example, in the I Do sections, the teacher shares the Sound/Letter/Picture Card for the letter(s) being learned in that lesson, and the students echo what the teacher says. In the We Do section, the students review the sound, picture, and letter(s) of the day with the teacher guiding them through the correct answers. Phonics lessons end with independent practice opportunities that are often suggested for partners.

• The lessons found within Foundational Skills of the Teacher’s Guide may be used for small groups or one-on-one and include activities that may be used for whole group lessons as well. The Word Work Literacy Center includes activities for small group or one-on-one lessons. Small group opportunities include activities such as in Module 2, Lesson 1, Reinforce Foundational Skills, where teachers use “Cab! Cab!” during small group time to review or reinforce blending and decoding words with consonants g and k.

• In Module 5, Lesson 11 for the Phonics lesson on Final Blends, students read words that end with consonant blends. In the introduction of this lesson, the materials instruct the teacher to model to the whole group how to "build and blend a word" and then "add a sound to make a new word.” The materials state for the teacher to display the Picture Card ant and to “name the picture, and say the sounds: /ă/ /n/ /t/,” explaining that they “hear two consonants at the end of ant, /n/ /t/.” After the whole-group lesson, students work with a partner to sort Word Cards with final consonant blends during the spelling portion of the lesson. Finally, students complete a Know It, Show It work page on which they sort words with final consonant blends.

• The materials also provide options for independent and collaborative work, such as Literacy Centers and myBook. One Literacy Center suggests that students can write silly sentences with words such as won and read. The students read the high-frequency words, then read the sentences they have created.

Evaluation for 5.3
Materials include supports for Emergent Bilinguals to meet grade-level learning expectations.

The materials meet the criteria for this indicator. Materials include support for English learners 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).

• The first grade materials include linguistic accommodations (communicated, sequenced, and scaffolded) commensurate with various levels of English language proficiency as defined by the ELPS. For example, the English Learner Support: Facilitate Language Connections in Module 3, Lesson 4 says: “ALL LEVELS Speakers of Hmong, Cantonese, Korean, and Khmer may have trouble hearing and producing /g/. Play the Articulation Video for /g/. Then have children practice the sound. Say words that begin with /g/ for children to repeat: girl, goat, go, give. Finally, say word pairs that begin with /g/ and /k/. Have children repeat the word with /g/: cave/gave; get/cat.”

• In Module 7, Lesson 3, the Teacher’s Guide includes the suggestion to Facilitate Language Connections for all levels of English language proficiency. The lesson script reads as follows: "Speakers of Spanish, Vietnamese, Hmong, Cantonese, and Korean may have difficulty pronouncing the g /j/ (soft g) sound. Say /j/ several times while children focus on your mouth. Then play the Articulation Video for /j/. Have children practice the sound in isolation and then have them repeat these words after you: cage, bridge, edge, ledge, page, huge, fudge.”

• In Module 8, Lesson 7 for the Long i (igh, y), a section titled English Learner Support: Build Vocabulary provides beginning, intermediate, and advanced/advanced high support. For beginning English language support, the information states for the teacher to "reinforce the meaning of the Blend and Read words with simple sentences and gestures: I turn on the light. I sigh like this. (Demonstrate a sigh.) A bird can fly. (Flap arms.)" Guidance for intermediate English language support: “Read groan and grown in Blend and Read line 3. Explain that some words sound the same but have different spellings and meanings. Discuss the meanings." Guidance for advanced/advanced high English language support: “Help children find the base words in lightning, frighten, and mighty. Define the words and relate the base words to the meanings.”

Materials encourage strategic use of students’ first language as a means to linguistic, affective, cognitive, and academic development in English.

• In Module 6, Lesson 6, “for Long a (VCe), the ENGLISH LEARNER SUPPORT: Facilitate Language Connections” tells the teacher: “Some English learners may need support pronouncing long a. Play the Articulation Video for /ā/. Have children practice the sound in isolation. Then say these pairs of words as children listen: cane/can, vane/van, mane/man. Repeat the word pairs, one at a time. Ask children to repeat the word in each pair that has the long a vowel sound. Use each word in an oral sentence to reinforce word meaning.”

• The materials have a document titled Language Differences that helps teachers understand possible challenges and supports the transfer of knowledge to English. The languages covered are Spanish, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Filipino, Hmong, and Korean. There is a page with columns devoted to the writing system, differences, and transfer of each of the languages when thinking of the student learning English. There are pages for initial consonants, medial consonants, final consonants, and vowels comparing that letter/sound versus the native language. One example is using the /f/ sound in fan. In Spanish, Cantonese, or Mandarin, there is little difficulty for English /f/. In Vietnamese, /f/ makes the /b/ sound like ban, while in Filipino, Hmong, and Korean, the /f/ sound in fan makes the /p/ sound in pan. Understanding these differences in sounds will help teachers in transferring linguistic skills. Teachers use this resource to become familiar with how each language aligns with or differs from English in the following areas:

  • Alphabet (Writing System)

  • Phonological Features (Consonant and Vowel Sounds)

  • Grammatical Features (Parts of Speech, Verb Tenses, Sentence Structure, and Syntax)

• Additionally, on the Dashboard under Teacher Corner, there are teacher videos on how to differentiate to support English language learners. The videos give step-by-step directions from a classroom teacher on best practices when working with English language learners, such as using the first language to build on the second language using cognates.

• The Guiding Principles and Strategies handbook can be used across all grade-levels. For example, the handbook includes information and guidance on addressing language differences to support teachers. In one part of the handbook, it says: “Understanding similarities and differences between a child’s first language and English can help you tailor your instruction to meet children’s individual needs.” The Helpful Similarities state: “Learning cognates is one way to draw on a shared element to help strengthen children’s vocabulary. Cognates are words that are written and pronounced similarly between languages, like attention in English and atencíon in Spanish. Shared letter-sound correspondences (e.g., the letter d makes the sound /d/ in both Spanish and English) are another example of a shared element that can help children as they learn to read and write.”