Kindergarten Report Overview

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

The materials include systematic and explicit instruction in letter names and their corresponding sounds. The materials include a clearly defined sequence for explicit instruction in letter formation. The materials do not provide teacher guidance on providing corrective feedback to students when students make mistakes or do not understand how to form the letters correctly.

The materials include a scope and sequence delineating the order in which phonological and phonemic awareness skills should be taught. A hierarchy of skills moves from phonological awareness to isolating, blending, and segmenting, and then to manipulation. Throughout the materials, there is some explicit instruction in phonemic awareness with repeated teacher modeling, but the materials include minimal guidance for corrective feedback in phonemic awareness. The lessons include support on pronouncing each phoneme, but directions to the teacher for demonstrating how to pronounce each phoneme based on mouth formation do not exist. The materials include a Placement Test and End-of-Unit Assessments that assess students’ phonemic awareness skills.

The materials do not contain elements of instruction that are based on the three-cueing system. The materials include systematic and explicit in phonics instruction. The materials include a phonics scope and sequence that includes common phonics generalizations and high-utility patterns; however, the scope and sequence progresses through skills quickly and includes work with word families. The materials include a Researched Based-Principles and Citations document that outlines the research used for the scope and sequence of instruction. The lessons include explicit instruction, modeling, practice, and repetition. However, the materials do not include opportunities or guidance for the teacher to give corrective feedback. The materials include opportunities to practice decoding and encoding words with common and newly taught sound and spelling patterns. Students have opportunities to decode words and sentences and encode during Dictation practice in sensory bins and on a whiteboard. The materials include decodable texts that align with the weekly phonics skill. Materials include assessment opportunities for phonics that occur during the Placement Test at the beginning and end of the year, as well as the End-of-Unit Assessments. There are weekly dictation activities in Kindergarten beginning in Week 15 that serve as informal data, but there are no regular assessment opportunities for decoding. In addition, there is minimal evidence of guidance for the teacher on what to do with the data once it is collected to help students progress toward mastery in phonics.

Throughout Kindergarten, students learn new high-frequency words every week beginning in Week 7, with time built-in to review previously taught words. Students learn two to three new words per week with explicit instruction and modeling; however, materials do not consistently include teacher modeling of the spelling and reading of high-frequency words that include connecting the phonemes to the graphemes. Throughout the materials, there are opportunities for students to practice and gain decoding and encoding automaticity of high-frequency words. The materials include limited explicit instruction in syllable types. Word analysis lessons include plural nouns towards the end of the Kindergarten year. The materials include End-of-Unit Assessments that measure student progress in word recognition, but there is no evidence of word analysis assessment.