What is Excellent Foundational Skills Instruction?

Estimated Time: 3 hours

  • Explore foundational skills instruction in the context of a comprehensive model for how students learn to read, comprehend, and understand what is happening in the brain as students learn to read

  • Define the four key components of reading foundational skills: print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition, and fluency

  • Define the four principles of effective foundational skills instruction: systematic instruction, explicit instruction, student practice, and assessment and differentiation

  • Describe and apply the key criteria for excellence in reading foundational skills instruction that provide opportunity for all children to learn to read and meet grade-level expectations

Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

Estimated Time: 3 hours

  • Define phonological and phonemic awareness and other related terms and explain how concepts are related

  • Explain the reading research and cognitive models that support explicit and systematic phonological and phonemic awareness instruction in grades Pre-K–2 and beyond

  • Describe best practices for teaching and assessing phonological and phonemic awareness and apply knowledge to support equity in literacy instruction and accelerate student learning

Phonics and Word Recognition

Estimated Time: 3 hours

  • Define phonics, the alphabetic principle, word recognition, and other related concepts, and explain how they are related

  • Explain the reading research and cognitive models that support explicit and systematic phonics and word recognition instruction in grades K-2 and beyond

  • Describe best practices for teaching and assessing phonics and word recognition and apply knowledge to support equity in literacy instruction and accelerate student learning

Decoding, Fluency, and Connected Text

Estimated Time: 3 hours

  • Define key concepts related to decoding, fluency, and connected text, and explain how concepts are related

  • Explain the research that supports the links between decoding, fluency, and reading comprehension; the focus of fluency in the early grades; and the importance of application to decoding in connected text

  • Describe best practices for teaching and assessing fluency aligned to the key tenets of excellent reading foundational skills instruction and apply knowledge to support equity in literacy instruction and accelerate student learning

The Foundational Skills Block

Estimated Time: 2 hours

  • Synthesize learning from across the reading foundational skills modules, including why systematic, explicit instruction is essential for promoting equity in early literacy

  • Describe, analyze, and apply best practices for structuring foundational skills block and for assessing foundational skills