Kindergarten Report Overview

The Units of Study materials do not meet the expectations for text quality and complexity and alignment to the expectations of the standards. The majority of anchor/core texts do not have the appropriate level of complexity for the grade according to quantitative and qualitative analysis and relationship to their associated student task. Additionally, anchor/core texts do not progress in complexity to support students in progressing towards reading at grade level. 

Materials do not include text-dependent questions and tasks that support students in making meaning of the core understandings of the text being studied. Rather, materials focus on including strategy questions and cueing, including meaning, syntax, and visual cues. Questions and tasks do not support students in text-based discussions or writing and do not align to grade-level standards. Speaking and listening opportunities are not varied or text-based. The majority of discussions occur in teacher-led whole group or turn and talk. 

Materials provide multiple opportunities across the school year for students to learn, practice, and apply different genres/modes/types of writing and process writing. However, the genres are not evenly distributed across the year and there is a lack of on-demand writing. Materials lack explicit instruction and student practice opportunities in all grammar and conventions standards. Materials also do not include a cohesive plan for vocabulary development.

Foundational skills instruction does not include a research-based explanation for the order of phonological awareness and phonics instruction and there is no presence of a cohesive and sequential scope and sequence. Materials do not include systematic and explicit instruction in all foundational skills standards to provide students with opportunities to progress towards reading proficiency. While materials include some grade-level instruction in foundational skills, the instruction contained in the Units of Study for Reading, Units of Study for Writing, and Units of Study in Phonics do not align, and at times, contradict what is occurring within each unit. The reading units mainly utilize a cueing system for solving unknown words that focus on the initial sound and meaning cues rather than on decoding strategies. Materials have a limited selection of emergent-reader texts in the form of poems, songs, and a selection of decodable texts.