Kindergarten - ELA
1: Letters
Unit 1: A - A Is for Musk Ox
Lesson 2
Day 2
The activity instructions tell children that the letter A "can make several sounds, but its most common sound is 'a' as in apple," and direct adults to repeat that sound and have the child repeat it multiple times. Students practice saying the A sound while tracing or forming an uppercase A on the handwriting page or by placing apple stickers along a die-cut A, linking the letter form to its common short vowel sound.
Lesson 3
Day 3
The lesson directs students to review the short "a" sound (as in apple) and to repeat this sound while forming the lowercase letter a on the writing page and in multisensory yarn/glue activities. The lesson also has students practice letter sounds using letter cards and flashcard-style review, asking them to name the letter and say the sound each letter makes.
Lesson 4
Day 4
Students are asked to "Review the most common sound of the letter A," and Activity 3 ('Letter Sounds — A') has students circle the correct beginning letter for pictures, cut out boxes, and glue the correct picture under each letter. The 'Beginning Letter Sounds' page requires students to match pictures (lion, cap, airplane, sailboat, seal) to letter boxes that include an 'a' box, reinforcing initial A sound identification. The lesson also prompts students to practice forming and writing the letter A through tracing/dot-to-dot support.
Unit 3: I - The Little Island
Lesson 2
Day 2
Activity 2 explicitly tells students that the letter I can make two different sounds and has them practice those sounds using the Ii letter card, with examples given ('igloo' and 'island'). The Student Activity Page labels an igloo and provides tracing and independent writing practice for the uppercase I grapheme. The handwriting and oral practice require students to link the written grapheme I with spoken examples.
Lesson 3
Day 3
The lesson includes focused practice on the letter I, including a lowercase-i handwriting page and review of the letter "I." The handwriting activity explicitly directs reviewing "the two sounds i might make," and Option 2 tells students to "practice the sounds of i" while making the downward stroke. The word "insect" (and prompts like holding a piece of ice) and the sight word "little" give students examples of the letter i in words.
Lesson 4
Day 4
Students practice the sounds of the letter I (prompted by "Practice the sounds of I" and by reading/defining the word "island"). Students complete Letter Sounds: I activities where they circle the correct beginning letter for pictures (e.g., igloo) and cut/paste or write the letter I under matching images. The Beginning Letter Sounds pages require students to match pictures to beginning letters that include i among choices, reinforcing the association between the grapheme I and words that begin with that sound.
Unit 7: E - But No Elephants
Lesson 2
Day 2
Students locate and name the uppercase letter E on the book cover and are told that E makes the short "e" sound in words like "elephant" and "egg" and the long "e" sound in a word like "eagle." Students practice forming the capital E in the air and on paper, tracing multiple outlined uppercase E's and writing freehand while the teacher reviews the sound. Students also add an Ee card to a review file box, reinforcing the association between the letter shape (grapheme) and its short and long sounds.
Lesson 3
Day 3
The lowercase letter-writing activity directs practice of the sounds of the letter e and provides repeated tracing and independent writing of the grapheme 'e' (Student Activity Page). The option with the eraser and the accompanying prompts also has the child trace and say the 'e' sound while connecting to a word that begins with e. The reading activity asks the child to read the sight word "no" when pointed to, linking the spelling 'no' to its vowel sound.
Lesson 4
Day 4
Students complete a "Letter Sounds: E" page where they circle the correct beginning letter for pictures (envelope, apple, igloo) and practice writing the letter E. Students cut out pictures and glue each picture under the correct letter, reinforcing the association between the letter E and words that begin with that sound. Students also match pictures (ear, hand, egg, lamp, ant) to beginning letters, practicing initial vowel-consonant sound-letter correspondence.
Unit 10: O - Owl Babies
Lesson 3
Day 3
The handwriting activities explicitly direct students to practice the sounds of the letter o while tracing and writing lowercase o. Option 2 also instructs students to practice the sounds of the letter o while producing various sizes of the letter and comparing lowercase and uppercase o. The reading activity includes frequent emphasis on the letter o through the book title and the letter-focused handwriting page.
Unit 13: P - Harold and the Purple Crayon
Lesson 3
Day 3
Students review letter sounds at the start of the lesson and are prompted to practice the sound of the letter p during handwriting activities. Students repeatedly read the sight word "made" in the story, giving multiple opportunities to see and say the vowel pattern a_e that represents the long /a/ sound. The student pages include words (pumpkin, pumpkin picture) that expose students to vowel usage in context.
Unit 18: U - Umbrella
Lesson 2
Day 2
Activity 2 explicitly has the child find and form the uppercase letter U and states that U can make several sounds: "uh" (umbrella), "yoo" (unicorn), and "oo" (rule). The activity directs the child to practice making the different "u" sounds while tracing and writing the letter U on the handwriting sheet. Option 2 also has the child trace a pipe cleaner U while practicing the different sounds of the letter U.
Lesson 3
Day 3
The lesson reviews letter sounds and includes multiple prompts to "practice the sounds of the letter u." The lowercase u handwriting page has students trace and write the letter u and is paired with guidance to practice the sounds of that letter. Option 2 also instructs students to form the letter u on a die-cut while practicing its sound.
Unit 21: V - Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin
Lesson 5
Day 5
The Reading Workshop has students produce and identify rhyming words (e.g., cat/hat, book/look, dog/log) and supply missing rhyme words in text (trombone/tone, solo/go low). Students are asked to look at the ends of lines and notice words that are spelled similarly which rhyme, and to point out rhyming pairs they find. These activities require students to attend to rimes and orthographic endings that correspond to shared sounds.
1: Environment
Unit 1: Habitats and Homes
Lesson 1
My Environment
Students are asked to sound out room labels and add missing letters on the "Exploring My Home" sheets, using a finger to follow the sounds of each word as an adult pronounces them. The lesson includes an explicit skill goal to "Show an understanding that the letters in a written word represent the sequence of sounds in a spoken word (LA)." Students practice handwriting for the letter B and trace words such as "bed" and "bath," which requires mapping vowel sounds to letters in those specific words.
Lesson 2
What Is a Map?
Several activities ask students to "sound out" letters and words as they write (Activity 2 Option 1: walk him through the letters, sounding them out; Option 2: encourage him to sound out each word and spell it the way it sounds). The scrambled-word labeling pages and fill-in-the-blank labels require students to identify and write vowel-containing words (e.g., bed, bed/bath/kitchen items). The handwriting pages have practice writing words that include vowels (map, mom, home, house), which gives students practice producing vowel sounds while writing.
2: Similarities and Differences
Unit 3: We're the Same, We're Different
Lesson 1
You're Special
Students are asked to "sound out the words" and to write the letters they hear when completing the "You Are Special" pages, which practices phonetic spelling. The Skills section explicitly lists "Represent spoken language with phonetic spelling (LA)," indicating students will practice encoding sounds as letters. Students practice the letter U (uppercase and lowercase) and trace the word "unique," giving explicit practice linking the vowel letter U to its written form.
Lesson 3
Different Personalities
The lesson asks students to attempt to sound out vocabulary words and, if needed, to circle the first and last letters and tell the sounds those letters make (Activity 1). The handwriting activity has students trace and write the word "quiet" and practice the letter Q/q (Activity 4), which gives practice with letter recognition and producing letter sounds in a word.
Lesson 9
Different Modes of Transportation
Students are asked to complete and write transportation words (Option 1: fill in first letters; Option 2: write entire labels) such as car, plane, train, bicycle, boat, horse, and taxi. When writing full labels students will produce vowel graphemes in words that include common vowel spellings (e.g., plane/train with a/ai, boat with oa, bicycle with i/e). These tasks require students to attend to letter patterns in real words.
3: Patterns
Unit 2: Patterns in Sounds, Words, and Actions
Lesson 1
Word Patterns
Students circle and extend repeating word parts in activities that show common spelling patterns (examples: -ake, hat/bat/cat, hen/pen, frog/dog). Students read and sort rhyming word lists (Bear Hugs) and match pairs that follow the same spelling pattern. Students are given explicit example pairs that show different spellings for similar vowel sounds (wait/date, paid/fade, mean/seen) and are asked in an advanced option to identify rhyming pairs that share or differ in spelling patterns.
Lesson 2
Making Word Patterns
Students sort and label word families (for example, -un, -it, -at, -ig) by cutting apart and grouping words from the Word Patterns pages. Students complete rhyming sentences (The frog stood on the ___) and make books of rhyming sentences, practicing words that share the same letter patterns. Activity directions ask students to identify groups of words that follow the same spelling patterns and to record words from rhyming books that have the same sound pattern.
6: Reading
Unit 1: Semester 1
Lesson 1
Letter Sounds Review I
The skills list explicitly states: "Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings for the five major vowels." Multiple activities focus on the letter a: Activity 1.2 has students practice the short /a/ sound (apple) using letter cards and a linked video and asks students to identify objects with short a. Activities 3, 4, and 5 have students build and read many a-centered CVC words (sat, mat, cap, map, tap) and say the /a/ sound while writing and blending.
Lesson 2
Letter Sounds Review II
The lesson explicitly states the skill "Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings for the five major vowels" in the Skills list. Multiple activities focus on the vowel i: Activity 1.2 shows a "Short Vowel Letter i" video and asks "What sound does short i make?" Activities 3.2, 4.2, and 5.1 have students build, read, and write many CVC words and word-family words containing the short i (e.g., pig, big, fit, pin, tip, rip).
Lesson 3
Letter Sounds Review III
Students are explicitly taught the short vowel sounds for o and u (e.g., "/o/ as in 'hot' and /u/ as in 'sub'") and directed to watch videos titled Short Vowel Letter o and Short Vowel Letter u. Students sort and label pictures by short /o/ and short /u/ sounds in the "Which Sound?" activity and practice reading and building many short-o and short-u word families (ot, op, og, ob; ut, un, ub, ug). Students write and read words containing o and u (e.g., log, jug, pot, dot, wig, jog, tub, nut) while saying the vowel sounds.
Lesson 4
Letter Sounds Review IV
Students practice the short vowel sounds across all five vowels during the "Short Vowel Sort" activity by naming pictures and placing them in boxes labeled for short a, e, i, o, and u. Day 2 focuses on the short e sound with explicit comparison pairs (e.g., "head" vs. "hid") and a listening discrimination task to identify words with short /e/. Multiple activities (writing words, word families, and reading) require students to read, segment, and write CVC words that use the short vowel spellings (e.g., bed, fox, ten, sun, pig).
Lesson 5
Adding s, More Word Families, Ending with ck
The Skills list explicitly includes "Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings for the five major vowels." Activity 4.1 has students say the short sounds for a, e, i, o, u (e.g., /a/ as in "bat", /e/ as in "met"). Multiple word-family and CVC activities (an, am, ag, ack/eck/ick/ock/uck, word chains) have students build, read, sort, and spell words that use short vowel graphemes.
Lesson 6
Open Syllables and Digraph th
Students are taught to distinguish open and closed syllables and are shown that open syllables make the vowel "say its name" (long sound) while closed syllables produce a short vowel sound; they practice this with paired words like he/hen, so/sob, no/not, and hi/hit (Activities 2.1–2.2). Students actively manipulate letter cards to make closed words and then remove the final consonant to create open words (met/me, bed/be, nod/no), reading each form to hear the short vs. long vowel. Students also read and produce CVC rhyming pairs (bed/red; cat/pat; pick/sick; cub/rub; hot/pot) that give repeated practice with short vowel sounds.
Lesson 7
Consonant Digraphs ch, sh, wh, ph
The lesson explicitly teaches open vs. closed syllables and asks the child to compare pairs that demonstrate long vs. short vowels (Activity 3.1: read and identify 'go' vs. 'got' and 'she' vs. 'ship'). The lesson has students read and practice words that show long-i (I, hi, my, by, shy, why), long-o (go, phone), and short vowels (got, ship, many short-a words such as chap, chat, math). The Skills list also names the goal: "Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings for the five major vowels."
Lesson 8
Blends with s
Students are asked to identify and highlight words with the short e sound (get, sled) and to say vowel sounds when completing fill-in and spelling tasks. Students read and write open-syllable words (by, me, my, we, go) and are explicitly told that vowels in those words "say their names," linking open syllables to long-vowel pronunciation. Students hear and produce short-vowel sounds in CVC words and clues (e.g., middle sound as in "bed," words like snack, pack, duck, sock, disk, dusk) while spelling and segmenting words.
Lesson 9
Blends with l
The Skills list explicitly includes "Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings for the five major vowels." Activity 1.1 asks students to highlight words that have the short a sound, requiring them to identify a short vowel in context. Word-building, dictation, and reading tasks (e.g., plane, globe, glue, fly, glad, glob, plum) require students to pronounce and spell words that contain different vowel spellings while saying the letter sounds.
Lesson 10
Blends with r
The lesson's Skills list explicitly names "Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings for the five major vowels." Students are asked to say words slowly to hear all the sounds and then write the words (Activity 2.2), build and spell multiple words that contain different vowel letters (e.g., crab, crib, cry, dry, frog, fry) in word-building activities (Days 2 and 3), and identify an open syllable in the sight word "by" (Activity 1.3). Alphabet Soup and the word-building groups require students to produce and read words with various vowel spellings.
Lesson 12
Double ll, ss, ff, zz (FLOSS)
The lesson repeatedly asks students to identify and pronounce short vowel sounds (e.g., asking "Does the word have only one short vowel?" and using example words like cat, pig, moss, huff, tell). Students clap syllables, isolate and pronounce initial, medial (vowel), and final sounds in CVC words, and segment/blend single-syllable words. Students practice spelling and reading many CVC words that contain short vowel sounds and underline the doubled final consonants after short vowels (hill, fizz, dress, stuff, off, pass).
Lesson 13
Glued Sounds ng and nk
The skills list explicitly tells students to "Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings for the five major vowels," and students practice reading and sorting word families that contrast vowel+ng and vowel+nk endings (ang, ing, ong, ung, ank, ink, onk, unk). Students break words like "hang" into /h/ + /ang/ and sound out words such as hang, king, song, lung, which requires them to identify the medial vowel sound with its spelling. Students also read and write the sight word "we," which reinforces an open-syllable long-vowel spelling pattern.
Lesson 14
Three-Letter Beginning Blends
The Skills list explicitly includes "Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings for the five major vowels." Students are asked to isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds in three-letter (CVC) words and to sound out and read many blend words (e.g., scrap, scrub, strap, spring, split, quilt, till, thrill, shrimp). Multiple activities require students to spell, read, and write words that contain medial vowel sounds and to say the letter sounds as they read.
Lesson 15
More Ending Blends
The lesson's Skills list explicitly includes "Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings for the five major vowels." Students practice isolating and pronouncing medial vowels and segmenting/blending sounds (e.g., activities that ask students to spell and read CVC and single-syllable words). In Activities 2.1–2.2 and 3.1–3.2 students spell and read many words with short-vowel patterns (pact, act, left, raft, drift, craft, shift, soft, kept, slept, milk, melt, etc.), and Activity 1.3 discusses vowel sounds when explaining 'a' vs 'an.'
Lesson 16
R-Controlled Vowels (ar)
The skills list explicitly includes: "Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings for the five major vowels." Students are asked to spell and read CVC word "cat" and then spell "car," compare the sound of a in cat (short /a/) with the ar sound, and practice multiple ar words (bar, far, car, tar, jar, par). Word-building, fill-in-the-blanks, and sorting activities require students to write, read, and sort words that contrast the short a and the r-controlled ar pattern.
Lesson 17
Semester Review
The skills list explicitly states students will "Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings for the five major vowels." Students practice vowel-focused activities: Activity 3.1 asks a child to choose a vowel and build words around it, and Activity 2.3 has students write and analyze words (sang, fly, thick, pill, fluff, tank, spring, card) while attending to vowel patterns. The lesson also reviews "Short vowel sounds" and lists open syllables as a topic to review, and many word-building and rhyming exercises require sounding and reading vowel-containing words.
Unit 2: Semester 2
Lesson 1
Long Vowels a and i with Silent e
Students practice distinguishing short and long vowel sounds for a and i in Activities 2.1 and 3.1 by sorting pictures into short vs. long columns and by responding (raise hand/stand) when they hear long vowel sounds. Students explicitly learn about the 'silent e' grapheme making a or i say their names in Activities 2.2, 3.2, and 3.3 by transforming tap→tape, slid→slide, and building/writing many silent-e words (e.g., make, kite, hike). Activity 1.2 provides brief exposure to long-vowel spellings across all five vowels by having students point to vowel cards when hearing example words (e.g., eel/heat for /ē/, hope/joke for /ō/, cute/tune for /ū/).
Lesson 2
Long Vowels o, u, and e with Silent e
Students sort and write words into short- and long-vowel columns for e, o, and u (Activities 1.2, 2.1, 3.1) and place pictured words into the correct /e/ vs /ē/, /o/ vs /ō/, and /u/ vs /ū/ columns. Students manipulate letter cards to change short-vowel words into long-vowel words by adding silent e (e.g., rob → robe; cub → cube; hop → hope) and spell lists of long-vowel words aloud and in writing (Activity 2.3, Activity 4.1). Students also produce and write words in columns labeled for long ā, ī, ō, and ū (Activity 3.3) and identify open-syllable long-e words (we, be, me, she, he).
Lesson 3
Hard and Soft c and g
Activity 1.2 (Long Vowel Sounds Review) asks students to name pictures and place them into macron-headed columns for /ā/, /ē/, /ī/, /ō/, and /ū/, with an explicit list mapping pictures (cane, cake, kite, bone, two, etc.) to each long vowel. Instructions tell students to notice that the line above letters indicates the long vowel sound and to cut/glue pictures into the correct long-vowel columns. The skills list and multiple activities reference final -e and common vowel team conventions and include word-building examples (cake, rake, fake, race, cage, age, huge) that illustrate spellings that represent long vowel sounds.
Lesson 5
Long a Spellings ai, ay
The lesson explicitly defines long vowel sounds (e.g., /ā/ in "cake") and teaches that the letter combinations ai and ay make the long a sound and where they typically occur (ai in the middle, ay at the end). Students are asked to read and sort long a words, underline ai in words like mail and rain, spell and read multiple ai/ay words, and identify whether words (lake, made, cape, plane, page) have short or long a and why (silent e). Activities also ask students to identify vowel sounds in sight words (noting that "may" and "way" have long a and that "him" and "has" have short vowel sounds).
Lesson 6
Long e Spellings ee, ey, ea
Students sort words into "Short e" and "Long e" pages and read the sorted lists (Activity 1.2). Students highlight the graphemes ee, ea, and ey in long-e words and discuss where ey appears and that silent-e is uncommon for long e (Day 2). Students build words with ee and ea using letter cards, write ea words from pictures, and complete reading/spelling activities (word building, Alphabet Soup, writing ea words, spelling test, reader) that practice the long e graphemes.
Lesson 7
Long i Spellings y, igh, ie
The materials explicitly teach multiple spellings of the long i: Facts & Definitions list y, igh, and ie as long i spellings, and Activities 2.2, 3.1–3.2, and 4.1–4.2 have students spell, build, sort, and read words with i_e, y, igh, and ie. Students sort word cards into columns labeled with graphemes (ide/ice/ike, ime/ipe/ine, ire/ite/ive, and later i_e/y/igh/ie), complete fill-in-the-blank sentences using long i words, and take a spelling test that asks them to write words using the four long-i spellings. Several activities ask students to identify long-vowel words in texts or sight-word sets (e.g., picking up cards with long vowels, circling long-vowel sight words).
Lesson 8
Long o Spellings ow, oa, oe
Students sort and glue word cards into short-o and long-o categories (Activity 1.2) and read words aloud to distinguish the sounds. Students highlight or underline the letter combinations ow, oa, and oe in long-o words (Activity 2.1) and build and spell words using ow/oa/oe cards (Activity 2.2). Students write oa words from pictures (Activity 3.1), unscramble letters into long-o words (Activity 3.2), complete long-o word sorts by spelling pattern (Activity 4.2), and take a spelling test that requires using the long-o spellings including o_e, ow, oa, and oe (Activity 4.3).
Lesson 9
Long u Spellings ue, ew, ou
Students hear and discriminate short u vs long u by reading word sets like tub/cut/cub and then adding silent e to make tube/cute/cube, explicitly linking the change to the long vowel sound. Students are taught the common graphemes for long u (u_e, ue, ew, ou) and practice them in word-building, spelling tests, word sorting, and clapping activities for long u words. Students read and spell words with each spelling (e.g., blue, few, soup, cue, chew, group) and are asked to identify where the long u sound appears (end vs middle of words).
Lesson 10
Other Long Vowel Patterns
Students practice and identify long i in Activity 1.2 (ild) by building and reading mild, wild, child and by contrasting expected short i with the long i in these spellings. Students practice long i in Activity 4.1 (ind) by spelling and reading kind, find, mind, blind, and hind. Students practice long o patterns in Activities 2.1 and 3.1 (old, olt, ost) by spelling and reading gold, sold, cold, bolt, colt, jolt, most, post, and host, and by identifying long-vowel words in the Weekly Message.
Lesson 11
Long Vowel Sounds Review
Students are given explicit lists of common long-vowel graphemes for all five vowels (e.g., ā: a_e, ai, ay; ē: e_e, ee, ey, ea; ī: i_e, y, igh, ie; ō: o_e, ow, oa, oe; ū: u_e, ue, ew, ou). Students match spellings to example words in the Long Vowel Sound Chart activity (cutting, pairing, and placing a_e with "bake" under the ā column). Students sort long-vowel words into columns (Long a and Long e Word Sorting activities), read readers to find long-vowel words, and identify which letters make the long e sound in words from Reader #6.
Lesson 12
Other Vowel Sounds oi, oy
Activity 1.2 has students build words using o and word-building cards (o_e, ow, oa, oe), sort words into "short o" and "long o" columns, and write example words (rope, snow, boat, toe) to show spellings that represent long o. Day 2 (Activity 2.1) explicitly teaches that oi and oy begin like long o and end like long e, models stretching the sounds, and has students list and sort words into oi and oy columns. Activity 2.2 and the word-sorting pages require students to place words into columns labeled ō, oi, and oy, and Activity 3.2 has students spell multiple oi/oy words from given letter cards.
Lesson 13
Other Vowel Sounds ou, ow
Students are taught about long-o spellings (o_e, oa, ow) and asked to distinguish long from short o sounds; activities ask them to think about the difference between short and long o and the different long-o spellings. Students practice reading, writing, sorting, and building many o-words (e.g., toe, goat, hose, snow, bowl, cloud, growl) and complete sorting pages and a three-column organizer headed OW = ō, OW, and OU. Students highlight ou/ow in words, fill in blanks with ou or ow, and complete word-building and spelling-test tasks that require associating the /ō/ or /ou/ sounds with specific spellings.
Lesson 15
These Make More Than One Sound: oo and ea
Students sort and read words that contain the vowel team oo into groups labeled for the two different sounds (e.g., spoon/boot vs. book/foot) and practice identifying which group has the long u sound (Activities 1.2, 2.1, 2.2). Students sort and read ea pictures and words into three groups for long e, short e, and long a (Activities 3.1, 3.2, 4.1). Students build, spell, and read words with the oo and ea graphemes (word-building, spelling test, and reader activities) and are asked to distinguish long from short vowel sounds (Skills list and Wrapping Up questions).
Lesson 16
Silent Starts: kn, wr, gn
Students are prompted to distinguish long and short vowel sounds (Skills list: "Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words") and to discuss vowel sounds (Activity 1.1). In Day 3 students are asked to identify the vowel sound in "write," are pointed to the ending -e and the vowel i, and are reminded about the role of silent e. In Day 4 students sort words into groups based on their vowel sounds and are given explicit groupings labeled short and long (e.g., knit/wrist short i; knife/write long i; gnome/know long o).
Lesson 17
Year-End Review
Students sort words into five columns labeled for long ā, ē, ī, ō, and ū in the "Long Vowel Sounds Sorting" activity and place words (e.g., skate, play, team, pie, float, blue) under the appropriate long-vowel columns. The skills list explicitly states students should "Distinguish long from short vowel sounds" and "Know final -e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds." In Activity 1.3 students note that the sight words "only" and "over" both begin with the long o sound, and Alphabet Soup activities prompt students to make and read words with a variety of vowel sounds and vowel teams.