Fundations includes the essential components of reading instruction and is incorporated into Reading First Grants as a supplemental or early intervention program.

The Florida Center for Reading Research, one of three federally-funded Reading First technical centers, conducted a review of Fundations and its effectiveness, The analysis confirmed the alignment with reading research and noted no weaknesses in the program. Read full report.

Phonemic Awareness
Students identify and isolate sounds of spoken words, segment phonemes in words, and blend phonemes into words. Phoneme substitution, addition and manipulation activities are done with letter cards and tiles to assist with cognitive manipulation. The Wilson tapping procedure for both blending and segmenting of phonemes is used. Make It Fun and Word Play activities provide additional practice in phonological and phonemic awareness.

Phonics
Sound-to-symbol and symbol-to-sound correspondence is incorporated into each lesson during the Sky Writing/Letter Formation, Sound Drill, and Echo-Find Sounds lesson activities. Readers are directly and systematically taught word structure during Word of the Day and Word Play lesson activities. Students apply skills to decode and spell unfamiliar words.

Vocabulary Development
Targeted vocabulary is introduced and practiced during Word of the Day and Word Play activities for phonetically regular words. Students learn a maximum number of three high-frequency irregular words per week during the Trick Word lesson activity. Students develop a personal resource dictionary in their Student Notebooks. Students study these high-frequency phonetically regular and irregular words for reading and writing with repeated and multiple exposures.

Reading Fluency
Fluency Kits include repeated reading practice using controlled text (95-100% decodable). There are controlled sound drills, wordlists, phrases and stories for each unit of study. Teachers model fluency and students learn prosody with a specific phrasing technique. Timed drills assess fluency achievement (60 words/minute by end of Grade 1).

Comprehension Strategies
Decodable text is used during Storytime. Guidance is provided on visualization, incorporating pictures for retelling stories, applying speaking and listening skills, and explaining narrative story structure.