In early elementary grades, reading instruction can feel like juggling: phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, classroom behavior, attendance, and a wide range of learner needs—all at once. Yet the research base has become clearer about what matters most in kindergarten through 3rd grade.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), through the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), published an educator-friendly practice guide titled Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade (NCEE 2016-4008). The guide is designed to be practical, aligned with existing standards and curricula (not replacing them), and rooted in the best available evidence.
As a Special Education Director, I appreciate two things about this guide: it keeps the focus on instruction that can happen in general education classrooms, and it also translates well to intervention settings (including MTSS/RtI and special education supports). That matters because many districts are navigating staffing shortages—especially in reading intervention, speech-language services, and specialized instruction—while still needing consistent, high-quality literacy outcomes.
Below are the guide’s four recommendations, explained in plain language with implementation ideas you can use right away. I’ll also include ways online therapy and related services (like what TinyEYE provides) can support school teams when in-person capacity is stretched.
Why foundational skills matter (and why they’re not “just phonics”)
Foundational reading skills are the building blocks that help students read words accurately and efficiently so they can understand what they read. The practice guide emphasizes that students need instruction in two connected areas:
- Foundational skills (sounds, letters, decoding, word recognition, fluency)
- Comprehension skills (making meaning from text)
The key message is integration: these skills should not live in separate “silos.” As soon as students can decode even a few words, they should practice reading connected text. At the same time, oral language and vocabulary work should begin early and continue across K–3.
Recommendation 1: Teach academic language, including inferential and narrative language, and vocabulary
Evidence level in the guide: Minimal (not because it’s unimportant, but because the research base since 2000 is smaller and results are mixed).
Academic language is the “school language” students need to understand books, classroom directions, and formal discussion. It includes:
- Inferential language: talking beyond the here-and-now (predicting, explaining why, connecting ideas)
- Narrative language: telling or retelling events in a clear sequence (stories, explanations, procedures)
- Academic vocabulary: words common in school tasks (contrast, investigate, estimate) and more complex grammar structures
Easy-to-use classroom moves:
- During read-alouds, ask “why” and “what if” questions and model complete answers. Then prompt students to expand: “Why do you think that?”
- Teach story structure explicitly (characters, setting, problem, events, solution) and practice retells with scaffolds.
- Pick a small set of academic vocabulary weekly, define it in student-friendly language, use it in multiple contexts, and revisit it across the day.
Where online therapy can help: Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are uniquely positioned to support narrative language, inferencing, and vocabulary—especially for students with language-based learning needs. When districts can’t fill in-person SLP vacancies, teletherapy can maintain continuity and help teams align language goals with literacy instruction.
Recommendation 2: Develop awareness of sounds in speech and how they link to letters
Evidence level in the guide: Strong
This recommendation targets phonological awareness and the alphabetic principle. Students learn that spoken words are made of parts (sentences → words → syllables → onset/rime → phonemes), and that letters represent sounds.
Key instructional steps:
- Teach students to hear and manipulate sounds (segmenting, blending, identifying first/last sounds)
- Teach letter–sound relations explicitly (introduce sounds in a planned sequence; practice daily)
- Link sound work to print using word-building (Elkonin boxes, letter tiles, making and changing CVC words)
Practical tip for teams: If students persistently struggle with phonological awareness, don’t wait. Early, targeted intervention can prevent later decoding breakdowns that often show up as significant reading disabilities.
Staffing reality: When intervention groups are hard to staff, schools can still protect core phonological routines by tightening lesson design and using brief, high-frequency practice opportunities. Teletherapy or virtual intervention blocks can also be scheduled to reduce travel time and increase service consistency.
Recommendation 3: Teach students to decode words, analyze word parts, and write and recognize words
Evidence level in the guide: Strong
Once students know some letter sounds, they need systematic instruction to blend sounds into words, learn common spelling patterns, and build automatic recognition of high-frequency words.
What this looks like in instruction:
- Teach blending left-to-right (sound out smoothly or “chunk” sounds together)
- Teach common sound–spelling patterns (digraphs like sh, vowel teams like ea, r-controlled vowels like ar)
- Teach common word parts (prefixes/suffixes like un-, -ing; contractions; basic roots as students are ready)
- Practice decodable words in isolation and in text so students apply skills, not just “know about” them
- Teach high-frequency words (both regular and irregular) for quick recognition
- Pre-teach essential non-decodable words in a text so meaning isn’t lost
Special education connection: For students with dyslexia characteristics or significant decoding deficits, Recommendation 3 is often where IEP teams focus: explicit, systematic instruction with ample practice and progress monitoring. It’s also where we need strong alignment between general education reading instruction and specialized instruction—so students aren’t learning conflicting strategies.
Recommendation 4: Ensure each student reads connected text every day
Evidence level in the guide: Moderate
Connected text reading (sentences and passages) is where foundational skills become functional reading. The guide highlights daily reading to support:
- Accuracy (reading words correctly)
- Fluency (appropriate rate, phrasing, expression)
- Comprehension (understanding what is read)
Three high-impact practices:
- Model and scaffold word identification as students read aloud (prompt strategy use, then reread in context)
- Teach self-monitoring and self-correction (“Did that make sense?” “Fix it.”)
- Provide oral reading practice with feedback (partner reading, echo reading, choral reading, repeated and wide reading)
Important caution: The guide discourages guessing strategies (like relying on pictures or first letters). Those habits may appear to “work” in early books but break down quickly as text complexity increases.
How districts can make this doable: When one-on-one time is limited, build routines where students read in pairs or small groups while staff rotate strategically. Telepractice can also support oral reading practice and feedback for targeted students, especially when schedules or staffing gaps make consistent in-person intervention difficult.
Putting it all together: A simple implementation plan schools can actually sustain
If you want a manageable way to start, consider this weekly structure:
- Daily (10–15 minutes): phonological awareness + letter–sound practice (Recommendation 2)
- Daily (15–25 minutes): explicit decoding/word work + high-frequency word practice (Recommendation 3)
- Daily (10–20 minutes): connected text reading with feedback (Recommendation 4)
- Across the day: read-aloud discussions, narrative retells, and intentional academic vocabulary (Recommendation 1)
From a leadership perspective, the most sustainable systems I see are the ones that protect instructional time, use common routines across classrooms, and build shared responsibility across general education, interventionists, and related service providers. When staffing shortages hit, consistency matters even more—because students can’t afford “start-stop” services.
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