Fundations at DGS
District Strategic Goal #1
Continuously Improve Student Growth and Achievement
Students in Kindergarten and First Grade develop reading skills through Fundations work in their classroom. Fundations encourages skill development in the following areas:
- Letter Formation
- Phonological and Phonemic Awareness
- Sound Mastery
- Phonics
- Vocabulary
- Irregular (Trick Word) Instruction
- Fluency
- Comprehension
- Written Composition
Student activities provide for hands-on learning of letter concepts. Students utilize magnetic tile boards like the one below to create words according to the target learning skills.
A larger version of the magnetic tile board is used by the teacher to teach the concepts to the whole group. Individual letter cards are used to drill letter names and sounds. The letter cards are color coded according to vowel, consonant or blends. In addition, “Marks” are used to indicate welded/glued sounds, digraphs, suffixes, and bonus letters.
Teachers lead students through a series of scaffolded lessons and sessions to build skills in the whole group, small groups, and individually. Fundations thoroughly teaches the Foundational Skills of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and significantly supports other CCSS standards in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language.To learn more about fundations, check out their website at: http://www.fundations.com/overview.aspx
