Academics & Curriculum for Elementary School

Wallingford-Swarthmore School District’s Literacy Programming

• WSSD School Board approved materials in grades K-2:
  • Heggerty (word recognition)
  • FUNdations (word recognition)
  • Geodes (word recognition/language comprehension)
  • Interactive Read Aloud (language comprehension) 
  • Units of Study: Writing (writing)
• WSSD School Board approved materials in grades 3-5:
  • Units of Study: Reading (language comprehension)
  • Units of Study: Writing (writing)
  • 95 Phonics Core Program (word recognition, adopted Fall 2024)

The District is in the midst of program transitions in literacy. WSSD is committed to addressing the language comprehension component of literacy instruction through a language arts block that reflects the research that supports how children learn to read. This process will include a departure from Lucy Calkins’s Units of Study towards a comprehensive knowledge-building language arts program. The District’s next step is to explore a language arts program that focuses on knowledge building and addresses the language comprehension component of literacy. 

Wilson Fundations (Grades K - 2) is a structured, multimodal approach to reading, spelling, and handwriting. This is a phonics-based program designed to help develop foundational literacy skills. Fundations is based on the Orton-Gillingham approach and aligns with the principles of Structured Literacy, emphasizing explicit, systematic, and cumulative instruction. 

The 95% Core Phonics program (Grade 3) and 95% Word Study Program (Grades 4 & 5), created by the 95 Percent Group, is a research-based instructional framework designed to support phonics and morphology instruction in 3-5 classrooms. It aims to ensure that at least 95% of students master the foundational skills necessary for proficient reading. The program is aligned with the principles of structured literacy and emphasizes explicit, systematic, and cumulative instruction.