CAPIT Preschool Reading Curriculum
CAPIT Preschool Reading Curriculum is an evidence-based solution that seamlessly bridges preschool with kindergarten, ensuring exceptional growth in early foundational skills in students ages 3-4.
Webinar: The Link Between Elementary & Preschool Literacy
Explore the Preschool-to-Elementary School Connection that will position all students for success in elementary school.
Is it possible to teach phonics to Pre-Schoolers?
Why is it critical to link Elementary and Preschool Literacy?
Which literacy skills will help students succeed in elementary school and beyond?
What goals should be part of every school’s Early Intervention Plans (EIP)?
Scope, Sequence, and Pace
Even your youngest learners can master letter-sound relations in preschool over a single year. Using the CAPIT curriculum, teachers teach students two to three letter sounds each week, ensuring students learn all the lowercase and uppercase letter sounds in 24 weeks. The final weeks are spent reviewing while some students progress to our decoding and spelling program (Fig. 1).
You Had Me at Phonics
CAPIT Reading is based on the NRP Report (2000) recommendations, which has found that young readers can and should be introduced to sounds and letters simultaneously (see the quote to the right). Researchers have found that students who learn letters and sounds simultaneously (phonics) learn faster than students who learn the sounds without matching letters (they use tiles or other objects instead). (CLICK HERE to learn more and see the research.)
CAPIT leads with phonics on day 1!
With CAPIT, PK students:
Immediately begin learning to match letters to sounds;
Learn how to write each letter with multi-sensory activities,
Demonstrate their learning with embedded assessments.
(See Fig. 2)
CAPIT has a robust phonics and handwriting component that provides a complete phonics curriculum component needed (or lacking) in most ELA Curricula and Supplemental phonics programs. For example, we don’t wait weeks before introducing phonemes, and we always connect phonemes to letters, as is endorsed by the science of reading.
In CAPIT, all students are expected to learn every letter and every sound by the end of the year; some even begin decoding and encoding—in PK! Students also learn how to write each letter and take close to 20 assessments throughout the year—just don’t tell the kids; they don’t know it’s a test (Fig. 2).
“Instruction that taught phoneme manipulation with letters helped normally developing readers and at-risk readers acquire PA better than PA instruction without letters.”
Show Me the Data
CAPIT Reading is a Core Phonics Curriculum on a Digital Platform that (Fig. 3):
Provides all stakeholders with real-time data and insight into their students’ progress;
Offers students immediate corrective feedback;
Allows for differentiation so students can progress at their pace;
Supports distance learning, so instruction is never interrupted.
Ditch the 📄 and ✏️ worksheets. They don’t provide data; don’t offer corrective feedback; don’t differentiate, and don’t support distance learning.
The Magic of Visual Mnemonics
“The value of mnemonics for teaching letter-sound relations to kindergartners is supported by evidence.”
Research informs us that Visual Mnemonics are an efficient, effective, and fun method for helping students remember the relationship between the sound of a letter and its visual representation. CAPIT Reading provides unique Visual Mnemonics for every letter in the English language.
THE PROCESS (Fig. 4)
We begin by showing a letter (L) and then teach the sound: “/l/ as in Laptop.” See the image to the right. (Click on the image once.)
Then a Laptop jigsaw puzzle will appear. (Click on the image again.)
Students see how the Laptop is assembled one piece at a time—first the top portion (screen), then the bottom (keyboard)—this is the order in which we will write the letter. Then the letter L will appear. (Click on the image.)
The letter is placed on top of the Laptop—instantly creating an objective link between the letter’s sound and its shape.
Learn more about our Visual Mnemonics and how we chose them.
Fig. 4: Visual Mnemonics (Scroll to see the next image)
Handwriting Curriculum
CAPIT’s unique Visual Mnemonics help our youngest students learn to form each letter with multi-sensory prompts. The magic is that we accomplish this WITHOUT WORDS! Our Visual Mnemonics make verbal instruction unnecessary. No more arbitrary memorizations like big line, little curve, dive down and swim over. With CAPIT, students memorize the order of strokes by visualizing real-world objects.
THE PROCESS (Fig. 5)
The student sees a Laptop with two arrows that indicate how we write the letter L. Conceptually, it makes sense to first “draw” the Laptop’s screen and only later draws the keyboard. Visual Mnemonics allow us to communicate with the student without verbal instructions visually. Click on the image.
The student traces the Laptop’s screen from top-to-bottom. Click on the image.
The student traces the Laptop’s keyboard from left to right.
We use Visual Mnemonics to teach KP students how to write all the lowercase and uppercase letters.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Students with underdeveloped fine motor skills may skip the handwriting interface.
Lastly, CAPIT comes with complementary Handwriting booklets so students can begin working their tiny muscles as they trace and write each letter (Fig. 6).
Fig. 5: Handwriting (Scroll to see the next image)
Reinventing the Alphabet Song
The CAPIT ABC Song teaches students to read!
The ABC Song—sung to a tune popularized by Mozart—is arguably the most recognizable in all English-speaking countries. However, this song only teaches the names of the letters. Although letter names are important, and teachers must teach them, letter names do not help students read or spell. For that, students must learn which phoneme corresponds with which letter.
We reimagined the ABC Song and created a song that teaches students the shape of each letter and its corresponding phoneme—preparing and enabling students to read and spell in preschool.
The CAPIT Multisensory Kit™
CAPIT’s Multisensory Kit™ transforms classrooms into a Sound to Print Environment™ and equips teachers with unique tools to help them teach whole group and small group instruction that meets the needs of all their students in Tier-1—to ensure they stay in Tier-1.
Teachers learn to maximize our Multisensory Kit™ during CAPIT’s Comprehensive Professional Development.
Professional Development
Creating Expert Phonics Instructors™
CAPIT is a teacher-led curriculum that keeps teachers front and center of the instruction so they can teach phonics explicitly and systematically. Technology CAN’T Replace Real Teachers!
Furthermore, we value PK teachers as much as any other and provide them with the same high-level PL opportunities that are available to teachers of older grades.
Learn more about all our Professional Learning opportunities.
The CAPIT Teaching Channel
We created short videos of an expert CAPIT instructor teaching CAPIT lessons to help ensure all teachers are prepared to teach phonics on day one.
We encourage teachers to watch them and even play them for their students.
“The CAPIT curriculum helped my students grasp the relationship between letters and sounds. My students genuinely enjoy CAPIT and return to it throughout the day. The program works very well for instructional time. It is consistent and enjoyable to teach. My class was able to utilize the skills we acquired through CAPIT to aid in other areas of learning. I love the Teacher Dashboard and the ability to track my students’ progress. I am pleased with CAPIT and would not change a thing! I highly recommend this program to early literacy teachers.”
