Preschool Reading Curriculum
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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 Preschoolers?
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)?
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.
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.
“Instruction that taught phoneme manipulation with letters helped normally developing readers and at-risk readers acquire PA better than PA instruction without letters.”
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.
Show Me the Data
The CAPIT Reading digital platform:
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 that provide no data, no corrective feedback, no differentiation, and no support for distance learning.
The Magic of Visual Mnemonics
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
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.
Step 1
Step 2
“The value of mnemonics for teaching letter-sound relations to kindergartners is supported by evidence.”
Step 3
Step 4
Handwriting Curriculum
CAPIT is also a Comprehensive 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 verbal instructions!
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.
“We did not find any evidence that learning the conventional names of letters first provides children with a boost that learning the sound labels first does not provide…”