Piloting UFLI Foundations - An Intentional Shift with Foundational Skill Instruction - May 2025

Brent Conway
Jun 11
7 min read

Introduction

That’s right - first grade students around Pentucket are now using terms like “auditory drill” to describe their phonics routine, thanks to a new foundational skills program out of the University of Florida’s Literacy Institute. UFLI Foundations, named for the research institution from which it was created, was piloted this year in six early elementary classrooms around the district: three first grade classes at the Bagnall School, one first grade classroom at the Sweetsir School, and two second grade classrooms at the Page School. What started as a teacher-led curriculum shift quickly turned into something bigger: a programmatic shift that is not only well loved by teachers and students, but turned out to be incredibly effective. Check, check, check.

Over the last 5-7 years, Pentucket elementary schools have made some significant shifts in our approach to teaching literacy (see blog posts here and here) aligned with our Comprehensive Literacy Plan. Namely, the implementation of Wit & Wisdom four years ago as our core literacy program K-8 filled significant gaps in programming. Wit & Wisdom, a knowledge-building core curriculum designed to target complex text comprehension and language, engages students through authentic complex texts, repeated routines K-8, and the development of deep content knowledge. Teachers have done a tremendous job implementing the program and learning how to best use it to meet the needs of students across the district.

As for the other key piece of literacy instruction based on Scarborough’s Rope (pictured below), our Word Recognition curriculum has been strong since the implementation of Wilson FUNdations roughly a decade ago and Heggerty five years ago. Widely regarded as one of the most high quality phonics programs out there, FUNdations in K-2 gave our students the opportunity to build automaticity of letter-sound patterns and apply them to increasingly complex words as they move through the grade levels. However, the data - and the teachers - were starting to feel like something was missing. Cue, UFLI.

Why the pilot?

At a first grade data meeting at the Bagnall school back in early September of 2024, the team sat puzzled as they analyzed the data of their previous students, who had entered grade 2 at greater risk than they had left grade 1. The first grade team, made up of some of the most dedicated and knowledgeable teachers you could imagine, were shocked to see that students who had left first grade “on grade level” had entered grade 2 with quite a bit of literacy need. This was particularly true on the Oral Reading Fluency subtest of the DIBELS assessment, that, while a newly acquired skill in grade one, is one of the main predictors of long term reading success and strongly related to reading comprehension. Was this the “summer slide?” Something bigger? This trend was the same across all three elementary schools: first graders were not walking into second grade prepared to be proficient readers.

In fact, most schools were seeing around a 20% decline in reading proficiency over the summer. As Stephanie Stollar frequently notes, the purpose of Tier 1 is to engineer a system that works for most students to reduce risk. No matter what way you looked at it, the data was clear: something within our Tier 1 system wasn’t quite working the way it was supposed to, and it was time for a change.

District reading specialists and interventions had already been implementing the UFLI program in intervention with great success and many teachers had become interested in the program after watching students make tremendous progress. Adding in UFLI to the classroom in Tier 1 helps to build instructional coherence. Instructional coherence means ensuring that every element of an instructional program and its strategies— from core instruction to interventions to extended time—works together to advance the same set of grade-level student experiences. Students engage in instructional experiences that have a palpable link and notable relationship with each other and with core grade-level instruction. Researchers have found that reform and intervention efforts that work to strengthen coherence are more likely to advance and accelerate student achievement.

Perhaps it was the familiarity with the program, perhaps it was something about the program itself. Anecdotally, teachers also noticed that student engagement was low with FUNdations. Regardless, many teachers were feeling the urge to try something new and effective, with the hopes of building students’ reading proficiency to a level that they were able to maintain going into the upper elementary grades. Teachers also noted the faster and broader scope and sequence of UFLI compared to FUNdations was more likely to lead to accelerated growth.

After much discussion around the data and considering the pros and cons, members of the Bagnall first grade team decided to pilot UFLI for the 2024-2025 school year. A first grade teacher at Sweetsir joined them, followed by the second grade team at Page after February break.

Some early feedback - and some unexpected changes in teacher dialogue

Almost immediately, teachers and students alike started sharing overwhelmingly positive feedback about their experience using the UFLI program. For one, UFLI was made by teachers, for teachers, and with teachers. This means that not only is the program research and evidence based, but it includes all instructional components needed for instruction, including slide decks, materials for applied practice, and connected text, all pieces missing from FUNdations and many other programs. The routines are predictable and engaging, and we often watched students enthusiastically calling out “check!” when completing a portion of their routine.

The relative ease of the program to implement is not to be confused with simplicity. UFLI is carefully built on research-based routines and interleaved practice and every piece is thoughtfully included. UFLI is also an educative program. This means that simply using the materials and lesson structure will add to teachers’ professional knowledge and skills in key areas: the process of reading acquisition, key linguistic elements necessary for reading (such as the concept of voiced and unvoiced consonants), and evidence-based instructional methods that promote reading proficiency. It was clear from the start that the way teachers were thinking about teaching phonics and implementing phonics instruction had shifted. Small group instruction was planned more carefully and cohesively, teachers were thinking more critically about their instruction and how it is aligned to reading research, and students were noticing patterns in words and asking questions that were unprecedented.

At the end of the year - Data, Data, Data

Curriculum change takes time to see the impact. Rarely do we see immediately visible changes in data that can be attributed to a curriculum shift. However, there was cause to be cautiously optimistic and downright excited about the data as early as mid year. Two notable data points stood out: first grade students in classrooms using UFLI made significantly more growth in oral reading fluency than students in classrooms using FUNdations; and the district-wide growth in first grade oral reading fluency from September-January was the highest it had been in five years.

EOY data : By the end of the year, this still held true. Not only did first grade classrooms see the highest proficiency levels in Oral Reading Fluency (76%) in the last five years, but once again saw the most growth in the last 5 years, by nearly double. First grade classrooms who used UFLI also saw more growth than classrooms in the same schools using FUNdations by about 10 percentage points.

Secondly - we are able to analyze the growth of second grade students in classrooms at Page who picked up the use of UFLI in February after seeing 0% growth in ORF during the first half of the year, and actually a slight decrease in composite score from fall to winter. Impressively, we saw a 27% gain in ORF after implementing UFLI and a 31% gain in overall composite score. These scores were reflected in the iReady as well. After starting the year with just 10% of students on grade level, this grade two team ended the year with 79% of their students testing into grade 2 in some capacity.

Expanding the Pilot and Supporting Implementation

After the incredible success of the UFLI pilot this year, it was immediately evident that this was something we needed to pursue and expand, and the decision was made to continue the pilot into next school year. There were no kindergarten classrooms piloting this year, and the input from the kindergarten staff, particularly around the relatively rapid scope and sequence of UFLI, is going to be critical in the decision making process moving forward. K-2 teachers were given the option to sign onto the pilot for SY25-26. Not only did all six currently piloting teachers choose to continue, but seventeen other teachers signed on, including six kindergarten teachers, four more first grade teachers, and five more second grade teachers. Two special education teachers in substantially separate settings are also going to pilot the program after carefully considering the needs of their students.

Pilot staff, including classroom teachers, special educators, administrators, reading staff, and speech and language pathologists, will participate in a full-day training during the summer of 2025 led by Jen Hogan, elementary curriculum coordinator. Throughout next school year, piloting staff will also participate in peer observations and group PLCs, as well as data meetings three times a year to carefully analyze student progress and program effectiveness. In October, Mrs. Hogan will lead a training for paraprofessionals, who are often supporting students during UFLI. This robust training and implementation support will ensure that the programming remains cohesive and effective.

Historical Look Back

The district has put a significant focus on a tiered system for literacy for the past 7 years. Across K-2, teachers started using Fundations in 2017. There is clearly a steady climb in students' outcomes with foundational skills since all of this was put in place. When we examine it even more closely, we see that 1st grade, in particular, saw a big gain from 2017 but also a plateau for the last three years hovering around 78% at Low Risk with the composite scoring on the DIBELS. Then this year happened - where we crossed 80% - all the way up to 84%. This is reading failure risk reduction at work. We anticipate this upward trend will continue as we maintain our strategic focus moving forward.