Kindergarten students learning the keyword, letter, and sound.
Fundations is taught in District 123 classrooms in grades K-2. The program teaches the foundational skills of reading and writing. Many people refer to this as "phonics". Leveled instruction focuses on "sound mastery". Students learn the letter name, its formation and its sound simultaneously. This creates an important link and uses motor memory to help students associates letters with their sounds. An example is, A-apple-/a/. Daily drill of sounds, saying the letter-keywords and sounds helps students create fast acess to the sounds. Soon, students begin blending sounds into words with the finger-tapping procedure. For example, to blend the sounds /m/ /a/ /t/ into a word, students are taught how to say each sound as they tap a finger to their thumb. Students begin to write letters, words, and eventually sentences to demonstrate their understanding of words/sounds. Our Hannum students look forward to their daily Fundations lessons starting in Kindergarten and building throughout first and second grades. There is a sense of knowing that each year builds on the next as students gain confidence in developing all of the necessary foundational skills to be proficient readers and writers.