Purpose: To build educators' knowledge and skills in the what, why and how of phonemic awareness and basic phonics instruction so that all students in your school district meet minimum benchmarks related to these critical reading skills.

Outcomes: Participants will be able to articulate the link between the Big Ideas of Reading and the Common Core State Standards as well as describe the “what”, why” and “how” of phonemic awareness and basic phonics instruction. Participants will also be able to explain how universal screening data aligns with the Common Core State Standards Reading Foundational Skills and how its use is paramount in building a strong Multi-Tier System of Support (MTSS) Framework. Finally, participants will also become familiar with evidence-based best practice instructional routines for teaching the Kindergarten reading foundational skills of the CCSS and practice embedding these routines into a lesson planning template for core reading instruction.

Sonia Lewis