Walpole adopts Into Reading for K-5; district outlines teacher training and assessment plan

Shannon Findlay, K–5 English language arts curriculum coordinator, told the Walpole School Committee on Jan. 9 that the district adopted the Into Reading literacy curriculum for kindergarten through fifth grade and is now in its first year of classroom implementation.

Findlay said the curriculum, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), emphasizes both “knowledge building and strategy instruction” and pairs the district’s existing Foundations phonics program with Into Reading’s materials to address language comprehension across grades K–5. She said teachers use a mix of shared reading, text sets and unit “knowledge maps” and that each lesson ends with student reflection and goal setting.

The update matters because the district chose the program after a spring curriculum review and is now deploying professional learning to put the program into classrooms. “We have…