Darien curriculum committee recommends Into Reading v3 as K–3 core, retains Heggerty for phonemic awareness

Darien, Conn. ' The Darien Board of Education curriculum committee on May 7 recommended that the district adopt HMH's Into Reading (version 3) as its primary K'3 literacy resource and continue using Heggerty as an additional, short phonemic-awareness routine. The committee asked that the full board consider the recommendation at its next meeting.

The recommendation follows a multiyear review that included a district steering committee, a smaller core review team and a pilot of Into Reading across 10 classroom teams in all five elementary schools. Committee members said the review spanned about two years and combined surveys, focus groups, classroom observations, student data and a one-district site visit to inform their analysis.

Committee leaders told the panel that Into Reading v3 offers an integrated teacher's manual, updated presentation platform, module-aligned decodable texts for K—2 and class sets for small-group work. The subgroup that made the recommendation said it used a consensus protocol: seven members agreed, four agreed with reservations and one stood…