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Wyoming Valley West committee recommends Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's Into Reading for K-5; board asked to consider six-year contract
Summary
At its April 8 meeting, district staff presented a year-long evaluation that favored HMH's Into Reading (committee score 7.6/10) as the recommended K-5 English language arts series; the board was asked to approve a six-year contract and will rely on state testing and built-in program diagnostics to measure effectiveness.
John Sharkus, the district's English department chair, told the board on April 8 that a year-long reading-committee process produced a single recommendation for kindergarten through fifth-grade English language arts.
Sharkus said the committee evaluated three programs ' Amplify's Core Knowledge and Language Acquisition, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's Into Reading, and McGraw Hill's Immerse ' using a rubric informed by EdReports and the Reading League. Pilot teachers ran eight-week classroom trials, intervention specialists reviewed tier-two and tier-three supports, and evaluators collected qualitative and quantitative feedback. "The overall score out of a possible 10 that the committee awarded to Into Reading was a 7.6," Sharkus said, and the team recommended Into Reading as the series best suited for the district.
Why it matters: Sharkus framed the recommendation against recent state literacy legislation, saying the committee prioritized alignment with the state's science-of-reading requirements. He highlighted Into Reading's diagnostics and individualized practice tools, including Amira, an AI-based reading coach that provides student-specific feedback, and noted the program's materials were praised by teachers for phonics alignment, text relevance and teacher supports.
How it was evaluated: Sharkus described a three-phase rubric (foundational skills, comprehension tasks, teacher/student support) and said the evaluation combined EdReports' quantitative metrics with Reading League's qualitative science-of-reading focus. The committee collected data via forms and assigned numeric rubric scores, supplemented by pilot classroom observations and teacher recommendations.
Measuring effectiveness: When board members asked how the district will measure whether the adoption was successful, Sharkus said the district will use state assessments (CDT), district Firefly exams and the series's built-in diagnostics as baselines to track progress over one, two and five years.
Contract and next steps: Sharkus said the administration was seeking approval for a six-year contract for the selected series. The recommendation was presented for the board's consideration; the transcript does not record a final board vote on adoption during the April 8 meeting. If the board pursues adoption, the series's in-program diagnostics and state/district assessments were cited as primary measures for evaluating impact over time.
"Based on the committee's findings, I submit Into Reading to the Board of Education and to the administration of Wyoming Valley West School District as the recommended choice of K-5 English language arts curriculum," Sharkus said during the presentation.
What's next: The board will consider the recommendation in its regular agenda process; policies and purchases related to curriculum typically proceed through administrative review and board action in subsequent meetings.
