We acknowledge you may be starting your tutoring work in different contexts and with different levels of resources and support.

In supporting your use of these resources, we've outlined some best practices you can keep in mind, no matter the context, below. Start by reviewing these and then, go on to consider what your next action step might be.

Best Practices for Supporting the Foundational Skills

Materials Matter! Use high quality materials and research based instructional practices for teaching foundational skills.
Knowledge Matters! Build your understanding of the scope and sequence of foundational skills instruction your student should have already received so you are knowledgable about the goals for their current grade level.
Embody an Asset-Based Mindset! Have a clear understanding of students’ strengths and areas of unfinished learning to provide targeted instruction and support.
Embrace a Structures Phonics Approach! Provide explicit, precise modeling in instruction.
Teach to Mastery! Provide abundant practice, collect formative data, and monitor your student's progress so your student can master the content in an efficient and effective manner.
Be Strategic About Choosing Texts! Reinforce skills taught and encourage application of decoding skills through the use of decodable readers (links to decodables can be found on the next page).
Adapt Content for Older Students! For older readers, transition to working with multisyllabic words as soon as appropriate to support reading more complex texts. Consider how to support the foundational skills in a way that is age appropriate and responsive.
Keep the End Goal In Mind! This course is meant to build understanding of foundational skills, which are part of the "Word Recognition" component of reading. Students also need instruction and support with fluency, vocabulary, knowledge, and comprehension to ensure they are reading to understand. Therefore, whenever possible, connect proficiency with foundational skills with the end goal of comprehension.

Options for Utilizing the Material in this Course

With those best practices in mind, consider what it might look like for YOU to utilize these resources and bring these best practices to life. In the table below, we provide some tips for how to put your new learning to work and get started in a few different contexts.

If you are a/n…	Possible Next Steps
Classroom teacher with knowledge about the foundational skills who is about to work with one of your students in a one on one or small group setting	Analyze the curriculum you currently use to ensure it includes a structured phonics approach to supporting the foundational skills. Ensure you have decodable texts included in your curriculum to use with your student. If you do not currently use a curriculum or want additional resources, continue to the next page to review the free Open Educational Resources provided.
Independent tutor who doesn’t have instructional materials	Check out the Open Educational Resources materials, lessons, and texts on the following page. Collect data from the parents and teachers to try to identify the student's area of strength and need so you know where you might want to begin your work. If you do not have access to any historic data, begin to peruse the assessment materials on the next page.
Part of a group of educators or tutors working through this content to better understand the foundational skills	Continue to build your foundation by utilizing the materials on the next page. You'll find lesson plans and podcasts that will support you during this process. Continue on to the next page to download a set of guiding questions that could be used for discussion groups related to the course content.
Working with a teacher who is giving you materials to use	Observe strong foundational instruction via the videos on the next page or live within schools (if possible). Discuss whether or not the materials the teacher is giving you meet the criteria for structured phonics and identify what might need to be tweaked. You can also peruse the materials and lessons on the following page for additional ideas of what this might look like.

Optional: Guiding Questions to Promote Reflection & Discussion

If you are engaging in this course with a group or want to reflect more on the content of this course, click here to access a list of discussion questions organized by module.

On the next page, you'll find lots of resources to support you with your next steps.