At Wilson Language Training®, we believe that every child can learn to read and write with the right instruction. That’s why our mission is to empower educators with tools and knowledge that align with proven teaching methods. One of the cornerstones of this endeavor is Fundations®, our Tier 1 Structured Literacy program grounded in the science of reading.
The science of reading is a comprehensive body of research on how individuals learn to read and write. Structured Literacy programs like Fundations apply this research through direct, systematic, and explicit instruction that builds foundational skills, making it a powerful supplemental resource for an English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum. Designed to complement the literature-based components of a core program, Fundations ensures students master the essential building blocks of reading and writing.
This research-based design comes to life in the classroom through engaging, consistent daily instruction. Fundations lessons are brief but impactful—30 to 35 minutes daily—and are designed for students from Pre-K through third grade. Skills are presented in a cumulative and sequential manner, reinforced by three to five rotating activities per day, ensuring enough repetition for mastery. Key components of the program include:
Fundations teaches sound mastery in two directions. Every decoding (reading) skill taught is mirrored in encoding (spelling) activities. Students learn to see a letter and automatically say its sound. Conversely, they learn to hear a sound and identify the corresponding letter. This builds automaticity at the foundational level, enabling reading success when students encounter less familiar words.
Phonemic awareness—the ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds—is a critical skill for decoding and encoding. Fundations focuses on blending and segmenting sounds, providing students with tools like tapping for single-syllable words and syllable scooping for multisyllabic words to develop this imperative skill set.
Research supports linking letter names to their sounds and formations, which is why handwriting instruction is another key component of the program. Fundations incorporates gross motor activities like skywriting to build understanding of how to automatically form the letters, and to provide visual anchors such as starting points for forming letters.
Fundations provides fluency practice for students with text that employs the concepts they are learning in class. High-frequency word practice helps students build orthographic maps for irregular words, and syllable and pattern recognition enable independent word decoding. The program teaches self-monitoring and comprehension strategies with text that has a high level of decodability. Connected text reading allows students to apply their skills to meaningful, decodable texts, such as Fundations Readers, ensuring they can read fluently and with comprehension.
The program incorporates multimodal teaching methods. All skills and concepts are taught and reinforced through visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic means. These activities include sound tapping to isolate and blend sounds, skywriting for gross motor practice, using magnetic Letter Tiles to build and manipulate words, and developing spelling skills with dictation on Dry Erase Writing Tablets or in Fundations Composition Books. This multimodal approach supports diverse learning styles and reinforces long-term retention.
Gradual release of responsibility is essential to the Fundations instructional model. Initially, the teacher provides direct instruction and models skills to introduce a new concept. As students advance through a given Unit, the goal is to offer them more practice opportunities while using questioning and feedback to guide their application of skills. By the end of the Unit, teacher guidance decreases, and the focus shifts to activities such as reading connected text, ensuring students can apply their skills independently.
Fundations empowers educators with evidence-based strategies and proven tools to support literacy success for all students. By connecting foundational skills to fluent reading and writing, the program helps unlock every child’s potential—ensuring they not only master reading but also grow into confident, independent lifelong learners. Together, we can make literacy for all a reality.