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Guidance on Implementing New Characters

Timeline

Implementing the new characters in your school or district should be planned and thought out carefully. It's important that both teachers and students have the correct materials before you decide to transition to the new characters.

We currently only recommend only using the new characters with curriculum materials that are marked "2nd edition". In the first year, start out with our new Kindergarten 2nd Edition curriculum. For the second year, add on Grade One (2nd Edition) and Intervention 1 (2nd Edition). In the third year, add on Grade Two (2nd Edition).

1st Year

New CharactersKindergarten (2nd Edition)

Classic Characters
Grade One
Grade Two
Intervention 1

2nd Year

New Characters
Kindergarten (2nd Edition)
Grade One (2nd Edition)
Intervention 1 (2nd Edition)

Classic Characters
Grade Two

3rd Year

New Characters
Kindergarten (2nd Edition)
Grade One (2nd Edition)
Grade Two (2nd Edition)
Intervention 1 (2nd Edition)

Pre-K

The new characters feature in our Pre-K (2nd Edition) Curriculum. We recommend only using them if you have these materials.

If you have the Pre-K (Classic) materials, you can continue to use the classic characters.

If you just can't wait to the use the new characters and you still have material with old characters, you can use the resources below to help adapt your materials.

We strongly recommend only using the new characters if you have students who will be rising into a Kindergarten classroom that uses the Kindergarten 2nd Edition curriculum.

Materials you will need

Existing Pre-K materials plus:

Recommended Materials

Kindergarten

We recommend using the new characters only with our new Kindergarten 2nd Edition curriculum.

If you have our Kindergarten (Classic) curriculum you can continue to use the classic characters.

Grade One

We recommend using the new characters only with our new Grade One 2nd Edition curriculum.

If you have our Grade One (Classic) curriculum you can continue to use the classic characters.

Grade Two

We recommend using the new characters only with our new Grade Two 2nd Edition curriculum.

If you have our Grade Two (Classic) curriculum you can continue to use the classic characters.

Grade Three

You can continue to use your existing materials as the focus has moved away from the Letterland characters.

We do have a Grade Three (2nd Edition) curriculum available for schools who wish to purchase new materials and are using the new characters, however there is no need to replace existing materials as the focus on characters is minor.

Intervention

We recommend using the new characters with Intervention 1 (2nd Edition) curriculum.

Intervention 1 (2nd Edition) should be used when the core instruction is also using 2nd Edition materials, and by extension the new characters are being used. Otherwise our Intervention 1 (Classic) curriculum should be used with the classic characters.

 

However, there are some scenarios where you may need to use the new characters with the classic materials.

For example, if your school or district is using our new Kindergarten 2nd Edition curriculum (featuring new characters), students needing Tier 3 pull-out sessions will need to be taught using the new characters. You can do this by using your classic Intervention materials, free downloads and Phonics Online.

Materials You Will Need

Existing classic Intervention 1 materials plus:

Recommended Materials

Homeschool

We recommend waiting until school year 2024-25 when the 2nd edition curriculum (featuring new characters) will be available.

In the meantime, you can continue to use your existing classic materials.

Contact [email protected] if you would like to pre-order 2nd Edition materials which will include the new characters.