Literacy Helps and Resources

Yukon Public Schools has adopted the Literacy First model as a means to assess and differentiate instruction for all elementary students. Literacy First is a research-based and state adopted curriculum that focuses on specific phonological, phonics, fluency and comprehension skills. Teachers are also encouraged to incorporate the Harcourt basal reading series and other reading books as well as writing and vocabulary instruction into their reading block.

Below you will find links that can be used to assist you with Literacy First. If you should have questions regarding these links or would like further information about Literacy First, please contact your child's teacher or our Literacy Coach.

YPS 3rd Grade Retention District Policy:
Below is a link to the district letter regarding the new 3rd grade retention policy mandated by the State of Oklahoma that will affect this years 3rd graders. If you would like further information regarding this policy, please contact the resources listed in the document below.

Yukon PS 3rd Grade Retention District Letter

Literacy First Sight Words

Memorization of sight words is a vital part of your child's reading success. Sight words should be memorized and recognized automatically without pauses to sound out the word. Sight word instruction begins in Kindergarten and continues until the end of 2nd grade.

Kindergarten Sight Words - 50 of the most commonly found words in Kindergarten level material
List A - This list of 100 words is typically mastered at the beginning of the 1st grade
List B - This list of 100 words is typically mastered at or near the end of 1st grade
List C - This list of 300 words is typically mastered in 2nd grade

Literacy First Sight Word Phrases

Sight word phrases are the next step in fluency instruction after a child has mastered List C of the 300 sight words. Reading words in phrases helps your child improve his/her overall fluency by increasing speed and smoothness as they read text.

First 100 Phrases
Second 100 Phrases
Third 100 Phrases

Fluency Passages

Once your child has mastered the phrases, they are ready to move into reading fluency passages. The goal of this activity is to improve all dimensions of fluency, not just speed. Fluency instruction should focus on expression/volume, phrasing, smoothness, and pace of their reading. You can speak with your child's teacher about sending passages home to read.

Literacy First Phonological Awareness & Phonics Skill Sequence with Examples

Phonological Awareness: Hearing the individual sounds
Phonological awareness is the understanding that words can be broken down into parts or individual sounds. Practice includes manipulating those individual sounds by blending, segmenting, substituting, or deleting phonemes to create new words. Attached is the Phonological Awareness Skills Continuum.

Phonics: Hearing and Seeing the letters and patterns within words
Phonics involves associating letters and letter patterns with sounds and blending them to make words. Phonics practice includes learning vowel patterns, digraphs, blends, dipthongs, and other word patterns that make up our language. Attached is the Phonics Skills Continuum divided by grade level.