In summer 2020, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) revised its pre-K-3 English Language Arts (ELA) Framework to continue to make progress toward the goal of 100% of students reading on grade level by the time they turn eight years old. The updated PreK-Grade 3 SDP ELA Framework emphasizes the explicit and systematic development of key foundational skills that lead to reading fluency and also provides better alignment to key shifts in the Pennsylvania Common Core Standards. The updated SDP framework also includes a renewed emphasis on one of the foundational elements of the Common Core: reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from texts.

This brief provides a short summary of research that supports these shifts and the District’s revised early literacy (PreK-Grade 3 ELA) framework.