FAQ for Educators
- Introductory Course (30 hours): Provides a fast-paced yet comprehensive exploration of linguistics for teaching reading and spelling. Educators investigate how speech sounds are made, how they connect to English spelling patterns, and how to teach those patterns to students.
- Intermediate Course (10 hours): A continuation of the Introductory Course, focusing on reading, spelling, and analyzing multisyllabic words.
- Advanced Course (20 hours): Explores the etymology and morphology of English words with Latin and Greek origins, focusing on how word history and structure influence spelling and meaning. No prerequisites are required.
Courses combine live instruction and asynchronous learning. See individual course descriptions for details on format and scheduling.
The Wired for Reading manuals accompany the training courses and serve as flexible teaching resources. Educators can adapt the lessons for whole-class, small-group, or one-to-one instruction. Each lesson includes Educator Background, suggested teaching scripts, games, and practice activities.
Word Wires organizes the same linguistic approach into a classroom curriculum, with a planned sequence of lessons and activities across the school year. It provides the day-to-day structure classroom teachers need, along with options for differentiating instruction.
Interventionists often prefer the flexibility of the Wired for Reading manuals, while classroom teachers generally prefer the more structured planning provided by Word Wires. Both draw on the same instructional approach.
Word Wires offers three classroom curriculum sets, each with a different instructional starting point and progression.
| Curriculum | Grade range | Instructional focus |
|---|---|---|
| Word Wires Foundations | K–1 | Foundational sound awareness, letter knowledge, handwriting, and early phonics |
| Word Wires One | 1–2 | Speech sounds, core phonics patterns, reading and spelling, progressing into multisyllabic words |
| Word Wires Two | 2–3 | Review of phonics through multisyllabic words, with increasing emphasis on spelling, prefixes, and suffixes |
Grade ranges are guides. Choose the curriculum that best matches your students’ current reading and spelling knowledge.
Wired for Reading can support instruction across all three tiers of a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS). Core concepts can be taught to the whole class, with pre-teaching, additional practice, or more intensive intervention based on students’ needs.
To respond to the needs of students receiving Tier 2 and Tier 3 support, educators adjust the pacing and depth of instruction and scaffold back through the Learning Spiral when students need additional practice or support. Wired for Reading includes assessments that help educators monitor student progress and make decisions about pacing, additional practice, and the level of instructional support needed.
The Wired for Reading manuals include assessments to help educators determine student placement, evaluate learning, and make instructional decisions.
Word Wires includes pre- and post-assessments throughout its scope and sequence, with assessments in each unit, allowing teachers to assess student learning as instruction progresses.
Both programs also provide opportunities for informal assessment through teacher observations, games, and instructional activities.
Please reach out if you have specific questions about the assessments included in either set of texts.
Yes. Research in literacy, linguistics, cognitive science, and developmental psychology informs the instructional principles of Wired for Reading.
Wired for Reading follows Structured Literacy principles through explicit, systematic instruction in speech sounds, phonics, spelling, and morphology. Students learn how English is organized and apply that knowledge as they read and spell.
Stuart Shanker’s Self-Reg framework also informs how we respond to students. We consider the stressors that can interfere with learning and the importance of creating an emotionally safe environment where students can take risks, make mistakes, and keep learning.
Wired for Reading is a Structured Literacy program that shares the foundational principles of Orton-Gillingham (OG). Orton-Gillingham originally referred to a specific instructional approach, but over time, the term has come to describe a broader range of programs that share its principles, even when developed independently.
Wired for Reading’s educator training is accredited by the International Multisensory Structured Language Education Council (IMSLEC), an independent organization that evaluates educator training programs against rigorous standards for course content, instructional practices, and supervised practicum experience.
IMSLEC-accredited courses prepare educators to provide instruction that is explicit, systematic, sequential, cumulative, diagnostic and prescriptive, and multisensory.
For more information, visit IMSLEC’s website.
The International Multisensory Structured Language Education Council (IMSLEC) accredits training programs that meet its standards for preparing educators in multisensory Structured Literacy instruction.
Wired for Reading’s training program has earned IMSLEC accreditation at the Teaching and Instructor of Teaching levels. Accreditation involves an independent review of the program’s coursework, instructional content, and supervised practicum requirements.
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