The Universal Screener Mandate and Next Steps for At-Risk Readers
This fall, as per Education Code Section 53008, all K–2 students must be screened for risk of reading difficulties, including possible neurological disorders such as dyslexia.
Select your screener by June 2025, and don’t waste any time planning for fall. The evidence-based SIPPS program is already a trusted resource for California educators thanks to its systematic, explicit instruction that is proven to support all readers including multilingual and students identified with dyslexia.
Webinar: Everything Universal Screener and SIPPS
In this recorded webinar, Linda Diamond shares everything about universal screeners including how it works, why it was developed, how to interpret results, and what components align with high-quality intervention.
Collaborative Classroom’s Rod Hart, former SIPPS educator, discusses why his school chose SIPPS to address results from their screener data and about their effective walk-to-read model that guaranteed all students got the support they needed.
Blog: How SIPPS Supports Students with Dyslexia
For a closer look at which SIPPS components support readers identified as dyslexic, read
Connecting the Dyslexia Conversation to the SIPPS Program.
Upcoming Events in California
San Bernardino County Early Education Symposium (Speaker & Sponsor)
Bringing Writing to Life: Exploring the Research and Practice of Writing Instruction
California Success Stories
Bonita Unified School District, Los Angeles County
A Southern California school that ranked No. 1 on the 2022 California Reading Report Card while using SIPPS.
SIPPS addresses all of the reading foundational skills in a sequential and effective manner. Teachers can see results immediately with SIPPS, and they aren’t searching for different components in the curriculum, or trying to design effective teaching sequences on their own… Though the eight elementary schools in my district have tried several other programs, no other program has given us the consistent results that we have achieved through using SIPPS Beginning, Extension, and Challenge in our K–3 classrooms.
–Chris Ann Horsley, Senior Director of Elementary Curriculum (retired)
Lockeford Elementary, Lodi Unified, San Joaquin County
This California district invested its Covid funds in literacy, boosting student achievement — and morale, EdSource.org
The impact was almost immediate. Reading scores soared—in the beginning of the year, only 18% of first graders were proficient or advanced in reading, but by midyear, 44% were. Among kindergartners, the percentage of students who were proficient or advanced nearly doubled.
— Michael Rogers, Principal
ALIVE, Alameda County
A K–6 educational nonprofit that cultivates life success for K–6 students experiencing unstable living situations such as foster care and homelessness.
For our children, who have had so much taken from them, it is easy to feel like nothing is “theirs.” Education and a sense of self are something that nobody can take away. SIPPS delivers on both fronts.
–Stephanie Brady, M.Ed. DVC, Executive Director
Westminster School District, Orange County
With over 30 years of teaching experience, Donna reflects on what SIPPS has done for her as a practitioner and for her students in becoming confident, independent readers and learners.
SIPPS meets students at their point of need. It’s systematic. They know the routines. They’re not having to second-guess what we’re doing today, and that’s huge for the kids. Because we’re looking at small chunks of their learning, they’re feeling successful . . . With SIPPS, students are set up to be able to do what you’re asking them to do, and there’s immediate feedback with corrective routines for me as needed.
—Donna Carrington-Shelley, Primary Support Teacher (PST)
Ravenswood Classroom Partners, East Palo Alto
A community-based tutoring organization working in partnership with Ravenswood City School District. In the 2023–24 school year alone, RCP provided over 7,500 tutoring sessions supporting more than 450 RCSD students.
We appreciate how SIPPS is extremely concrete with both its scope and sequence and within the individual lessons our tutors deliver in the classroom. Our tutors come from all different professions and walks of life so having a SIPPS ‘curricular roadmap’ provides a wonderful through line to the work.
–Angie Holman, Executive Director, and Cristiana Freed, Program Director
Peres K–8 School, Richmond
A schoolwide SIPPS implementation is helping readers succeed at Peres, a Title I public school in Richmond, California, where 95 percent of students qualify for free and reduced lunch and 85 percent are English learners.
Based on the mid-year I-Ready Reading Assessment, the median percent progress towards Typical Growth for my class was 125 percent. In comparison, last year, my class’ median percent progress towards Typical Growth based on their mid-year scores was around 50 percent. This is a 75 percent increase in growth compared to last year! Since implementing the SIPPS program, I have observed students who were continuously reading two grade levels below average not only progress towards grade-level reading, but also grow their academic confidence.
–Hannah Wheeler, fourth grade teacher
Meet Your Partners in California
Seasoned educators Stacy Storm, Rachel Solis, Babak Movahed, Alice Burkart, and Zenaida Soria-Cummins support our school, district, community, and expanded learning partners in California.
