As Poughkeepsie City School District students learn to read and write, they aren’t simply sitting at a desk with a pencil and tri-lined paper.

They’re standing and stretching out their arms to write letters in the air. They’re tapping out the letters of a word using their fingers. They’re mapping out sentences using magnet tiles. They’re being verbal and active, interacting with their teachers and the letters they are learning before ever sitting at their desk.

Fundations, the K-3 phonics program that has been utilized in the district for the past four school years, is pioneering modern pathways to teaching students the science of reading. To aid teachers in using those tools, training specialists from Wilson Language Training, the group behind Fundations, visit with district primary schools throughout each year. Last week, trainers visited Truth and Krieger elementary schools with a focus on teaching kindergarten and first grade techniques.

“Fundations is a structured literacy approach to teaching kids to read and write,” Jordan Paxhia-Marion, a Wilson Language literacy specialist, explained. “The practices found within Fundations are based in decades of research have really converged and agree on how we can do that the best way.”

Paxhia-Marion led lessons for several classes, providing both expert instruction to students and modeling to the teachers. She also met with a group of teachers and building leaders before and after those sessions to discuss concepts and how she could help further.

“It’s important for teachers to receive that coaching because it demystifies what their understanding is of, first, the research and then how to put that into practice in a way that teaches with integrity,” she said.

One lesson focused on “trick words,” words in which one letter sounds like it should be a different letter, like how “is” sounds like it should be spelled with a “z.”

Truth Principal Alicia O’Connell is working toward becoming certified as a Fundations trainer for the kindergarten level. While Fundations’ learning techniques overlap, the lessons, of course, vary by age. O’Connell said it was important to her to be able to support her teachers by becoming a resource for Fundations help.

“I love Fundations. I think it’s a lot of fun,” she said. I love that it’s a multi-sensory approach. It’s very systematic and purposeful in all of the different activities that it follows.”

Paxhia-Marion is scheduled to return to the schools at least three more times this school year to touch base with teachers and provide further co-teaching and modeling. The teachers also have district Instructional Coach Kat McGuinness to lean on. McGuinness is certified in Fundations grades K-3.

“The students are so engaged in this program because there’s so many different activities where they’re using different parts of their body and their brain,” McGuinness said. “When teachers utilize all of these different activities and these movements, that’s exactly what is supporting the science of reading.”