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Act 20

Act 20

Act 20 states that all Wisconsin schools are required to provide science-based early literacy instruction in both universal and intervention settings. Science-based early literacy instruction is defined as the following.

Instruction that is systematic and explicit and consists of all the following:

  • Phonological awareness
  • Phonemic awareness
  • Phonics
  • Building background knowledge
  • Oral language development
  • Vocabulary building
  • Instruction in writing
  • Instruction in comprehension
  • Reading fluency

Phonics is defined as the study of the relationships between sounds and words; this includes alphabetic principle, decoding, orthographic knowledge, encoding, and fluency.

Note that the Wisconsin Standards for ELA 2020 defines fluency as being comprised of accuracy, automaticity, and prosody.

 

For more information, visit the WI Department of Public Instruction website.