2½ Months, a Full Year of Letter Knowledge: Early Results from Adira Reads Pre-K
At one of our Indianapolis Pre-K partner sites, students using Adira Reads Pre-K reached, in about two and a half months, the letter knowledge that took a full school year before Adira Reads pre-K. And in letter sounds, they've already passed it.
By October, students had mastered 60% of letter sounds. Before Adira, students at the same site reached 46% after a full year.This isn't a one-time spike. Last year, the first full year of Adira at this site, year-end letter-sound mastery rose from 41% to 75%, and students showed higher sound mastery on 24 of the 26 letters.
What this looks like for one child
Numbers matter, but so do the children behind them. A parent of one of last year's Pre-K students, now in kindergarten, shared this after her daughter's first parent-teacher conference:
"I just had S's parent teacher conference. Her teacher praised her the whole time. Stating she has met every kindergarten level already! She says she is ready and really going to start working with her on her reading and writing."
That's the goal of Pre-K literacy: children who walk into kindergarten ready to start reading and writing, not catching up.
How Adira Reads Pre-K works
The results come from a deliberately small routine. Directors at our partner sites describe it as small tweaks to what they're already doing.
Ten minutes a day, led by your own teachers. Three times a day, teachers spend about two minutes on letters and sounds: show a card, say the sound, then the name, and have children repeat and trace the letter using Handwriting Without Tears language. A one-minute listening-only phonological awareness activity follows. It fits into Circle Time, Morning Meeting, or a Storytime intro, at a pace of 4–6 letters a week.
Sound skills paced to mastery. Children work through 11 sound skills in five stages: foundation skills like clapping syllables, then isolating first, last, and middle sounds, blending, segmenting, and rhyme. Classes stay on a skill until students master it.
A quick check-in every other Friday. Each child names the letter, says its sound, and writes it. Teachers tap yes or no for form, name, and sound, and submit. No spreadsheets: Adira updates every child's letter map and the program's dashboard instantly.
Bring Adira Reads Pre-K to your program
We have 20 spots remaining in our implementation grants for the spring cohort, which begins in January 2027.
If you lead a preschool, child care center, or church-based preschool ministry, we'd love to hear from you. Apply by Thanksgiving, November 26.
Questions or want to see it live? Request a demo with Susan Appel, Executive Director, at sappel@theindylearningteam.org.
Know a director who should see this? Please share it. Every spot is a classroom of children who could walk into kindergarten ready.
About the data
Results compare two Pre-K cohorts at one Indianapolis site on the same letters: an April 2025 assessment taken before Adira, and Adira mastery checks in October 2026. Year-end figures are from the Adira Reads FY26 report. Adira Reads is a program of The Indy Learning Team.
Comments