Who it is for
Parents, caregivers, educators, tutors, and other adults supporting learners across PreK–5. An adult completes the experience with the learner and records each response.
About the PAIR Literacy Pathway
The PAIR Literacy Pathway is a free, adult-guided literacy skills check and planning resource. It helps an adult observe what a learner demonstrates, identify a practical instructional starting point, and leave with focused activities to try.
Current status: pilot · October 2026It is an informal educational resource—not a standardized, norm-referenced, diagnostic, eligibility, or placement instrument.
What to expect
Approximately 15–25 minutes, depending on the route and learner. The experience can be paused and resumed in the same browser.
How routing works
Age helps select a reasonable starting point. Demonstrated performance then moves the learner toward earlier prerequisites or more advanced skills. Challenge items appear only when earlier evidence supports them.
What the report provides
An instructional starting point, observed evidence, plain-language skill explanations, recommended next steps, practice activities, and guidance for rechecking with fresh examples.
A broad pathway, not a single-score test
Words in spoken sentences and syllables
Phonological and phonemic awareness
Letter–sound knowledge, decoding, and spelling
Advanced word study and morphology
Fluent oral reading
Listening, vocabulary, and reading comprehension
Evidence for planning
Results summarize responses from one adult-guided session and point to a reasonable place to begin practice. They can support a more specific conversation between families and educators.
No diagnosis or formal classification
Results are not percentiles, grade equivalents, risk scores, or proof of a disability. Do not use the Pathway alone for diagnosis, eligibility, placement, retention, treatment, or high-stakes instructional decisions.
Designed for a low-pressure family experience
Learner details, responses, and results remain in the user’s browser storage and are not sent to PAIR or Google Analytics. If optional analytics are allowed, PAIR receives general usage events—not learner responses. The feedback form does not request a child’s name.
The current pilot is in English. Directions account for dialect, multilingual development, speech production, hearing, vision, and communication differences by allowing the adult to mark a response as unable to judge. Organizations should consider whether a family can comfortably understand and administer the English directions before referring the resource.
Built around established literacy domains and careful limits
The skill sequence and practice guidance draw from established foundational-reading and comprehension domains. The Pathway’s narrow positioning is intentional: formal screeners require technical evidence such as reliability, validity, classification accuracy, and representative samples that this pilot does not claim.
Institute of Education Sciences: Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd GradeInstitute of Education Sciences: Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd GradeNational Center on Intensive Intervention: Academic Screening Tools ChartNational Center on Improving Literacy: Core Considerations for Selecting a Literacy Screener
Referral guidance
pathway@pairprogramedu.comAppropriate way to share the pilot
Organizations may share the Pathway as an optional family literacy skills check and planning resource. It supplements—not replaces—a school’s curriculum, instruction, universal screening, progress monitoring, diagnostic assessment, or professional evaluation.