FWISD approves non-religious phonics program from Bluebonnet. Why was it chosen?
The Fort Worth Independent School District is adopting a new phonics program that officials say will further support the district’s mission to turn around its stagnant academic performance and improve its literacy scores. Although the program itself is considered to be high quality and secular, its connection to a larger, controversial state curriculum with religious references — predominantly Christian — prompted concerns from a couple of school board members.
Fort Worth ISD students in kindergarten through third grade will receive instruction on the Bluebonnet Learning phonics program starting in August when the new school year begins. The school board on Tuesday, June 24, approved the purchase of the curriculum for a price tag of almost $1 million, specifically $965,977. Superintendent Karen Molinar said the district is saving $355,000 by adopting the program.
District officials said the phonics instruction will be offered in English and Spanish and provide “a cohesive, efficient model that supports earlier student application of phonics skills aligned to the science of reading.” The adoption is part of the district’s ongoing investment in literacy as it works toward turning the tides of historically stagnant academic performance.
The spring 2025 results from the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, showed overall positive results for Fort Worth ISD students. The percentage of students in grades 3-8 who took the state reading test and performed on grade level improved across the board. Notably, the percentage of third-graders who met grade level in this subject improved from 32% to 38%, compared to last year’s results. This includes students who took the test in English and Spanish.
During the school board meeting, a couple of board members voiced concerns about the district adopting a portion of the Bluebonnet Learning curriculum, even though that portion doesn’t contain religious references. Board members Wallace Bridges and Camille Rodriguez were the dissenting votes against approving the phonics program. Bridges called the curriculum “a lightning rod” that’s fired up community members, while Rodriguez said she had the same thoughts as Bridges, noting, “I’ve had several conversations, and I will not be supporting this.”
“We are now adopting the Bluebonnet phonics component. So the reading is split into skills and knowledge. Skills is the phonics. Knowledge is where some of those religious elements are,” said Mohammed Choudhury, deputy superintendent of the district’s Learning and Leading Division. “What we’re adopting has nothing to do with any of that.”
Molinar said the district will continue to use the Amplify curriculum for other reading resources but is replacing that curriculum’s phonics component with Bluebonnet’s. Choudhury said the phonics program will be an extension of the Amplify curriculum “but with major upgrades.”
“We have to strengthen that early literacy foundation,” Molinar said. “We need to put dictation and student writing back in the literacy block in the classroom. This program puts that back in place, and it’s all there for our teachers, and it’ll be written into our curriculum framework and aligned with our curriculum framework.”
What to know about Bluebonnet Learning and its phonics program
The Texas State Board of Education approved the Bluebonnet curriculum in November. It consists of two parts: phonics and foundational skills instruction for kindergartners through third-graders and reading language arts instruction for kindergartners through fifth-graders. Fort Worth ISD has only adopted the phonics instruction for the younger grades.
Texas Education Agency officials confirmed to the Star-Telegram that this portion of the curriculum contains no religious references.
“There are references to other religious texts, not just the Bible,” TEA officials said in reference to the K-5 portion of Bluebonnet. “These religious source materials are used when contextually relevant for historical and literary value. Only a small portion of the materials include these references. These references create a strong background of knowledge for students with rich texts to further their understanding of our society, including our history, economy, and culture.”
In kindergarten through second grade, the phonics program focuses on “foundational literacy skills, including oral language, print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics, word recognition, and fluency,” according to the Texas Education Agency. It also includes vocabulary development, reading comprehension and writing instruction with students learning cursive starting in second grade.
“In grade 3, students develop foundational literacy skills through units that focus on language, phonemic awareness, sound-spelling patterns, regular and irregular high-frequency words, and decoding and encoding one-syllable and multi-syllable words,” according to TEA. “Vocabulary instruction is also embedded to build students’ understanding around word parts, meaning, and academic and social language. Throughout the year, students will continue to develop their foundational reading skills to become independent readers of more complex texts.”
Sarah Woulfin, a professor of educational leadership and policy in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin, said in her brief review of the phonics materials over a handful of grade levels, the program seems aligned to the tenets of the science of reading.
“It’s kind of aligned with this notion that we should systematically and explicitly teach phonics and phonemic awareness and fluency skills to students, particularly in grades K-3, in a very step-wise, explicit, linear way,” Woulfin said. “I was trying to understand and do a little bit of a test or a lens for whether or not there were religious themes kind of woven into that. I did not see evidence of that.”
Bluebonnet is considered to be a high-quality instructional material, or an HQIM in the education world. Woulfin said there are four criteria that must apply to a curriculum for it to be considered high quality, and Bluebonnet meets those standards. This includes being aligned to academic standards, being “content-rich with clear learning outcomes,” reflecting evidence-based practices and providing a full suite of teacher and student materials.
“They are evidence-based, so there is research showing that the sequence and instructional practices and instructional content, that the way it’s covered and delivered, will actually yield improvements to student outcomes,” Woulfin explained as an example. “They also should include clear, systematic, explicit directions to the teacher on how to teach it.”
Woulfin noted that it’s important for districts to ask teachers about new curricula being implemented and to ask how it’s serving them and their students in the classroom.
Molinar said that the district received feedback in April from more than 300 teachers who reviewed the Bluebonnet phonics program.
“The teacher feedback affirmed that the Bluebonnet (phonics) program aligns with our priorities and meets what they need in their classroom for their students,” Molinar said.
This story was originally published June 30, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
