TeachTown in Texas - 20+ Years Strong!

Our TEKS-aligned, adapted core curriculum, along with our supporting interventions, challenge your students with the appropriate level of rigor while promoting independence, employability and community access to succeed in a post-secondary setting.

Texas

Achieving Results in Texas

Placing equity and inclusion at the forefront of education, our K-12 TEKS-aligned, adapted core curriculum, enCORE, sets our most complex learners in Texas up to experience academic AND personal success:

  • Access to higher education opportunities
  • Increased independence and self-confidence
  • Meaningful employment opportunities

The tools we offer at TeachTown directly align with the Texas Education Agency’s strategic plan and provide schools in Texas with a measurable, whole-child education for students with moderate to severe disabilities from early childhood through the transition years.

 

2023-2024 School Year Data in TX

*Pictured above includes comprehensive data from TX schools using TeachTown in the 2023-2024 academic school year.

 

TeachTown’s enCORE ensures:

  • Alignment to TEKS
  • Evidence-based instruction for K-12 students
  • An advanced blended learning model with data-driven, personalized learning pathways to drive measurable student outcomes
  • 36 units of 9-12 instruction across academic domains (ELA, Math, Science and Social Studies), in addition to Current Events, Skills Review, Transition Skills, and a new ESY curriculum each year
  • A rich offering of socially and developmentally appropriate literature across genres, plus text-based content (companion texts) in ELA, Science, and Social Studies
  • Reporting that provides insight into student progress across metrics (state standards, growth, IEP tracking & more)
TeachTown appreciates the unique challenges that TX educators face when needed to prepare students in a self-contained setting for both the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, and STAAR Alternate 2. Ask us how we can help you accomplish this effectively.

Benchmark Assessments

TeachTown Benchmark Assessments include 190 assessments (average 10-15 items each) across ELA, Math, & Early Learning skills. Specifically designed to help you monitor your students’ progress on an individual skill over time and show growth, we recommend teachers administer benchmark assessments 3 times per school year: beginning of year, middle of year, and end of year.

All benchmark assessments are available in 3 formats: as printable PDFs, teacher-facilitated technology lessons, & student-led technology lessons. Each individual assessment includes 3 different forms (A, B, C) to ensure test validity as students retest on a skill over time.

TeachTown Benchmark Assessments include reports that provide the raw score, percentage, and item analysis and direct you to the units in enCORE that will drive progress on students’ skill levels.

Texas teachers using TeachTown now have even more tools to provide data-driven, personalized instruction and develop strong IEP goals and maintain compliance!

Bonus: The Benchmark Assessments within enCORE can provide Texas educators with the student growth data needed to be qualify for the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA).

Texas 1

This is the front cover of one ELA Benchmark Assessment

Texas 2

This is an example of one assessment item for the Letter-Sound ID Benchmark Assessment

Texas 3

This is the front cover of one Math Benchmark Assessment

Texas 4

This is an example of one assessment item for the Adding Fractions with Like Denominators Benchmark Assessment

TeachTown Supports Texas Education Agency’s Strategic Plan

TeachTown supports Texas Education Agency’s strategic plan, which outlines 4 areas of focus that will further enhance student outcomes among the 5M+ students in Texas:

  • Recruit, Support and Retain Teachers & Principals: TeachTown helps alleviate teacher stress by doing the heavy lifting so teachers can actually focus on what they signed up to do – teach. With TeachTown’s enCORE, new and veteran teachers alike are equipped with scripted, differentiated lesson plans that anchor all instruction with what works. Whether you’re brand new to teaching or entering your 20th year in the classroom, our teacher guides give you everything you need to be successful in your classroom. enCORE is constantly analyzing student progress and responding with tailored learning activities. The ability to track student progress in enCORE provides the necessary data for Texas educators to determine eligibility for the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) Funds.
  • Build A Foundation for Reading & Math: All TeachTown curricula are firmly rooted in evidence-based instructional practices, including Applied Behavior Analysis and the Science of Reading, and are specifically embedded throughout academic domains, including ELA, Math, Science and Social Studies.
  • Connect High School to Career & College: From PreK through high school, TeachTown creates an inclusive and equitable experience for your TX students by paralleling the same literature and coursework their peers are using in the general education classrooms. One of the critical benefits of enCORE K-12 is that Transition to Adulthood is included in both the student-led technology lessons and each unit’s classroom-based lesson plans for all four domains.
  • Improve Low Performing Schools: TeachTown’s K-12 TEKS-aligned, adapted core curriculum, enCORE, is driving a 66% student growth rate between pre- and post-test scores among more than 9,200 TX students.

Alignment to The Science of Reading

Science of Reading in TexasWith a primary focus in TX pointing to literacy and reading comprehension among students, the 5 tenets of the Science of Reading have been systematically embedded into the ELA domain of enCORE, from Kindergarten through the transition years:

  • Phonemic awareness
  • Phonics
  • Fluency
  • Vocabulary
  • Text comprehension
enCORE K-12 is structured to promote literacy and inspire confident readers among Texas students – a win-win for PreK through 6th grade educators in TX who are now required to demonstrate proficiency in the science of teaching reading.

Trailblazing Student Growth in Texas: enCORE in Action

Data from over 250 TX schools indicates impressive student growth, with a nearly 66% student growth rate between pre- and post-test scores in elementary, middle, and high school.

enCORE targets the Texas TEKs via socially and developmentally-appropriate, research-based instruction. Offering a strategic blend of hands-on, teacher-led instruction and technology-facilitated lessons, every single unit and lesson segment in enCORE is structured to flow through a gradual release of responsibility, guiding students from exposure to mastery.

Supporting personalized instruction and automated data collection aligned to your students’ IEPs and skill levels, Texas special educators can run reports in enCORE at any time to analyze student progress, monitor growth toward IEP goals, assess mastery of specific learning objectives and more.

Take a look at real data from your own Texas peers below.

Monthly Lessons Mastered by District

Monthly Lessons Mastered by District

Student Performance on Sight Word Spelling

Professional Development + Change Management

Like you, we are deeply committed to our students’ academic and personal success with moderate to severe disabilities. We support Texas special educators every step of the way with ongoing professional development, including:

  • On-site training
  • Virtual coaching
  • Office hours
  • Dedicated client success manager
  • On-demand webinars
  • Professional development online courses, like ABA Pro
  • Moderate to Severe Teaching and Learning Framework to identify best practices

FAQs

TeachTown is the umbrella name for all of our programs. Depending on what your district has purchased for you, you will have access to one or more programs from our suite. The complete list of programs includes:

  • enCORE K-12
  • Basics
  • Social Skills
  • Meta-Play
  • Transition to Adulthood
  • Health and Wellness
  • BE SAFE
  • SLP Assist

enCORE is an award-winning K-12 standards-based, adapted core curriculum for students with moderate to severe disabilities. It includes leveled, differentiated content across English Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies and includes content to fill all instructional time in these areas. enCORE incorporates traditional lesson plans as well as technology-based instruction to provide equity and accessibility to all students.

Through interactive content, visuals, illustration and storytelling, our adapted core curriculum enCORE represents the diversity and multiculturalism of the population of students it serves. Bonus – student engagement and knowledge retention skyrockets as a result!

enCORE’s advanced blended learning model includes hands-on, teacher-led lessons and technology-facilitated, individualized student-led lessons. Our teacher guides, student workbooks, adapted reading library and hands-on manipulatives and materials bring ease and efficiency to the lives of teachers.

enCORE Elementary is designed to serve students in grades K-5. This curriculum includes 36 units of instruction (18 units for K-2, and 18 units for 3-5) across ELA, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Each unit contains a fiction and associated nonfiction book that anchors the instruction across all four domains. Lessons are completely scripted and differentiated with 3 levels of support for all students.

enCORE Middle School serves students in grades 6-8 and includes 27 units of instruction. Each unit contains an adapted chapter book and two corresponding companion texts. Science content covers Earth Science, Life Science, and Physical Science. Social Studies includes U.S. History, World History, Civics, and Government.

enCORE High School launched in 2022 for students in grades 9-12 and all lessons include high school-appropriate coursework, an expanded adapted library, and opportunities to work on transition skills.

Yes. According to the Science of Reading, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension are all necessary components of becoming a skilled reader – which is why each of these are systematically embedded into the ELA domain of enCORE, from kindergarten through the transition years.

Phonemic awareness: enCORE Elementary includes age-appropriate phonemic awareness activities to support students learning to identify & manipulate individual sounds in words. Includes rhyming skills and follows a developmental progression.

Phonics: Each unit of enCORE K-12 contains phonics instruction, beginning with single sound-letter correspondence, short vowels, digraphs, initial and final blends, common inflections and silent ‘e,’ progressing to vowel teams, vowel digraphs, r- controlled vowels, word patterns, and the most common prefixes and suffixes, and moving toward decoding and spelling.

Fluency: Repeated readings are embedded in the enCORE implementation guide within every unit, giving students the opportunity to read the literature (with or without icons), from the e-Reader OR have the e-Reader read to them.

Vocabulary: Every unit of enCORE K-12 focuses on vocabulary that is embedded within that unit’s literature, with vocabulary words embedded in the text multiple times so that students have multiple opportunities to engage with the words and develop deeper semantic knowledge.

Text Comprehension: Every segment in enCORE begins with anchored instruction to help students connect information in the text to their daily lives or to build background knowledge prior to reading. Each book, companion text, and/or chapter incorporates multiple comprehension activities to address text comprehension standards.

To learn more about The Science of Reading component in the enCORE curriculum, click here.

  • Serves K-12 students with moderate to severe disabilities
  • License flexibility to support continuity of service
  • Standards-first design
  • Evidenced-based curriculum, including ABA & the Science of Reading
  • Robust data, machine learning
  • Comprehensive lesson plans
  • Adapted reading library supports generalization; socially and developmentally appropriate
  • Physical goods package options
  • enCORE Events, ESY included with purchase
  • One-stop shop; supports multiple integrations
  • Comprehensive support services

Yes. enCORE offers a strategic blend of hands-on, teacher-led instruction and technology-facilitated lessons. Schools can purchase physical curriculum materials, including Teacher Guides, Student Workbooks, Adapted Library, Math Manipulatives, etc., which are eligible for purchase under the Instructional Materials & Technology Allotment (IMTA).

To learn more about TeachTown, schedule a consultation and a member of our team will reach out to you shortly.

A Solution Just Right for Texas Students & Educators

Unlock the Power of Firsthand Experiences from Your Texas Peers

“What led us initially to TeachTown was our Life Skills teachers asking if other programs were available for us to consider for students. We had been using a competitor and found that it was not a robust learning system, and our teachers were having to supplement instruction. Our teachers were also looking for realistic images in their instructional materials along with physical literature resources. We created a panel of Life Skills teachers (elementary, junior high and high school) to attend a TeachTown demo and our teachers were very impressed and wanted to move forward with partnering with TeachTown!” – Denise Z. Deffes, M. Ed., Coordinator of Instruction, Special Education Services, Angleton ISD

“We ultimately chose TeachTown because there truly wasn’t anything else like it! The alignment provided with our state standards is unheard of for national programs within Texas. The access it provides our students to their grade level content defines what access should look like in a self-contained classroom. Our teachers are already reporting significantly less time spent preparing materials and lesson planning within weeks of implementation, and our students are elated with the activities and success they are experiencing. After years with a “competitor” our eyes have been opened to the possibilities created by bringing TeachTown to our district. Our teachers could not be any more excited and our students are LOVING it! We will continue to sing the praises of TeachTown to anyone who asks so please share our experience!” -Schuele Batenhorst, M.Ed., Coordinator of Special Education and Instruction, Canyon ISD

View the Canyon ISD & TeachTown Success Story here

Hear about Mount Pleasant ISD's experience with TeachTown

Galena Park ISD & TeachTown

Our results speak for themselves!

Our special education curriculum software has been nationally recognized for driving growth in students with moderate to severe disabilities.

2023-EIE-winner

Ed Tech Awards

Tech & Learning Awards of Excellence

2002 winner ex excellence in equity

2021 winner tech & learning

Don’t Just Take Our Word For It – See For Yourself!

Browse TeachTown’s suite of special education solutions and see firsthand why thousands of special educators rely on TeachTown to measurably improve students’ academic, behavioral, and adaptive skills – from Pre-K through the transition years.