This spring, Fishtank hosted two webinars highlighting important updates to our ELA curriculum and previewing the brand-new Fishtank Student Platform. Whether you joined us live or are just catching up, here’s your complete recap of what’s new for the 2025–26 school year—and how these changes support students and teachers.
ELA K-5 Updates
As we continue to grow and improve the Fishtank ELA curriculum, we’re excited to share several important updates that will be implemented for the 2025–26 school year. These revisions are grounded in research, shaped by partner feedback, and built with both teacher clarity and student growth in mind. The updates include:
- New and improved writing projects
- Emergent writing guidance for Kindergarten
- Language lessons for both learning and practice
- Enhancements to reading instruction
- Updated recommended scope and sequence
Writing Project Updates
Fishtank’s updated writing projects will now reflect a clearer, research-based approach to genre-specific instruction. Each revised writing project is 4–5 days long and follows a structured process—planning, drafting, revising, and editing—emphasizing gradual release of responsibility.
Teachers will have access to enhanced guidance, pacing, and student models to support writing across genres like narrative, informational, and opinion. These updates draw on the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model and the Writing Rope framework to help students grow into confident, independent writers.
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Emergent Writing in Kindergarten
Our Kindergarten ELA updates will now feature clearer guidance for emergent writers, with structured progressions through the four phases: abstract drawing, symbol/letter writing, transitional writing, and conventional writing.
Target Task examples and sample responses will better support teachers in understanding appropriate student outputs. Oral rehearsal, embedded daily writing, and celebrating the process over correctness are key components of our approach.
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Language Lessons for Learning and Practice
Language instruction is now an intentional and consistent part of every revised ELA unit. These grammar and conventions lessons are designed to reinforce sentence construction and usage through direct instruction and application.
Each language lesson includes:
- A clear teaching point in student-friendly language
- Sentence-level activities and editing routines
- Opportunities for collaborative practice and gradual release
Teachers can leverage new optional 15-minute lesson extensions for ongoing practice and review. These extensions help reinforce concepts and allow students to apply grammar and syntax knowledge in authentic writing tasks.
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Reading Lessons
Reading lessons have been adjusted to improve comprehension, vocabulary development, and genre understanding. Enhancements to reading lessons include:
- Increased vocabulary support through explicit instruction and text-based routines
- Improved genre-based reading strategies
- Refined scaffolds to help students tackle complex texts with confidence
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Updated Scope and Sequence
Lastly, the revised recommended scope and sequence now features five core units per grade level (Grades 1–5). This update allows room for assessment windows, holidays, and differentiated pacing—while ensuring full standards coverage.
Want to watch the webinar?
Just click this link and use the password, vK=A!2KA, to access it. And find information about when these updates will be released for each K–5 ELA unit in our Guide to Fishtank ELA Updates for 2025–26.
ELA 6-12 Updates
Fishtank Student Platform
This platform is purpose-built to work hand-in-hand with Fishtank’s ELA curriculum, making it easier than ever for teachers to assign content and for students to complete work in one cohesive space. While many features mirror those of a traditional learning management system, Fishtank Student is intentionally designed around how Fishtank ELA works—streamlining instructional delivery while saving time and boosting clarity.
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Teachers will be able to sync rosters through Google Classroom or Clever, assign Target Tasks, Exit Tickets, Homework, and Assessments directly from the curriculum, and customize assignments by editing instructions, question types, and grading formats.
The platform also allows teachers to grade and offer feedback on student assignments. Assessments with multiple choice questions offer autograding, and all grading data is exportable via CSV file.
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For students, the platform offers a clean and intuitive interface to view assignments and due dates, complete work alongside reading passages, and access built-in supports, including:
- Text-to-speech
- Translation
- Highlighting
- Scratchpads
- Strikethrough
Students can also review feedback and grades in real time. With Fishtank Student, our goal is to reduce teacher prep time while offering students a more accessible and streamlined way to engage with the curriculum.
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Missed the webinar?
Watch the Student Platform Webinar here and use the password, ^D?a3vdx, to access it.