American Reading Company has made changes to ARC Core over the past several years (between 2021-2023, and perhaps still continuing). While it is encouraging to see a publisher adjust to the science of reading, ARC has not been very transparent about these changes. So the summary of these changes is somewhat limited, due to this lack of clarity surrounding them.
There has been no acknowledgement that their curriculum used to be built around three-cueing. Furthermore, there has been no de-implementation (or removal) of cueing books and sight words.
ARC has made some adjustments to each of the red flags in word recognition. However, we should note that red flag practices and materials still remain throughout the curriculum. And many, if not all, of the Yellow and Green books remain available to purchase.
1.1 - Three-Cueing: All explicit three-cueing instruction and guidance has been removed.
However, all Yellow and Green books remain as published prior to 2021. These books were designed to scaffold three-cueing and any schools/districts that continue to use these materials are continuing to reinforce cueing strategies.
1.2 - Memorize Whole Words: Guidance to simply memorize whole words has been removed. Instruction on paying attention to sound/symbol correspondence has been added.
However, the emphasis on these words in the Green Levels remains, and while this and the Green books remain as designed, these word lists remain problematic. They re-direct time and energy that could be used instructing students to learn how to systematically decode and encode, which are reading skills that can be transferred to all words.
1.3 - Lack of Scope and Sequence: The sequence from the Foundational Skills Toolkit has changed and been incorporated into ARC Core.
However, any previously purchased leveled books (from Yellow, Green, and Blue) do not align with this new scope and sequence. Old books are still aligned to the old scope and reinforce three-cueing.
To further address the need for more structured encoding and decoding practice, ARC has also added more materials. Notably, there are new Decodable Text Anthologies and Letter or Word Study Notebooks, which can be purchased to supplement ARC Core.
It is somewhat unclear when exactly the various changes were implemented, but we have put together an approximate timeline below. We have also included a few key moments from the larger science of reading movement, in order to provide more context:
2017 - ARC Core first released
2017 June - ARC Core received all green on EdReports
2020 March - Supporting Readers At Home (COVID-inspired document)
2020 March - ARC and Science of Reading document released
2021 - Arkansas became the first state to pass a three-cueing ban.
2021 - References to three-cueing and details of each level were removed from ARC websites. The last documented reference is on ARC's reading at home website in December 2020.
2021 - IRLA Updates announced prior to 2021/2022 school year.
2022/2023 - Nine more states passed three-cueing bans, partly in response to Sold a Story, as part of a broad effort to base instruction on the science of reading.
2023 - Additional changes made to ARC Core.
2023 Scope and Sequence is published. This scope is clearly engineered to be built around old ARC Core materials, and has a big focus on Power Words and Word Families.
Noticeable changes are made to Skills Cards. Three-cueing seems to have been fully removed at this point.
2023 - ARC received an updated review on Teaching By Science. The previous review gave ARC Core a grade of C- and can still be viewed here.
2024 - Published new foundational materials, including:
Decodable Text Anthologies and Word Study Notebooks. Pricing for these can be found in ARC's 2024-2025 pricing guide. These are both now listed as part of ARC Core on their main website.
2025 - New Scope and Sequence. It is unclear when exactly this was published or incorporated into ARC Core, but it was sent to school partners in spring of 2025.
2025 May - Yellow and Green books removed from navigation (left side) from ARC's Reading at Home website. They can still be seen on this archived copy from May 2025.