About the Agenda.

What this is

The Balanced Literacy Agenda is a four-pillar literacy sequence for Grades 4–7: a guided worksheet and a worked teacher answer key for reading, for spelling and grammar, and for writing; a one-page curriculum framework — the Synergistic Literacy Flywheel — that holds the four together; and a single skill assessment sheet that records all of them at once.

That is the entire library — 8 documents. It is meant to be small. Every page is designed to be used in a real lesson rather than read about.

Who Created This

The Balanced Literacy Agenda was created by Lucas Hayden, an experienced educator with an extensive background in early childhood and primary education.

Lucas earned his initial credentials with honours at George Brown College and Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto, Canada, before pursuing master’s-level studies in Early Childhood and Primary Education in Niagara, New York. His international career includes serving as an intervention specialist across multiple schools in London, England, followed by years of classroom teaching in Canada.

Now retired from classroom instruction, Lucas designed these materials to support teachers and inspire students globally—offered completely free as an open educational resource.

Who it is for

• Grades 4–7 teachers who want their literacy block to hold together rather than run in parallel strands.
• Departments looking for a shared vocabulary across year groups.
• Trainee and early-career teachers who want the connections made explicit.
• Home educators teaching literacy without a packaged curriculum.

How to use the materials

• Read anything on this site for free — no account, no email, no limits.
• Add your email once to download or print any document in the library.
• Photocopy and distribute within your institution for instructional use.
• Keep each document intact and unedited, as the rights line below requires.

The companion agenda

Science Inquiry Based Agenda is the science half of the same project, built on the same structure and shared on the same terms. Visit Science Inquiry Based Agenda →

Permissions

© 2017 Lucas Hayden. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to educational institutions to print, copy, and distribute this material for non-commercial instructional use, provided the document remains intact and unedited.

For anything beyond that — commercial use, adaptation, or inclusion in a published course — please get in touch first.