Director of Foundational Literacy

About the role

Description

We're building Inkwell, an integrated K–5 Core ELA and Core social studies curriculum designed to help elementary students become strong readers, writers, thinkers, and citizens while making meaningful social studies instruction possible within the literacy block.

We are seeking a Director of Foundational Literacy to lead the 0-to-1 design and development of the foundational literacy instruction that will weave through and intentionally connect with Inkwell's knowledge-building ELA and social studies curriculum.

This person will own the instructional architecture of Inkwell's foundational literacy strand across K–5: establishing its research base and instructional principles, developing the scope and sequence, defining lesson architecture, instructional routines, design specifications, and quality criteria, shaping its approach to assessment and differentiation, and leading development of the materials themselves. That means building the K–2 foundation while fully defining how foundational literacy evolves through grades 3–5 in response to students' development and grade-level expectations.

These decisions shape the daily experience of the teachers and students using the materials, so the Director is accountable for usability as much as instructional quality — how a routine is structured, how a lesson is paced, what a teacher has to manage to run it — and works in close partnership with product and design.

The strand also has to fit within Inkwell's broader instructional vision, architecture, schedule, and student experience. The Director will work with Inkwell's academic and product leadership to determine where foundational literacy should intentionally connect to knowledge-building, vocabulary, oral language, writing, and content, and where the integrity of a systematic foundational skills progression requires it to follow its own instructional sequence.

We're looking for someone with deep expertise in how children learn to read and the curriculum design judgment to turn that research into an instructional system that is rigorous, coherent, usable, engaging, and scalable.

Ideal Candidate Profile:

• You have deep knowledge of the research on how children learn to read and write, and how students and instruction change from kindergarten through grade 5. You understand foundational literacy as broader than phonics alone, with strong command of phonological and phonemic awareness, the alphabetic principle, phoneme-grapheme correspondences, decoding and encoding, orthographic patterns, high-frequency and irregular words, syllable patterns, morphology, spelling, handwriting/transcription, fluency, and connected-text reading — and of how these skills develop over time and interact with oral language, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing.
• You have applied that expertise at program scale, across a multi-grade, multi-component curriculum or instructional system, and you can envision the full system: not only what students need to learn, but the sequence in which they should learn it; how new learning should be modeled and practiced; how decoding and encoding should reinforce one another; how previously taught skills should be cumulatively reviewed; how connected text should provide meaningful application; how fluency should develop over time; and what materials, assessment, differentiation, and teacher guidance are needed to bring it to life.
• You understand the distinction between being research-aligned and research-dogmatic. You follow the science of reading as an evolving body of evidence rather than a branded instructional philosophy, and you can evaluate competing claims, distinguish strong evidence from trends, and translate research into practical programmatic decisions. You also know where the limits of your own expertise mean you need to investigate further, seek additional perspectives, or test assumptions rather than rely on conviction.
• You are a systems-level designer, comfortable moving between a yearlong progression, a unit sequence, an individual lesson routine, a decodable passage, an assessment item, and a teacher-facing direction — and you understand how decisions at each level affect the others.
• You thrive in white space. You reason from first principles, distinguishing what research and standards require from what existing programs happen to do, and you can think beyond established models without abandoning the evidence that should constrain good design. Given instructional guardrails, you can turn ambiguity into a coherent model, prototype it, test it, articulate why it works, identify where it does not, and revise it.
• And you know that instructional quality is not enough if teachers cannot actually use the materials. You design with an awareness of instructional minutes, classroom routines, variability in student readiness, teacher knowledge, and the realities of an elementary school day.

Key Responsibilities:

• Own the 0-to-1 instructional design of Inkwell's foundational literacy strand, establishing a coherent vision for how foundational reading and writing skills develop across K–5.
• Develop and maintain the strand's research base, instructional principles, and design rationale, staying current with reading science, instructional design, and state-level expectations, and using new evidence to strengthen the program over time.
• Create the scope and sequence and the curriculum design specifications that codify how the program works, including lesson architecture, instructional routines, assessment, and criteria for instructional quality.
• Design for variability in student learning — additional practice, reteaching, acceleration, differentiated application, and small-group pathways, and how these relate to Tier 1 — ensuring the model supports multilingual learners and students with reading difficulties while maintaining ambitious literacy expectations.
• Lead the creation, prototyping, review, and refinement of foundational literacy lessons, routines, student materials, assessments, decodable texts, and teacher guidance.
• Move fluidly between personally doing detailed curriculum-design work and directing others to execute against the larger instructional model.
• Establish quality criteria and review processes, and provide academic direction, feedback, and coaching so curriculum developers, writers, and editors can produce materials that consistently reflect the program model.
• Collaborate closely with partners in curriculum, editorial, assessment, product, UX/design, production, and professional learning so the program functions as one coherent instructional system.

Tools You’ll Likely Use

• Research databases, literacy frameworks, standards, and curriculum evaluation tools
• Google Suite and collaborative content development systems such as Airtable
• Curriculum mapping, tagging, and scope-and-sequence tools
• AI content generation and editing platforms such as ChatGPT and Claude, along with potential proprietary internal tools
• Assessment and field-testing data used to evaluate and refine curriculum decisions

Requirements

• Demonstrated experience designing or substantially shaping a multi-grade, systematic foundational literacy curriculum or comparably complex literacy program, with meaningful ownership of instructional architecture applied across many teachers and classrooms.
• Deep expertise in early literacy development and the science of reading, with the ability to critically evaluate research and translate it into concrete curriculum-design decisions.
• Experience developing scope and sequence, curriculum architecture, instructional routines, lesson models, design specifications, and curriculum quality criteria at the program level.
• Demonstrated ability to lead complex curriculum development from concept through execution, balancing instructional integrity, development constraints, usability, and timeline — including reviewing materials and giving actionable feedback on instructional quality, developmental appropriateness, sequencing, clarity, and coherence.
• Strong understanding of assessment in early literacy, including how student performance informs pacing, reteaching, differentiation, and progress monitoring.
• Knowledge of how foundational literacy instruction supports multilingual learners and students experiencing reading difficulty, including when universal core instruction is sufficient and when students need additional or different support.
• Ability to codify complex pedagogical ideas into clear written specifications and guidance that other curriculum developers can reliably execute.
• Strong collaboration and project management skills, including the ability to articulate an instructional point of view while incorporating feedback and working within shared priorities and workflows.

Why Work For Us

• Health & 401K: Employee-covered health care and retirement match
• Flexible PTO & Company Closures: Flexible PTO and 12+ observed days off.
• Chances to Connect: Biannual company retreats and optional local meetups 
• Remote Opportunities:  Most positions are remote, supporting work-from-home flexibility  
• Perks and Stipend: Technology package provided, plus a home office stipend
• Learning and Development: Educational and development opportunities, monthly Brunch and Learns, and more!

The base compensation range for this role is $150,000 – $170,000. Total compensation for this role also includes a full benefits package. This compensation range and title may be adjusted based on actual experience.
Must be U.S. based. 

*Please note that because of high application volume, we are only able to respond to applicants moving forward in the process.