The word building block coaches beginning students how to read through the use of two different learning approaches: phonics, in which a student learns to break down a word into its individual sounds, and "whole language" learning, in which students build a vocabulary of words that they can recognize immediately without sounding out part. While developing the basic skills needed to read independently, students will be introduced to a vocabulary of over 1800 words.

In the sentence building block, students learn the basics of grammar such as parts of speech, subject and verb agreement, and punctuation. Students also read short passages and answer questions about what they have read.

In the paragraph building block, students learn how to organize sentences into paragraphs. Worksheets focus on combining sentences with clauses and conjunctions, identifying the main topic of a passage, and paraphrasing information.

The summary block introduces students to story elements such as plot, character, and setting and instructs them on how to write a persuasive argument.

Finally the critique block exposes advanced students to excerpts from well-known pieces of literature and teaches them to recognize the subtleties in the writing and identify how the author creates the mood and tone of a story. Throughout the upper reading levels vocabulary is emphasized both by having students decipher the meaning of a word from its context and also by matching words from the passages to their definitions.