[Hiring] Director of Foundational Literacy @inquirED

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
• Leading development of the materials themselves

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.

Qualifications

• Deep knowledge of the research on how children learn to read and write, and how students and instruction change from kindergarten through grade 5.
• Understanding of foundational literacy as broader than phonics alone, including 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.
• Experience applying expertise at program scale across a multi-grade, multi-component curriculum or instructional system.
• Ability to evaluate competing claims, distinguish strong evidence from trends, and translate research into practical programmatic decisions.
• Comfortable moving between a yearlong progression, a unit sequence, an individual lesson routine, a decodable passage, an assessment item, and a teacher-facing direction.
• Ability to reason from first principles and turn ambiguity into a coherent model.
• Awareness of instructional minutes, classroom routines, variability in student readiness, and teacher knowledge.

Requirements

• Demonstrated experience designing or substantially shaping a multi-grade, systematic foundational literacy curriculum or comparably complex literacy program.
• Deep expertise in early literacy development and the science of reading.
• Experience developing scope and sequence, curriculum architecture, instructional routines, lesson models, design specifications, and curriculum quality criteria at the program level.
• Ability to lead complex curriculum development from concept through execution.
• Strong understanding of assessment in early literacy.
• Knowledge of how foundational literacy instruction supports multilingual learners and students experiencing reading difficulty.
• Ability to codify complex pedagogical ideas into clear written specifications and guidance.
• Strong collaboration and project management skills.

Benefits

• 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.