The Alisal Union School District has a history of balanced literacy. Our history began in 1992 when the district began providing literacy professional development and coaching for all its primary teachers with the development of the program Effective First Teacher, EFT as it became known. With the creation of the K-2 Literacy Task Force during the 14-15 school year, classroom teachers shared the desire to bring back a balanced literacy model that was aligned to the Common Core Standards grounded in the research-based routines of EFT. This is the original EFT Handbook, authored by our visionary and courageous coaches of the era, Vickie Hogan, Nancy King, and