You Asked. We Listened. New STARI Curriculum Updates for 2026-27

Margaret Troyer, Ed.D.
August 18, 2026

In response to teacher feedback and research-based best practices, we have made a number of revisions to the STARI curriculum for the 26-27 school year. It’s important to note that no content has changed! The texts, skills, and debate questions all stayed the same. The revisions have added supports for students, particularly in the areas of vocabulary and language development, and made the materials more user-friendly for teachers. 

Updated Teacher Lesson Plans Format

We reformatted the teacher lesson plans to make the student workbook page thumbnails larger and easier to read. And along the way, we’re saving a few trees, and making your bag a little lighter when you carry your lesson plans to and from school.

New Resources for Communicating with Families

We created materials you can use to communicate with parents and caregivers of STARI students. We now have an overview of the STARI program, as well as overviews of each unit. We also wrote up week-by-week summaries of what students are learning, which you can copy/paste into newsletters or other information you send home to families. 

Vocab Catchers 

Vocab Catchers give students more opportunities to work with and revisit important vocabulary throughout a unit. Rather than introducing a word once and moving on, students return to key terms as they encounter them in new texts and contexts. 

Editable Slides

Editable lesson slides make it easier to adapt STARI lessons to your classroom and students. You can add notes, adjust content, or make other changes while keeping the structure and sequence of the STARI lesson intact. Editable slides for Units 1.1, 2.1, 3.1, and 4.1 are now available. Slides for the second and third unit in each series will be ready before you finish teaching Unit 1!

Supports for Multilingual Learners

New multilingual learner supports are now embedded throughout the Teacher Materials for each STARI unit. These supports give teachers additional ways to make complex texts, vocabulary, and classroom discussions more accessible to multilingual learners while maintaining the rigor of the STARI curriculum.

FAQ:

No.


This is one of the most important things to know about the 2026–27 revisions: none of the STARI content has changed.


If you have an older version of the curriculum, you can continue to use it. The texts, skills, and debate questions remain the same.


We've been shipping updated versions of Series 1, 2, and 3 since the end of April 2026. If you received printed materials in May 2026 or later, you likely have the updated versions.


There's an easy way to check: look at the copyright at the bottom of the student workbook and Teacher Lesson Plan pages. If it says 2026, you have the updated materials.


Note: Most fluency passages were not updated, so they may still show earlier copyright years.


If you have an older version, you can also access the updated materials for free through the SERP Download Center.

Yes!


You don't need to replace your existing materials to take advantage of many of the new resources.


Editable Slides: You can use the new editable slides even if you're using an older version of the Teacher Lesson Plans. You can ignore the slide numbers in the older lesson plans; the new slides are clearly organized by lesson and activity.


Vocab Catchers: Vocab Catchers are located at the end of each student workbook. If you're using an older workbook, you can simply print the Vocab Catcher pages from the updated PDF and make copies for your students.


Multilingual Learner Supports: If you want to use the new language dives, download a copy of the updated Teacher Lesson Plans, use the lesson-by-lesson overview to identify which lessons include them, then locate the language dives.


In other words, you don't need to replace the materials you already have. The updates are designed to give you more options and supports as you teach.

Series 4 was new in 2025–26, so many of the newer features, including Vocab Catchers, were already incorporated into the materials.


We're continuing to update the remaining Series 4 features throughout the 2026–27 school year. Updated versions of Unit 4.1 are already available in the SERP Download Center, with additional updates coming this fall.

Good eye! We have changed the title of Unit 3.2 from “Immigration Debate” to “Between Two Worlds.” All the content has remained the same, so if you have older versions of Unit 3.2, you can still use them.


The texts in Unit 3.2 (the core novel Ask Me No Questions, by Marina Budhos, the nonfiction text Hot Topics: Immigration, and the short story “The All-American Slurp,” by Lensey Namioka)  focus primarily on the immigrant experience rather than the immigration debate. 

The focus is particularly different from what the phrase “immigration debate” brings to mind in today’s political climate. “Between Two Worlds” is therefore a more accurate title for the unit and better reflects the themes and experiences explored throughout the texts.

Have feedback? We want to hear it. 

All of these changes were made based on feedback from teachers like you. As you start using the updated materials, please tell us what you love, and what you wish was different! Share your feedback at info@serpinstitute.org.

Thanks for all the work you do to support STARI students. Have a wonderful school year!

To access updated STARI materials, visit the SERP Download Center.