Introduction to Heggerty

When we talk about the foundations of literacy, three “PH” words often come to mind: phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics. 

Both phonological awareness and phonemic awareness are oral and auditory, and the focus is on the sounds in words.

Phonics, on the other hand, focuses on the letters that the sounds represent.

Phonics involves print, phonological and phonemic awareness do not.​​​​​​​ (From www.heggerty.org)

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum (2020) is a 35-week curriculum of daily explicit and systematic phonological and phonemic awareness lessons that are done through teacher modelling. It is an evidence-based curriculum that uses a scope and sequence of phonemic awareness skills. 

Whole class instruction is considered Tier 1 Instruction.  Based on assessment data, the Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum can also be used to differentiate instruction and provide support to a small group of students who need the additional practice of targeted phonemic awareness skills (Tier 2). The Heggerty Curriculum could also be used for one-on-one, intensive instruction (Tier 3).