New Pre-K Curriculum Builds Foundation to Literacy Success

“ABC is easy as 123!” Or, is it? 

 

Blending and segmenting complex or unfamiliar words in reading is second nature for adults. For example, while exploring Hawaii, Carley Baggs, Pre-Primary Director, pronounced ‘Haleakalā National Park’ by breaking it down into chunks or syllables (huh-lay-aa-kuh-laa). For Pre-K students, however, manipulating the parts of words is a skill that requires adept teaching and learning.

 

Thanks to a new Heggerty curriculum used in Pre-K 3 and Pre-K 4, students can better use phonological awareness to recognize and manipulate spoken parts of a word. Heggerty lessons are fast-paced and completed in less than 10 minutes, the ‘perfect amount of time’ to keep the attention of little learners, according to pre-kindergarten teachers. Students build a solid foundation by following daily lessons, leading to greater literacy success.

 

To help students understand syllables, teachers will say a word out loud (e.g., “banana”) and demonstrate clapping for each syllable (ba-na-na). Students clap along for additional practice words. To demonstrate blending, instructors will provide syllables (e.g. but-ter-fly) and ask students to put them together to form a whole word. Later, students will substitute sounds and parts of the word for a greater challenge.

 

“It’s incredibly rewarding to watch how this approach helps things click for students,” said Elizabeth Momberg ‘00”, Pre-K 4 Instructor. 

 

Beville Anderson, Head of Lower School, St. Mark’s Campus, added, “The skills taught in the Pre-K Heggerty Curriculum are designed to align with more advanced reading skills that children will receive in later grades. This continuity helps ensure that students can apply the foundational skills they learn in pre-kindergarten to more complex reading tasks as they progress through school.”