Designed to supplement your existing literacy curriculum, the Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Kindergarten lessons easily integrate into half-day or full-day kindergarten programs. When lessons are taught consistently each day teachers see improvement in students’ reading, spelling, and writing, as the students learn to hear the sounds in words.

"The Blue Book," as it's often called, provides students with instruction in phonological awareness, progressing to the phoneme level through language play activities. It covers all consonants, short vowels, digraphs, blends, and rime patterns, with hearing words with long vowels being introduced in the later weeks of this curriculum. By comparison, the Primary Curriculum, also known as "the Yellow Book" goes further into long vowels and introduces R-controlled vowels, special vowel sounds, and multisyllabic words.

The revised 2022 Edition of the English Kindergarten Curriculum includes lessons that are quick and fast-paced, using a reduced number of words for each skill, in order to provide students with exposure to hearing sounds, and build an awareness of the sounds we hear in spoken words. Each lesson includes a Skill Focus, detailed teacher language, and modeling and support that can be used to provide differentiated instruction and intervention. QR codes provide easy access to hand motion videos and a weekly lesson demonstration video.

The lessons continue to include an Alphabet Knowledge activity, and now include opportunities to make phoneme-grapheme connections, matching the sounds we hear to letters in print.

Intended audience: Half-day or full-day Kindergarten classrooms
Lesson structure: Whole group
Duration: 10-12 minutes
Intervention: Lessons can be used in small groups to provide intervention and support for Kindergarten students who need additional support with targeted skills instruction

The 10 components included in each Heggerty Kindergarten lesson:
1. 8 phonemic awareness skills
2. Alphabet Knowledge & Phoneme-Grapheme Connections
3. Language Awareness activities to develop word awareness & teach nursery rhymes (Weeks 1-18 only)

Lessons provide daily opportunities to develop phonological and phonemic awareness through:
1. Rhyme
2. Phoneme Isolation (initial, final, and medial)
3. Blend words, syllables, onset-rime, and phonemes
4. Segment words, syllables, onset-rime, and phonemes
5. Add syllables and phonemes
6. Delete syllables and phonemes
8. Substitute syllables and phonemes

Bringing explicit phonemic awareness instruction to your kindergarten classroom is easier than ever thanks to the following features:
1. QR codes directly link the weekly lesson page to videos and other supportive resources, enabling easy access to professional development and helping teachers to implement the curriculum with fidelity.
2. Explicit teacher language better enables teachers to support all students' development.
3. The new Skill Focus can be shared as an explanation for each skill or task when teaching the lessons.
4. Overview pages support teachers with changes and shifts that take place throughout the weekly lessons.
5. New opportunities for Phoneme/Grapheme connections.
6. A revised scope and sequence gets students working at the phoneme level sooner.

myHeggerty offers a digital version of the Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum. To review myHeggerty visit https://heggerty.org/my-account/ and use this login info: username: utreview1@gmail.com, password: utimc1!!