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Dr. Michael Heggerty at the IRC |
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Once again, Donna and I got to see and visit with Dr. Michael Heggerty. We attended his 2 day conference 2 years ago at Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, IL. His new Blue Book is now available for Kindergarten. I looked through it personally and would recommend it for all Kindergarten classrooms. The format is more Kindergarten friendly and adds many Word Family activities that our Kindergarten classrooms are already working on this year.
My school has been using the Yellow Book for 2 years now in both First and Second Grade. It has made a huge difference when it comes to norm referenced assessments for the early grades. So many times, students are asked to listen to a picture, sound, or word and choose the correct answer that matches it. With the Phoenemic Awareness: The Skills That They Need To Help Them Succeed! - the Yellow Book, they are given daily practice in listening skills and in auditory discrimination. Both skills are in desperate need of practice in my district. Every year the attention span seems to get shorter and shorter for the beginning learners.
I asked Dr. Heggerty about a particular problem I was having with the rhyming word section of the Yellow Book. The students are asked to listen to 3 words and repeat the 2 that rhyme. My students have difficulty with this if any of the words start the same. He suggested repeating them in diads. Say 2 of the words at a time and have the students determine if they rhyme. Repeat until you have given them all three diads. This will help them distinguish between the different concepts of begins the same and rhymes. I tried it and it seemed to help.
Another great suggestion was to try his techniques with Spelling tests. He suggested that you say the word, have the students say the word, and then have them chop the word into sounds or phonemes. Once they have complete all three tasks, have them pick up their pencil and write the word. He felt that many students don't hear the word the first time you say it because they aren't ready to listen. This causes you to repeat for all those that aren't listening. My opinion is we all repeat way too many times as it is. We are probably enabling poor listening skills!
If you have an opportunity to listen to Dr. Michael Heggerty, I would recommend it highly. He is a wonderful presenter with lots of great ideas for Phonemic Awareness and Writing. We throughly enjoyed his presentation!
Shana Whitlock - HelpMeRead.com
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