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Portrait of a Learner: Academic Proficiency
By: Renee Perrault
In second grade, students have been working hard on building their literacy skills in a
multitude of ways. Every day in our classroom we practice reading and writing across a variety
of subjects, and we never leave an opportunity to practice behind. In addition to traditional
methods however, we also build our literacy skills through speaking!
The Science of Reading has shown that successful readers have many skills that fall into
2 groups:
1. Word Recognition- the ability to instantly read words
2. Language Comprehension - the ability to understand both verbal and written language
An important foundational skill required for word recognition is the ability to isolate and
manipulate the sounds in words. Therefore, every day we start off our second grade literacy
block with a Heggerty warm-up. The Heggerty program is a quick group of exercises that last
about 5 minutes. During this time students use oral language and movement to focus on
different sounds in oral language. While this time is short, it helps students grow so much as
readers and writers! They learn to focus on sounds orally so that they can represent them in
their writing and instantly recognize them in their reading.
So the next time you are in the car driving to the store or a sporting event, feel free to
play some rhyming games or orally sound out simple words like ‘flip’ or ‘such’. It will pay off in
helping your student grow as a reader and writer!
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