[hikinghiker]

I'm currently hosting an after school tutoring. I have kindergarteners for 20 minutes a day and first graders for 30 minutes. All students are at roughly the same level: they're doing good on learning their letter sounds but are struggling heavily with phonemic awareness.

I've been using Heggerty but havent seen any improvement. No hearing issues or other delays and are able to pick up on phonics at an expected rate. We're at the point where most still aren't able to name first sounds.

We're been using phoneme fingers, the heggerty arm method, repetition with beginning sound (mom - m. M is the beginning sound of mom), tapping it out, body movements, and songs. The only thing I havent tried yet is elkonin boxes because they don't have supplies, but I'm going to start that today and try to use a google slideshow I purchased.

Any other advice? Honestly baffled at this point.

[Sbkangas5]

I love Heggerty for most kids, but I do think that for the ones who really struggle it's too much at once. I don't have any advice because it sounds like you have used everything I would. The only thing I'd say is to maybe keep it to one skill at a time (although I skip rhyming with my strugglers and just focus on beg/end/middle sounds). I think I saw that Heggerty now has an intervention book - might be something to look into.

[hikinghiker]

I haven't been doing that all in a day because we're limited on time. My typical go to is to do a letter sound sound with movements, then we do letter sound flashcards, then we do a PA activities (whichever heggerty strategy), then a PA game.

We haven't touched on rhyming, reading, changing sounds, etc, because we still can't isolate the beginning sound.

[MalloryJames]

I think if they are stuck on isolating initial sound, maybe move onto compound words and syllables and revisit beginning sounds later.

[NoMorePencils]

I have recommended this book mulitple times on this site because I believe in it so strongly. It really helps those struggling learners. I am sure that you can get it cheaper but this is a link just so you can see the book. It is by Marilyn Jager Adams - Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum

[Haley23]

Do you have access to the pre-K Heggerty book, or does the program have funds to purchase it for you?

It goes back further and has students do things with compound words and syllables; your students may need work on that before they're ready to isolate sounds. Of course, you can always do your own stuff with compound words and syllables, it's just easier to have the stuff all laid out in the Heggerty books.

My P is always recommending visuals and manipulatives for PA skills. Some kids have such poor working memory that they literally just can't even remember the word you just said. So instead of just saying the word "pig" have a picture to go with it and see if that helps. The problem I sometimes run into with that is you have to be very careful that the pictures/words you choose aren't ambiguous and that kids definitely know what the word is. For example, if I show a mop and they say "broom," the picture doesn't really help. Manipulatives are hit or miss, IMO. Some kids get way too distracted by them. YMMV of course.

I've had a student the past 2 years (in sped, I get my kids for multiple years) who has the worst PA skills I've ever seen in my 11 years of teaching. He used to not even be able to repeat a word correctly. I'd say "pig" and he'd say "pat" and be very sure he was saying what I just said. And no, he's not EL. There was no "practicing" PA skills because he didn't have any. I've had to just model and have him repeat over and over and over again with the same skills. After hearing each skill a million times he started to get it. We still have a long road to go, but he can now segment and blend CVC words with almost 100% accuracy.

[hikinghiker]

I do have the pre-k one and have actually been using that for beginning sound practice. I might start moving down to compound words, I wasn't sure if that would help with beginning sounds but now I'm thinking that it would definitely help with working memory, which I didn't even consider.

Haley23, you give me hope that I can get this group to be successful too!