Who is Michael Haggerty?

I first remembered it from watching a Teach Like A Champion video on joyful learning. Mr. Davis Joy Factor. It was a video with a kindergarten teacher reviewing phonics and phonemics with kinders in a quick joyful way using a flip chart. I was curious about the flip chart. Found out it  might beMichael Haggerty. So, I went on line downloaded the samples and fell in love.  Soundtrack in my head" Darling I will be lovin you till were seventy" Ed Shearan 

Well, he is the creator of this amazing Phonemic Awareness Curriculum, Literacy Resources. So, at the beginning of this year I was faced with a group of lovely little learners. However, many of my lovelys had very limited reading skills. Research time, re design curriculum time.  Soundtrack in my head" Reunited and it feels so good." but not really that good, me and my excel file/planner are not Besties.

I needed to really redesign my small group work because it was not going to meet their needs. I was not going to give them a choice, they just were going to have to decode during small group building up their accuracy was top priority. I also had a large group of English Learners who just were not hearing the English sounds, meaning I need to hit some phonemic awareness hard.

How on earth can I do this without giving them work that looked like kindergarten stuff. Michael Haggerty to the rescue. He developed this amazing Phonemic awareness program for kinders, English learners and Second grade intervention what rewind that is right Second grade intervention.


The design is totally teacher friendly/ mom. I have 2 very active little girls and I wake up early get to work early so I can leave early and drive them around town, soccer, dance etc... It is organized day by day and divided into areas like syllabication, segmenting, onset and rime, it spirals. YES!.  I just call my group back and run through the lesson activities quickly. It is all verbal so no copies needed. Subs and helpers can do it to with little training/explanation.

The lesson that really opened my eyes and made me stick to this was the compound word lesson. Where I say" cupcake" if I take off the cup and add pan what word does it make? Wowzer, the groans the silence, the looking up into the air for answers. Not one of my little lovelys had any idea. I used a little hand motions. Still nothing! I finally gave them the answer. In fact I had to give them all the answers for 2 days. Then they started to get it Whew! but the element was removed from the curriculum plans, they were so relieved. Spiral remember a week or so later it came back and they were grumbling" This one is so hard" but they did so much better.



Now, I also paired this with seriously focusing on integrating Word Studies into our daily plans. I then began to do more research and found Orton-Gillingham which helped them again!! but that's another blog post.


The Results these guys are still struggling with spelling and reading but this last week I really slowed down the spelling test for them and asked them to listen closely to each sound I was saying and they were hearing. It was amazing I saw an instant increase in their scores I really have only one little guy who still has not shown the progress I wish for him so I will really focus on him. All the others, after the prompt" I am going to say the word again look at what you wrote and listen to what I say?" they would go Ohhh! I am missing an l, or that right I hear and r in words like drive (where that r is hard to hear)  Now, That's what I am Talking about!!! Who is Michael Haggerty? A really smart guy who has really helped my kids bridge the gap in their reading and writing. T