Heggerty Doesn't Work? Hold Up — That's the Old Version

The Hegarty curriculum has been updated several times in the last decade to respond to new developments in the science, but there was a study this past week that examined an old version of the curriculum, and now it's being reported that it doesn't work.

And I think we have to be very careful here.

I want to give my friends over at Education Week a little bit of a hard time about this, because they have sent out an email, they've written an article, they've done several things to suggest that it is the current version of Hegarty that does not work and what in fact is the case is that there was one activity that used to be in Hegarty that was found to not really work and it has already been removed so we're like two editions later it's like nine years nine or ten years later and we're still talking about how the old version did not work like I think if we want to have good curricular programs we have to give publishers credit when they update them in response to the science because that's what we want to happen right we don't expect that every program is going to get everything right the first try, and we understand that we're going to learn new things about the most effective ways to teach.

And I think this study was about some sort of advanced phonemic awareness activities that didn't have a visual, they were just oral, and it was found that, like, that doesn't really work, and Hegarty's already corrected that.

off to Hegarty for already correcting that by the time the research is done.

I think there was some other research that had informed that decision.

But like, this is the very thing that people held Lucy Calkins accountable for not doing, right?

For not adding enough phonics, for not responding to the problems.

with balanced literacy that were talked about in Soul to Story.

So I think we're starting to get this kind of thing right as a profession.

We're starting to realize that if something is wrong with your program, you can fix it.

You don't have to just die on that hill and be like, no, we're right, and everybody who disagrees with us is evil.

it is a good thing that publishers are now updating their curriculum in response to new learning.

But we have to give them credit for doing that.

We have to report accurately on the changes that they make and not act like they haven't made those changes when a study of the old version is still ongoing, right?

Like, it's just not fair to talk about the old version.

It's like complaining about Windows XP.

Well, Windows XP can't run any modern software and it's, you know, a very popular version.

Well, like, that would be a kind of a goofy headline to run that, you know, the most popular version of Windows can't run modern software.

Like, yeah, that's because it came out like 20 years ago.

Like, cut him some slack here.

Let's talk about today and what we know and let's do as well as we can with what we have.

Let me know what you think.