Heinemann today announced the release of an updated version of Saxon Phonics and Spelling on its Heinemann Flight platform, with brand new content available for the 2024-2025 school year. Authored by special education teacher Lorna Simmons, Saxon Phonics and Spelling offers a science-based approach to explicit phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics and fluency instruction. Simmons’ years of formal training and classroom experience combined with her personal struggles to guide her own dyslexic son to reading success allowed her to create a unique and immersive program that has been found to be consistently effective for children of varying ability levels and socioeconomic backgrounds.
New content for the 2024/2025 school year will focus on incorporating new foundational skill practice activities grounded in the latest science of reading research and deepening assessment opportunities within the instruction to drive student success.
“These updates are driven by my current classroom experience, seeing first hand the needs of today’s beginning readers,” said Lorna Simmons. “I’m excited about these new enhancements which will better help our children master the foundational reading skills they need to become proficient, motivated and joyful readers.”
Additional Practice Activities
The new version of Saxon will add decodable passages, giving students the opportunity to practice their phonics skills in controlled text every day, with passages increasing in difficulty as students’ learning progresses. In Grade 2, teachers will have access to morphology extension lessons to provide students additional practice for advanced phonics skills.
New Assessment Tools
Teachers will now have access to a new phonics assessment tool on Heinemann’s Flight platform. This tool provides both screening and progress monitoring and is designed to be administered at the beginning, middle and end of each school year to help teachers better understand student progress. The assessment will also include key information about how teachers can use student data to support, reinforce or extend their teaching, providing differentiated instruction for each student’s individual needs.
The updated program will also include a revised phonological awareness scope and sequence to align to the latest research and ensure that instruction systematically builds on prior skills with a new set of instructional routines that span across all phonological awareness content.
“Saxon Phonics and Spellings’ research-based and classroom-proven instruction has a long history of turning young students into successful readers,” said Maggie DeMont, general manager of Heinemann. “Heinemann is delighted to be able to offer new content alongside a streamlined digital experience that will help to strengthen key elements of foundational literacy, making this high-caliber and trusted foundational reading program even stronger.”
For more information about Saxon Phonics and Spelling, please visit: https://www.heinemann.com/saxon-phonics-and-spelling/.
