HERU Foundations

The Beginning of the HERU Literacy Journey

HERU Foundations is a comprehensive Structured Literacy platform that prepares students in Grades 6–12 to enter the Rodriguez Text-Tagging Method (RTTM). Sound awareness, alphabet mastery, phonics, word building, reading fluency — and a clear bridge into the HERU Reader comprehension pathway.

A Black student listening carefully with headphones

The Six-Stage Literacy Pathway

A sequential, adaptive instructional sequence grounded in the Science of Reading.

Stage 1

Sound Awareness

Phonological awareness — rhyming, syllables, sound matching, and auditory discrimination. The listening foundation for all later decoding.

Objective: Hear, segment, and manipulate the sounds of spoken language.

Stage 2

Alphabet Mastery

Rapid, automatic letter-name and letter-sound recall in both isolated and sequence form, including letter formation.

Objective: Name and produce the sound for every letter of the alphabet with automaticity.

Stage 3

Phonics

Systematic sound–symbol correspondence: blending, segmenting, and word building with consonants, vowels, digraphs, blends, inflectional endings, and multisyllabic decoding.

Objective: Decode, encode, and build unfamiliar words using sound–symbol rules and word structure.

Stage 4

Reading Fluency

Accuracy, rate, and prosody at the phrase, sentence, and connected-text level with appropriate scaffolding.

Objective: Read connected text accurately, smoothly, and with expression.

Stage 5

Bridge to RTTM

Transition from foundational decoding into the comprehension demands of the Rodriguez Text-Tagging Method — sentence-level meaning, main idea, and basic RTTM entry skills.

Objective: Demonstrate readiness to enter the HERU Reader RTTM comprehension pathway.