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If you’re a parent, has your child been sent home from school with a list of “sight words” or “high-frequency words” that they’re supposed to memorize? (The most common lists are usually “Fry’s Most Common Words in Print” or “Dolch Words.”)

If you’re a teacher, have you sent home these lists of words for kids to memorize?! 

I’ve been on both sides, helping my daughter memorize “sight words” when she was in kindergarten and sending lists home for my own students to memorize in 1st and 2nd grade.

At the time, I had NO idea that this was the wrong way to teach our kids to read.

But over the last year, I’ve learned the research behind HOW kids learn to read, and I now understand there’s a better way to teach these words to our kids that DOESN’T include memorizing them as whole words.

This month’s email topic is all about these kinds of words (sometimes called “Sight Words,” “High-Frequency Words,” “Red Words,” or “Snap Words”)

We’re going to spend the next month learning what these words are (and what they’re not) and how you can help your little one learn to read them in a way that’s effective & fun!

And hopefully I can save you (and your little one) the struggle & stress that can come when we try to teach kids the wrong way.

First thing’s first...we need to clarify some definitions.

A sight word is ANY word you can read by sight.

Sight words are individual to the reader. So a 1st grader’s sight word memory might include words like to, from, the,Target, & Netflix, but a doctor’s sight word memory might include words like obdormition, borborygmus, & sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia (by the way, none of those are in my sight word memory!)

A sight word is considered a sight word if you can read it quickly and effortlessly without having to decode it. It can be phonetically regular or irregular.

A 1st grader may have a sight word memory of about 1500 words, whereas a literate adult may have a sight word memory between 30,000 and 70,000 words!

High-frequency words are different. These are the most common words in print. These include words such as the, to, was, he, a, I, you, from, and so on. These words can be phonetically regular or irregular.

According to Really Great Reading, the 20 most frequent high-frequency words make up approximately 25% of all words we read, regardless of what is being read. So it’s definitely SUPER important that we teach these words the right way!

Our goal in early childhood education is for high-frequency words to become sight words.

Here are some myths I used to think about “sight words” that maybe you’ve heard before (or maybe you think them, too) and what the actual truth is according to science.

• MYTH: Words are stored visually in our brains.
• TRUTH: Words are actually stored as sounds. They are mapped as phonetic footprints in our brain. Reading is connecting vision to speech since print is just a representation of our speech. We have no visual dictionary in our brains. If we did, we would get slowed down by different fonts, words that are written with a mix of uppercase & lowercase letter, and different types of handwriting. 

• MYTH: Kids should just memorize whole words.
• TRUTH: While it’s possible to memorize strings of letters rather than map the sound/symbol relationship in our brains, it’s SLOW and takes LOTS of repetitions. Plus the automatic recollection fades over time. Have you ever had a student (or maybe your own child) who can read a certain word one day but forgets it by the next week?

• MYTH: Sight words are phonetically irregular words that kids need to memorize since they don’t follow the “rules” of our language, such as from.
• TRUTH: Sight words are actually ANY word we can read quickly and effortlessly by sight. From is a high-frequency word. And although it’s phonetically irregular, it does have some regularity...the f says /f/, the r says /r/, and the m says /m/. The only irregular sound is coming from the o, which says /u/ instead of /o/. So out of 4 sounds, only 1 is irregular and needs to be pointed out as such. That’s a lot different than saying the entire word is irregular!

• MYTH: Once kids know all of their letter sounds in isolation, they should move on to high-frequency words.
• TRUTH: Just because a child knows their letter sounds in isolation does NOT mean they’re ready to learn high-frequency words. Our little ones need LOTS of practice with phonological and phonemic awareness before they move on to high-frequency words. They need to be able to isolate, blend, segment, delete, and substitute sounds in words orally before we show them printed letters and work on high-frequency words. (I have an entire email series on this topic! Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll send it to you.)

Phew, I think that’s enough for today! Is your brain spinning yet?!

When I first learned this information, I was shocked. I have my bachelor’s degree in elementary education, my master’s degree in early childhood education, and my reading specialist endorsement, and I NEVER learned this information in school.

Unfortunately, best-practices in education based on the science of reading are not getting into the hands of teachers in the classroom.

So if you’re a teacher thinking, “I never learned this!” please know you’re not alone.

And if you’re a parent thinking, “My child’s teacher sends home lists to memorize,” it’s probably because they have never been taught this information. 

I love living by the Maya Angelou quote, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

Now that I know better, I want to share this message with as many parents and teachers as possible so we can help this next generation of kids grow up as strong, effective, independent readers who will change the world!

Today’s email was all about what not to do with high-frequency words. But next week, we’ll move on to how to actually teach them in an effective way that will get them to stick!

But remember, if your little one is not fluent with their letter sounds and phonological/phonemic awareness skills yet, they’re not quite ready for high-frequency words. So you can save this email for when they’re ready!

Have a great week! And as always, feel free to reply to this email with any questions or comments!

HAPPY LEARNING!

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P.P.S. Earth Day is coming, which makes April the perfect time to teach a unit all about our Extraordinary Earth! Check out this printable pack that includes 20 math & literacy activities that focus on our Earth!