Let's talk about Sight Words, Irregular/Heart Words and Dolch and Fry.

What are they?

Irregularly spelled words may be called “heart words”, “high frequency words”, or “irregular words”. Sometimes they are called "sight words"*. Irregular words are often difficult for new readers to sound out (decode) as they may not follow the most common letter to sound patterns. A high frequency word is a word that occurs so frequently in language that they might need to be learned before the student has been taught how to decode this word. Some irregularly spelled words will become decodable in later phonics lessons, such as ‘go’, ‘and’, ‘as’ - they are temporarily irregular. Some irregular words will need to be learned “by heart”, if the sounds cannot be decoded - they are permanently irregular.

What are the "Dolch and Fry" Lists?

Both Dolch and Fry developed High Frequency Word Lists that contain the most common words encountered in texts that children read.

What was the problem with the "Dolch and Fry Lists"?

The main concern with these lists is that they were at one point taught as 'sight' words or "unanalyzed wholes". They were based on a method of teaching that believed reading instruction should begin by teaching children to memorize words, rather than using a sounding-out method. These lists were regularly sent home for the student to memorize by "sight" under the disguise of names such as "magic words", "sight words", "core words" etc.

Many of the words on these lists were not irregular and could easily be taught using a sounding-out strategy. Often these lists could contain a large number of words to memorize all at once. This would lead to frustration for the student as they wouldn't have much success. If these words were taught explicitly and systematically we can reduce many frustrations for the student by teaching only what is necessary and in context.

What is Explicitly and Systematically?

A robust phonics program will use a systematic synthetic phonics sequence, which is the order in which a student learns the link between sounds and letters (phonemes and graphemes).

The carefully planned sequence for teaching the phonics is systematic. This means the instruction will have a sequence that builds up from the most simplest graphemes and phonemes to the more complex, ensuring that skills are acquired before new concepts are introduced.

The method of teaching using direct and clear instruction is explicit, you might see this modeled as "I do, we do, you do", active participation and with ample opportunities to respond and check for understanding.

A carefully planned phonics programs will incorporate most of the high frequency words into a sequence, so they no longer have to be memorized, they can be decoded or partially decoded.

How should we teach the irregular words?

Nowadays many phonics programs will call these irregularly spelled words “heart words”, “high frequency words”, or “irregular words”. Many of these words are found on the Dolch and Fry lists, but the difference is that we teach these irregular words in a systematic sequence and the reader should decode wherever possible.

If we sort most of the Dolch and Fry words into a decodable sequence most of them no longer have to be memorized, they can be decoded! For example many of the words on the Dolch and Fry lists contain decodable words that the student can sound out (e.g. sat, it, in, and). Using a sounding-out strategy means that students can easily read a new word.

Some of the words, whilst not fully decodable, contain parts that can be identified and sounded out. This is what we call partial decoding. Often the irregular words will have some part of the word that is decodable. For example the word "go", the student may know that the sound /g/ is represented by the letter 'g'. They might not know yet that the letter 'o' has different sounds. At this stage of their program they might know that the sound /o/ as in "cot", but they might not know the sound /o/ as in "so". Some programs may refer to the new sound /o/ as the "heart" part of the word and teach it as temporarily irregular.

Partial decoding is valuable for the student as it teaches them to use their sounding-out strategy and helps reduce the cognitive load.

Take home messages?

Why frustrate the student? If they can decode the most frequently used words why make them learn by the shape of the word and not by the sound? The key is to reduce the frustration and cognitive load on the child. Introduce irregular words in sequence, only two or three words per lesson. Partially decode the word and explicitly teach the part of the word that is irregular. Practice! Give multiple opportunities to read and write the word and use the word in sentences. Make it meaningful!

How do I put this into practice?

Follow a systematic synthetic phonics program and their recommended irregular word sets. I like to use the scope and sequence from UFLI Foundations for their Irregular Words / Heart Words. I use their slides and manual for the explicit and direct teaching. For additional practice and homework, I have created worksheets that are very useful for multiple opportunities to provide repeated and varied practice that will help the students think about the word several times in different ways. You can grab a free set from here: Irregular / Heart Word Sheets or the full set from my teachers pay teachers store.

*Please note that "sight words" also has a different meaning. Sight words mean any word that a reader has secured in memory to the point of automaticity. This can be words that the student can sound-out, or words with irregular parts. Eventually when the student as orthographically mapped the word it becomes a "sight word" - a word recognized by sight. Unfortunately this meaning can be confused with the "sight word lists" that are sent home for memorization.

This has been a very brief introduction into irregular words and high frequency words. I encourage you to do further reading on this topic and I'll list some links below.

• Ehri, Linnea C. PhD. Learning To Read and Learning To Spell: Two Sides of a Coin. Topics in Language Disorders 20(3):p 19-36, May 2000.

• Ehri, L. C. (2013). Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition of Sight Word Reading, Spelling Memory, and Vocabulary Learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(1), 5–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2013.819356
  

• National Reading Panel (US), National Institute of Child Health, & Human Development (US). (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction: Reports of the subgroups. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health.

• Steacy, L. M., Wade-Woolley, L., Rueckl, J. G., Pugh, K. R., Elliott, J. D., & Compton, D. L. (2019). The role of set for variability in irregular word reading: Word and child predictors in typically developing readers and students at-risk for reading disabilities. Scientific Studies of Reading, 23(6), 523-532.

• UFLI Foundations Irregular and High Frequency Words