The rote memorization of sight words and high frequency words — a mainstay of early literacy instruction in kindergarten classes — should be used with caution as early childhood educators put greater emphasis on the decoding of words through approaches grounded in the science of reading, said Tiffany Peltier, the lead learning and delivery specialist for literacy at NWEA.
High frequency words are words that appear most often in text, such as "the" and "are." The Dolch List and Fry List are go-to sources for these most common words. Sight words are often high frequency words that many readers recognize automatically, such as "the” and "are." But sight words can also include words like "thank" and "pretty" that are not as common in text.
For decades, educators and parents have practiced memorizing these words with students in hopes that budding readers would automatically know the words and naturally pick up the rest of the text and comprehend sentences.
While Peltier is not advising abandoning the use of high frequency word lists, she recommends integrating them in the phonics approach by helping students decode the letters and sounds of each word rather than relying too heavily on memorization.
This will help students from the overuse of guessing a word and approaching reading as a task dependent on memorizing full words.
"It's not the shape of words that helps our brains to understand what those words are. It's the identity of the letters that correspond with the sounds," Peltier said.
Likewise, educators should be cautious of using predictable texts, also known as leveled reader books, when practicing reading skills with emerging readers, Peltier said. Predictable texts such as "I see a police officer. I see a firefighter" could also lead young readers — who have not yet fully developed their decoding skills — to rely more on guessing complex words like "officer" based on images on the page.
Teachers should delay introducing high frequency words that are more difficult to decode, Peltier said. That's because they may not match phonics patterns that haven't been taught yet — or because they contain irregular patterns such as in "said" and "does."
Students should first be able to decode consonant-vowel-consonant words with short vowel sounds, like "can" and "ran," within three seconds before tackling more difficult to decode words, she said.
"You really need to build those foundational skills," Peltier said, advising educators to help students understand that English is a language that can be sounded out. That step is essential "before you start asking them to automatically read these words," Peltier said.
