What are high-frequency words
High-frequency words frequently occur in the language
many of them are also common exception words (for example, "I," "the," and "you").
To improve reading fluency, children are instructed to learn these words by sight.
They are frequently words that have little significance on their own but play an essential role in the overall meaning of a statement.
Students can make sense of spelling patterns for high-frequency words by incorporating them into phonics instruction.
To do so, high-frequency terms must be classified according to whether or not they are spelt consistently.
Practices currently in use
High-frequency words are frequently referred to as "sight words," a term that refers to the technique of memorizing the words.
These words could come from the Dolch List, Fry Instant Words, or stories from the reading program.
Sending these "sight words" home for children to review and recall is a common practice, as is drilling with flashcards in the classroom.
The terms "flash words" and "heart words" have been defined.
High-frequency words can be separated into two categories for educational purposes: phonetically decodable words and words with irregular spellings.
Flash Words
Flash Words are high-frequency words that are consistently spelt and thus decodable.
The number of flash words that can be taught using spellings that students already know varies depending on the phonics patterns they have been taught.
Flash Words are used so often in reading and writing that students must read and spell them "in a flash," despite their simple spelling patterns.
Heart Words
Because some parts of the word will have to be "learned by heart," irregularly spelt words are referred to as "Heart Words." Heart Words are also used so frequently that they must be automatically read and spelt.
Examples of Heart Words are: said, are, and where.
Implementing the new model
a. Teachers will need to incorporate high-frequency terms into phonics instruction to execute the new phonics-based paradigm for teaching high-frequency words.
b. They do, however, inform pupils whether the "sight word" is a Flash Word or a Heart Word, and they introduce the words through teaching letter-sound correlations, as described in this article.
c. Furthermore, if possible, teachers introduce terms with similar spelling patterns.
d. The new model allows for a new method to working with pupils who struggle to learn high-frequency terms.
e. Students would have struggled with and failed to memorize these easily misunderstood terms in the past.
f. According to all teachers who use it, students learn to spell and read the words far more readily with this method than with the traditional method.
As a result, students can read these words, pronounce them correctly, spell them, and comprehend what they mean in context.
Children will also use these words in their writing, making it a crucial element of their literacy development.
