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Chunk It | Fun Phonics Song for Kids | Chunking | Reading Strategies | Jack Hartmann

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Digraphs | Phonics Song for Children | Phonemic Awareness | Jack Hartmann

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What Is a Blend? | br, cr, dr, fr | Writing & Reading Skills for Kids | Phonics Song | Jack Hartmann

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The Importance of Phonics in Decoding

Knowing the Secrets empowers kids to decode approximately 95% of the most commonly memorized sight words by applying what they know about letter behavior to predict their most likely sounds.

This study, however, may seem of little value to those teaching without the Secrets in early grade classrooms, where overreliance on sight words is far too frequent, due to early learners' gross lack of skills in comparison to the required text level assessments. To compensate, beginning readers must memorize hundreds of sight words before the end of second grade, often forcing teachers to prioritize teaching the "reading" over teaching the reader.

Beginning grade learners own so little of the alphabetic code that it's virtually impossible for them to make sense of the many different sounds that letters make when they come together in words. To compensate, teachers will often rely on the rote memorization of sight words to help students "read."

Rote memorization is not only developmentally inappropriate for early grade learners, but requires a vast amount of instructional time, energy and resources (assistant and volunteer time, activities, material, etc.) It is also far from ideal from a brain based learning perspective.

The Brain On Sight Words

"Quite apart from anything the teacher does... the student, being human, is a pattern finder, and a pattern maker..." - Dr. David Bronson

The brain is often referred to as the ultimate pattern-making machine, seeking and storing memories based on patterns, or repeated relationships between ideas. Simply put, patterning is the brain's way of doing things... and Secret Stories® takes full advantage of this.

Secret Stories® feeds the brain's natural inclination to seek patterns when learning to read by aligning patterns of letter behavior to patterns of kid behavior. Developmentally, it is much easier for very young learners to pattern-out (i.e. make sense of) "behaviors" than abstract phonics patterns. Knowing the "secrets" about letters' behavior allows beginning and struggling readers to easily predict their most and next most likely sounds in unknown words, just as they would the behavior of their friends and classmates.

Secret Stories® "feeds" the brain's hunger for patterns when learning to read.

Why Sight Words Don't Always Work

While many of the listed pre-primer and primer words are easily decodable with letters making sounds that beginning readers would expect, those that are highlighted contain Secrets, which when taught traditionally as phonics "rules" span three to four grade level years to learn. This is far too long to make learners wait for the whole code (Allington, 2012).
"Typically, the first 100 high frequency aren't mastered by most kids until Thanksgiving or so of first grade... and that is with considerable effort." -Dr.Tim Shanahan
For example, some children do not even have a concept of a word or understanding of the word boundaries in print and how these map to letters, and yet they are memorizing letter sequences in "sight words."

Additionally, a great deal of sight word instruction occurs before children even have a concept of how letters actually come together to make words. Instructional emphasis at the earliest grade levels is on memorizing random letter sequences, rather than learning how to decode easily decodable text. Before beginning learners even understand the alphabetic principle they are "calling" words. Without a concept of word or alphabetic insight, children will have the mistaken impression that words are unsystematic, making learning not only inefficient (Duke, 2016), but in total opposition with how our brains learn best, which is patterning.

Additionally, rote memorization requires brain storage, which is not limitless. In deciding what to remember, our brains ask "Do I need this?... Does it make sense?" If not, the information is relegated to the "use it or lose it" system, for which every learner has a unique threshold for how many times they must use a skill so as not to lose it.

Most often, it is the learners who need the most "use-it" time who get the least, marking the beginning of what quickly emerges as an "un-level playing field" for struggling readers. Kids who can seem to be learning to read can suddenly hit a wall in second grade or third grade when the brain's finite storage for memorized words runs out. But kids who know the Secrets don't have to memorize sight words. They can just read them.

The "prize" for memorizing a sight word is ONE word.

The prize for learning a Secret is HUNDREDS!

Kids who know the Secrets have early access to high leverage phonics skills that would otherwise take years to acquire. Underscoring the traditionally slow pace of phonics skill introduction in the reading series (or adopted phonics program) with Secret Stories® saves teachers and students countless hours of instructional time, allowing them to get twice as far in half the time, and with half the effort.

Wanna Know the "Secret" for Making Sight Words Stick?

Don't Memorize them....just READ Them!

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Sight Words vs Phonics | The Secret Stories

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Knowing the Secrets empowers kids to decode approximately 95% of the most commonly memorized sight words by applying what they know about letter behavior to predict their most likely sounds.

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In many classrooms we visit, "sight words" receive a very different kind of instruction than other words, taught primarily as an exercise in visual memorization. In this post, we explain why sight words should be taught much as you would teach any other words.

First, a note about terminology: The term sight word means any word that can be read automatically (Ehri, 2005). Ultimately, any word can and should be a sight word, not just words from the Dolch or Fry lists, for example. For skilled readers, virtually all words have already become sight words. At this point, readers no longer need to engage in decoding (e.g., /c/-/a/-/t/ = /cat/); using an analogy (e.g., cat: like bat with a c); or using sentence context to figure out the words (Ehri, 2005)-they can now read them automatically, without conscious attention. In contrast, often people use the term sight words to mean high-frequency words, many of which do not follow typical English letter-sound relationships (e.g., said, some). They think that these high-frequency words must be learned by sight, without graphophonemic analysis, because of their irregularities. In the remainder of this post, we explain that this is not the case, and we use the term high-frequency words, meaning words that are very common in English, whether regularly or irregularly spelled.

Memorizing high-frequency words holistically is not the answer. The most powerful mechanism for eventually accessing words by sight is use of the graphophonemic structure, a process that amalgamates the word's units into memory (Ehri, 1978). Here are five principles to keep in mind when teaching high-frequency words:

Principle One: Teach high-frequency words along with phonemic awareness, individual letter-sound relationships, and a concept of word (e.g., Flanagan, 2007). In our observation, a great deal of high-frequency word instruction occurs too early-before children have these important pieces in place. For example, some children do not even have a concept of word or understanding of the word boundaries in print and how these map to letters, and yet they are memorizing letter sequences in "sight words." Similarly, before they even understand the alphabetic principle they are chanting words. Without a concept of word or alphabetic insight, children will have the mistaken impression that words are unsystematic, and learning will be inefficient in any case. High-frequency word instruction should occur on basically the same pace as instruction in word decoding in general.

Principle Two: Ask students to use graphophonemic analysis to read high-frequency words (Ehri, 2005). But be sure that instruction intersects with children's developmental stage (e.g., Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2012). For example, when working with an emergent reader who is solidifying consonant sounds, focus them on the /t/ in to. When working with a full alphabetic reader, teach that in the word and, the a says /ă/, the n says /n/, and the d says /d/. Do this even for words that are not spelled using common letter-sound correspondences. For example, for the word was, we teach that w says /w/, a says /ŭ/, and the s says /z/. This kind of instruction builds a phonological representation of the word, which supports learning of the word.

Principle Three: Teach high-frequency words in groups that have similar patterns. For example, instead of teaching the word some as a rule breaker, explain that it is like come, above, and love.

Principle Four: Use high-frequency words to help children learn to decode new words. In one study, children were taught high-frequency words, such as long, can, and her, either with relatively little attention to the letter-sound relationships within them or with extensive analysis of their letter-sound relationships (Ehri, Satlow, & Gaskins, 2009). Children taught the words with full graphophonemic analysis were better able earlier on to analogize from those words to new words-for example to say, "If I know long, then I know strong.''

Principle Five: Practice reading high-frequency words in sentences and books. Although we want children to analyze words individually, they also must read them within the context of sentences and books. It is critical that young children understand that reading high-frequency words enables them to unlock meaning within texts of interest to them.

In sum, we recommend you approach the teaching of high-frequency words, or what you might have been referring to as "sight words," much as you approach the teaching of other words. Such continuity in instructional approach would be out of "sight"!
Nell K. Duke The ILA Literacy Research Panel uses this blog to connect ILA members around the world with research relevant to policy and practice. Reader response is welcomed via References . is a professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture at the University of Michigan, a member of the ILA Literacy Research Panel, and the author of Inside Information: Developing Powerful Readers and Writers of Informational Text Through Project-Based Instruction. Heidi Anne E. Mesmer is an associate professor of Literacy at Virginia Tech and a member of the ILA Literacy Research Panel. Her research focuses on text and beginning reading instruction.
Bear, D.R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2012). Words their way ​ (5th​ ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Ehri, L.C. (1978). Beginning reading from a psycholinguistic perspective: Amalgamation of word identities. In F.B. Murray, (Ed.), The development of the reading process (International Reading Association Monograph No. 3). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Ehri, L.C. (2005). Learning to read words: Theory, findings, and issues. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9(2), 167-188.

Ehri, L.C., Satlow, E., & Gaskins, I. (2009). Grapho-phonemic enrichment
strengthens keyword analogy instruction for struggling young readers. Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 25(2-3), 162-191.

Flanigan, K. (2007). A concept of word in text: A pivotal event in early reading acquisition. Journal of Literacy Research, 39(1), 37-70.

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In many classrooms we visit, "sight words" receive a very different kind of instruction than other words, taught primarily as an exercise in visual memorization. In this post, we explain why sight words should be taught much as you would teach any other words.

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Word recognition plays an important role in learning to read. Although not a substitute for the critical skill of being able to decode unfamiliar words (referred to as word identification), recognizing some words automatically, or on sight, contributes to reading effortlessly and with understanding (McArthur et al., 2015). Words that can be recognized this way by a reader are known as sight words. Learning certain kinds of sight words enables children to devote their energy to decoding words that are more difficult.

What Are Sight Words?

There are two types of sight words. The first type includes decodable words that frequently occur in printed English (e.g., "and," "like," "get"). These high frequency words can be read by sounding them out, but they appear so often in text that learning to read them on sight will increase children's reading fluency (Joseph, Nation, & Liversedge, 2013). Moreover, these words can provide a student access to connected text in advance of learning the phonics principles otherwise necessary for decoding them (Ehri, 2014).

The other type of sight words cannot be decoded because they do not follow the typical letter-sound correspondences (e.g., "have," "there," "of"). These are irregular words and because they cannot be identified, they must be recognized automatically.

What Sight Words Should Be Taught?

Several research-based lists of sight words are available for teachers to use when planning instruction or for families to use when working with their children at home. One of the most popular lists is Edward Dolch's (1936) list of 220 basic sight words. Commonly referred to as the Dolch words, this list was developed as an alternative to longer sight word lists of 500 or more words. To be included on the list, a word had to appear on all three popular word lists of the early 1900s:

The Child Study Committee of the International Kindergarten Union's (1928) list of 2,596 words

The Gates (1926) list of vocabulary for primary grade children

Wheeler and Howell's (1930) list of 453 words most frequently used in beginning readers published from 1922 to 1929.

The final Dolch list excluded all nouns, which are concrete and easily referenced in illustrations, and included an additional 27 words not found on the three lists mentioned above. Dolch cautioned that his list of words did not include all the sight words children might need to learn in the elementary grades, but the words represented the minimum that children should be able to read automatically.

Another popular list of sight words is Edward Fry's (2000) 1000 Instant Words. Fry's list differs from Dolch's (1936) in a few key ways. First, Fry's list has been revised several times. What originally began as a list of 1000 words (Fry, 1957) was condensed to a list of 300 words (Fry, 1980) and, most recently, reintroduced as a modified list of 1000 words (Fry, 2000). In comparison, the Dolch words have not been updated since they were first introduced. Second, the longer list compiled by Fry is broader in scope. Among the resources used to develop the Fry list were the Dolch words and The American Heritage Word Frequency Book (Carroll, Davies, & Richman, 1971). As a result, the Fry list includes nearly all of the Dolch Words, with 19 exceptions:

The other words contained on Fry's (2000) list represent the most common words in the English language organized in groups of 100. Fry suggested that his list of 1000 Instant Words be used as part of the comprehensive literacy instruction provided to beginning readers in elementary school as well as struggling readers in middle and high school.

How to Teach Sight Words

Now that you know about some of the validated sight word lists, there are several research-based recommendations to remember when teaching sight words (e.g., Ayala & O'Connor, 2013; January, Lovelace, Foster, & Ardoin, 2017). Lists ordered by frequency provide guidance for teachers and families in considering which generally are the highest priority for instruction. However, the words that children are about to encounter in a book should be considered alongside the sight word lists. For young children, choose one or two sight words from the book that appear in the first 100 on the list. Older children may be able to learn five to seven sight words from the book at a time, and those words should gradually be lower on the list of frequency. The following are additional tips for teaching sight words:

1. Introduce new sight words in isolation (i.e., the sight word by itself), but immediately follow this with repeated exposures to the same sight words in books and other text materials.

2. Do not introduce two sight words that are similar or easily confused at the same time. For instance, "will" and "well" should be introduced in separate lessons as should "on" and "no."

3. Provide brief (i.e., less than 10 minutes per session) but frequent sight word instruction, especially for beginning and struggling readers.

4. Offer students numerous opportunities to practice and receive immediate, specific feedback. For example, if a child reads the word "this" correctly, respond with positive feedback: "Yes! The word is this." If a child read "this" incorrectly, respond with corrective feedback: "The word is this. Say the word this."

Immediately encountering the words in a book provides an opportunity to practice reading them, but building the ability to read them with automaticity, or effortlessly upon sight, will take repeated practice. If a child is struggling to remember previously introduced sight words, continue practicing with those before adding new sight words. Finally, it is important to remember that sight word instruction is only one part of a comprehensive reading lesson and must be accompanied by instruction in phonics (Ehri, 2014).

Reading Racetrack: One Research-Based Sight Word Strategy

One research-based sight word activity to use as part of sight word instruction is the reading racetrack (Rinaldi, Sells, & McLaughlin, 1997; Sullivan, Konrad, Joseph, & Luu, 2013). Although implemented one-on-one in the Sullivan et al. study, the reading racetrack strategy has been modified here (see Supplemental Materials for Teachers below to access this resource) for implementation in peer pairs and small groups. Initially, a set of sight words is taught with feedback, and then the racetrack activity provides students practice with the sight words to build automaticity. Children read as many of the sight words as they can in 1 minute. The instructor then forms small groups of students who made similar errors, and provides direct instruction to each group. Children then practice reading the sight words again and graph their results.

Part of the Bigger Reading Picture

Given the need to recognize high frequency and irregular words automatically, sight word instruction remains one component of a comprehensive literacy program for early readers and, for older students experiencing reading difficulties, a part of reading intervention. To prevent students from becoming reliant on the ineffective practice of memorizing lists of words, the instruction should be delivered in small doses (i.e., less than 10 minutes) and occur alongside systematic phonics instruction. The sight words themselves should be drawn from research-based lists and be applied immediately to reading connected text. It is important to remember that sight word drills are not the route to skilled reading ability. Rather, most words become sight words when a reader is able to efficiently process the sound-symbol correspondences of the printed forms (Ehri, 2014). When implementing effective reading instruction, only a small set of words need be taught as sight words. Reading most words should be an effortless act.

Supplemental Materials for Teachers

Reading Racetrack Sight Word Activity

Teach sight word recognition using this exercise that involves multiple rounds of instruction and practice.

References

Ayala, S. M., & O'Connor, R. (2013). The effects of video self‐modeling on the decoding skills of children at risk for reading disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 28, 142-154. doi:10.1111/ldrp.12012

Carroll, J. B., Davies, P., & Richman, B. (1971). The American Heritage word frequency book. New York, NY: American Heritage Publishing Co.

Child Study Committee of the International Kindergarten Union. (1928). A study of the vocabulary of children before entering the first grade. Washington: International Kindergarten Union.

Dolch, E. W. (1936). A basic sight vocabulary. The Elementary School Journal, 36, 456-460. doi:10.1086/457353

Ehri, L. C. (2014). Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18, 5-21. doi:10.1080/10888438.2013.819356

Fry, E. (1957). Developing a word list for remedial reading. Elementary English, 34, 456-458. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41384648

Fry, E. (1980). The new instant word list. The Reading Teacher, 34, 284-289. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20195230

Fry, E. (2000). 1000 instant words: The most common words for teaching reading, writing, and spelling. Westminster, CA: Teacher Created Resources.

Gates, A. I. (1926). A reading vocabulary for the primary grades. New York, NY: Teachers College, Columbia University.

January, S. A. A., Lovelace, M. E., Foster, T. E., & Ardoin, S. P. (2017). A comparison of two flashcard interventions for teaching sight words to early readers. Journal of Behavioral Education, 26, 151-168. doi:10.1007/s10864-016-9263-2

Joseph, H. L., Nation, K., & Liversedge, S. P. (2013). Using eye movements to investigate word frequency effects in children's sentence reading. School Psychology Review, 42, 207-222. doi:10.1016/j.visres.2015.05.008

McArthur, G., Castles, A., Kohnen, S., Larsen, L., Jones, K., Anandakumar, T., & Banales, E. (2015). Sight word and phonics training in children with dyslexia. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 48, 391-407. doi:10.1177/0022219413504996

Rinaldi, L., Sells, D., & McLaughlin, T. F. (1997). The effect of reading racetracks on the sight word acquisition and fluency of elementary students. Journal of Behavioral Education, 7, 219-233. doi:10.1023/A:1022845209417

Sullivan, M., Konrad, M., Joseph, L. M., & Luu, K. C. (2013). A comparison of two sight word reading fluency drill formats. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 57, 102-110. doi:10.1080/1045988x.2012.674575

Wheeler, H. E., & Howell, E. A. (1930). A first grade vocabulary study. The Elementary School Journal, 31, 52-60. doi:10.1086/456516

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Teaching Sight Words as a Part of Comprehensive Reading Instruction

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Word recognition plays an important role in learning to read. Although not a substitute for the critical skill of being able to decode unfamiliar words (referred to as word identification), recognizing some words automatically, or on sight, contributes to reading effortlessly and with understanding (McArthur et al., 2015).

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Why do we not focus more on phonics and less on memorizing sight words?

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Why do we not focus more on phonics and less on memorizing sight words?

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Why can't we teach irregular words "sight words" like we teach all words?

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Why can't we teach irregular words "sight words" like we teach all words?

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How can teachers support parents in teaching the importance of practicing phonics at home?

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How can teachers support parents in teaching the importance of practicing phonics at home?

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          *CLASS READINGS/ QUOTES FROM ARTICLES

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          *CLASS READINGS/ QUOTES FROM ARTICLES

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According to Richard Sagor (1992), action research takes place “when we conduct research for the purpose of initiating action” (p. 8).                  

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According to Richard Sagor (1992), action research takes place “when we conduct research for the purpose of initiating action” (p. 8).                  

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Sagor, Richard. (1992). How to conduct collaborative action research. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

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As noted by Geoffrey Mills (2014), action research is different than traditional educational research because teacher researchers “are committed to taking action and effecting positive educational change in their own classrooms and schools based on their findings” (p. 5).

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As noted by Geoffrey Mills (2014), action research is different than traditional educational research because teacher researchers “are committed to taking action and effecting positive educational change in their own classrooms and schools based on their findings” (p. 5).

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Mills, G. E. (2014). Action research: A guide for the teacher researcher (5th ed). Upper Saddle

River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

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Marcia Invenizzzl (2016) stated, "When teachers spend time teaching children the skills needed to read and also provide the time children need to practice applying those skills, children will start to remember words they have seen before in context. To finger-point accurately to words of more than one syllable in a memorized rhyme, children must have the ability to isolate the beginning sound of each word and match it to the first letter of each word in running text. Using their memory for how the rhyme goes, children coordinate their pronunciation of each word from memory with the initial sound of each word they see in print."

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Marcia Invenizzzl (2016) stated, "When teachers spend time teaching children the skills needed to read and also provide the time children need to practice applying those skills, children will start to remember words they have seen before in context. To finger-point accurately to words of more than one syllable in a memorized rhyme, children must have the ability to isolate the beginning sound of each word and match it to the first letter of each word in running text. Using their memory for how the rhyme goes, children coordinate their pronunciation of each word from memory with the initial sound of each word they see in print."

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ILA's Blog. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-daily/2014/10/09/should-we-be-teaching-100-sight-words-to-kindergartners-

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Green words mean regular/words you can phonically hear.
Red words mean irregular words/words you can not stretch out phonically- need to teach decoding skills/look for patterns.

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Include decoding strategies in whole and small group settings. 

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Include decoding strategies in whole and small group settings. 

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Learning how to decode WORDS and find the patterns we we DON'T HAVE TO MEMORIZE sight words.

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Learning how to decode WORDS and find the patterns we we DON'T HAVE TO MEMORIZE sight words.