Language Foundations Continuum for Reading and Writing

Grades 1–4: Overall Expectation B2

Words with Irregularities

Overview

Definition

Irregular words contain spellings that are different from the grapheme-phoneme correspondences students may expect. Some frequently used words—words like of, was, do, to, what, and they—have irregularities. It’s important to note, though, that irregular words can often be at least partially decoded. In the word what, it is only the spelling for the vowel sound that is irregular. Truly irregular words are quite rare!

High frequency words are not necessarily irregular: many high frequency words have regular spelling, such as about, down, or make.

Knowledge and Skills

Kindergarten to Grade 4

Applying developing phonological, grapheme-phoneme correspondence, orthographic, and morphological knowledge to decode and spell words with irregularities
Memorizing irregular grapheme-phoneme correspondences for instances where phonological, orthographic, and morphological information cannot be used through meaningful practice, multiple exposures to the word, and explicit instruction, instead of memorizing words as whole units

Looks like

Kindergarten - Grade 2

applying phonological, orthographic, and morphological knowledge to decode and encode the parts of irregular words that are regular
learning the unexpected portions of these words to support word reading and spelling. For example, students could use orthographic knowledge to decode and encode the first and last sound of the word what, but they would memorize the vowel pattern. For example, in the word put, students use grapheme-phoneme correspondences to decode the <p> and <t> and memorize that the <u> has an unexpected pronunciation.

Grade 3 - 4

applying phonological, orthographic, and morphological knowledge to decode and encode the parts of irregular words that are regular
learning the unexpected portions of these words to support word reading and spelling. For example, students could use orthographic knowledge to decode and encode the first and last sound of the word what, but they would memorize the vowel pattern. For the word should, students could use grapheme-phoneme correspondence to spell the /sh/ and apply the <-ould> spelling pattern found in common words such as could and would.

Why is This Important?

Irregular words that occur frequently must be taught to allow students to read short phrases or passages, supporting comprehension. Accurate spelling of words with irregularity also supports written composition.

Instruction

When teaching words with irregularities, it is important to explicitly teach students to “apply developing phonological, grapheme-phoneme correspondence, orthographic, and morphological knowledge to decode and spell words with irregularities” (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2023, p. 6).

Students can memorize irregular grapheme-correspondences that are irregular, not whole words, when they cannot sound out certain sound-spellings.

Words with irregularities need more focus on the links between phonemes and graphemes, not less. Consider using an instructional routine to explicitly teach words with irregularities. Steps might include:

Orally Introduce the Word
- Model saying the word
- Ask students to say the word
- Prompt students to segment the word into its phonemes
Match Phoneme to Graphemes
- Draw a line for each phoneme
- For regular grapheme-phoneme correspondences, ask students to identify which grapheme they would use to represent the phoneme. Write the grapheme on the line.
- For irregular grapheme-phoneme correspondences, provide the grapheme. Highlight to students that this is the part they must memorize.
Read and Spell Aloud
- Ask students to read the word aloud
- Ask students to spell the word
Questioning
- Review the phoneme-grapheme correspondences of the word by asking students how individual sounds are represented.
Spelling
- Ask students to write the word, circling or underlining the phoneme-grapheme correspondence that must be memorized.

Adapted from Dodson (2008)

Assessment for Learning

“The primary purpose of assessment is to improve student learning.”

Growing Success, 2010, p. 28

A variety of sources of insight into students’ knowledge and understanding of words with irregularities can be used as assessment for learning to drive evidence-based explicit and systematic instruction.

Diagnostic inventories of irregular words, both in reading and in writing, can support educators in pinpointing which specific words require explicit and systematic instruction.

Funding for ONlit.org is provided by the Ontario Ministry of Education