Contrary to popular belief, students should not be taught to memorize irregular words by sight. In most irregular words, only one or two letters do not conform to their usual sound correspondence. This means that most irregular words are at least partially decodable. This is a printable collection of irregular word cards.
What if you only had to teach 20 sight words from the Dolch list? Guess what? You can–because the other 200 words are completely decodable.
Often, high-frequency words are called « sight words » with the expectation that these words are irregular and must be memorized. Integrating high-frequency words into phonics lessons allows students to make sense of spelling patterns for these words. To do this, high-frequency words need to be categorized according to whether they are spelled entirely regularly or not….
Comprehensive article outlining the key principles for making sense of the English spelling system.
In this podcast interview with Kate Winn and Dr. Sonia Cabell, the focus is on the importance of early language and literacy development. Dr. Cabell highlights key considerations for instruction in several areas: oral language and conversation, alphabetics, writing and spelling, and building knowledge.
