High Frequency Words
Last week we had a High Frequency Word Hunt. The students had to go and find flashcards of words on the playground according to a list in pairs. They thoroughly enjoyed this activity and excitedly showed the teachers all the words they could find from their lists.
Learning to read is a complex process, which involves many skills. Two of these skills is phonological knowledge and the other is memorising High Frequency Words. Phonological knowledge helps students to decode or sound out words. That is why it is more important to know the phonetic sound of letters rather than the alphabet name, so that words can be spelt out phonetically, like the word c-a-t. Knowledge of High Frequency words is important for those words that cannot be sounded out phonetically, such as the word ‘you’ or ‘the’. These words commonly occur in sentences, hence the term High Frequency Words. That is also why students have greater confidence and fluency when they have been spending time memorising High Frequency Words as part of their reading homework at home.
It’s important that parents try to make learning High Frequency Words fun. Here are some helpful ideas in the links below:
https://www.curiousworld.com/blog/sight-word-games
https://www.weareteachers.com/sight-word-activities/
https://www.themeasuredmom.com/25-low-prep-sight-word-activities/
Bronwen Nuthall
Reception Year Teacher
