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The Regularity of High-Frequency Words (Sight Words): Teacher Phonetic Knowledge Is Key

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Title: The Regularity of High-Frequency Words (Sight Words): Teacher Phonetic Knowledge Is Key
Language: English
Authors: Katharine Pace Miles (ORCID 0000-0002-5039-8921), Denise Eide, Janee' R. Butler
Source: Reading Psychology. 2024 45(8):832-852.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 21
Publication Date: 2024
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Evaluative
Descriptors: Sight Vocabulary, Sight Method, Word Lists, Knowledge Base for Teaching, Emergent Literacy, Phonetics, Graphemes, Phonemes, Morphophonemics, Phonics, Professional Development
DOI: 10.1080/02702711.2024.2379255
ISSN: 0270-2711
1521-0685
Abstract: High frequency words, commonly referred to as sight words, are often a focus of emergent reading instruction. Instructional practices abound that require emergent readers to memorize the spelling and pronunciation of the words without drawing attention to grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) in the words. These approaches ignore a critical aspect of Ehri's theory of orthographic mapping. This article reviews the literature on storing words in memory, in general, and the research on learning high frequency words, more specifically. Analyses of high frequency words on the widely used, Dolch list, are included that show the overwhelming regularity of the GPCs in these words. The analyses provide insight into the most common GPCs in these high frequency words, and they provide examples of GPCs that if taught, unlock the regularity of several other high frequency words. Discussion focuses practitioners gaining more advanced phonetic knowledge in order to better understand the orthographic regularity of high frequency words. Recommendations include supplementing traditional phonics programs for students with at least some advanced phonetic knowledge, ensuring practitioners have this level of knowledge in order to capitalize on teachable moments with high frequency words, and/or organizing classroom lists of high frequency more strategically.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2024
Accession Number: EJ1440746
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0179805730;bcw01nov.24;2024Sep26.02:41;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0179805730-1">The Regularity of High-Frequency Words (Sight Words): Teacher Phonetic Knowledge is Key </title> <sbt id="AN0179805730-2">Introduction</sbt> <p>High frequency words, commonly referred to as sight words, are often a focus of emergent reading instruction. Instructional practices abound that require emergent readers to memorize the spelling and pronunciation of the words without drawing attention to grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) in the words. These approaches ignore a critical aspect of Ehri's theory of orthographic mapping. This article reviews the literature on storing words in memory, in general, and the research on learning high frequency words, more specifically. Analyses of high frequency words on the widely used, Dolch list, are included that show the overwhelming regularity of the GPCs in these words. The analyses provide insight into the most common GPCs in these high frequency words, and they provide examples of GPCs that if taught, unlock the regularity of several other high frequency words. Discussion focuses practitioners gaining more advanced phonetic knowledge in order to better understand the orthographic regularity of high frequency words. Recommendations include supplementing traditional phonics programs for students with at least some advanced phonetic knowledge, ensuring practitioners have this level of knowledge in order to capitalize on teachable moments with high frequency words, and/or organizing classroom lists of high frequency more strategically.</p> <p>The instructional practice of having emergent readers learn how to read high-frequency words—words that occur often in print—is ubiquitous across the United States. Often educators refer to this instructional approach as "sight word" learning. This typically entails teachers asking students to memorize high-frequency words. The words may be put on flashcards or on lists, and students practice reading each word as a whole unit. Other activities may involve "popcorn reading," in which students try to read the word as soon as it is pulled out of a jar or bowl, doing a word search, or coloring the words. What all of these practices have in common is that little to no attention is paid to the letter-sound relationships in the word, even though these high-frequency words are encountered frequently!</p> <p>Recently, some strides have been made to overhaul the instructional approaches used with high-frequency words. The shift in instructional approaches have been based on experimental research of emergent readers (e.g., Miles & Ehri, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref1">32</reflink>]; Miles, McFadden, & Ehri, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref2">37</reflink>]), analyses of high-frequency word list (e.g., Dang et al., [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref3">9</reflink>]), as well as valuable clinical recommendations by practitioners (Miles, Rubin, & Gonzalez-Frey, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref4">32</reflink>]). The purpose of this article is to explain why the traditional approach to teaching high-frequency words is problematic, review the research that has been conducted on high-frequency word reading, provide an analysis of the regularity of a list of high-frequency words, and provide guidance for instruction.</p> <hd id="AN0179805730-3">Storing Words in Memory</hd> <p>The traditional approach of having students memorize high-frequency words, with little attention directed to letter-sound analysis, is problematic because it does not reflect the body of research that substantiates one of the most well-regarded theories of how words are stored in memory: Ehri's theory of orthographic mapping (1998, 2005, 2014, 2020). This theory explains that the relationship between the spelling, pronunciation, and meaning of a word creates an amalgam that stores the word in memory. Ehri explains that it is the relationship between the letters or spelling of the word and the sounds those letters represent (pronunciation), along with the word's meaning, that forms a glue that is imperative to this word storage process. Over repeated exposures where letter-sounds are analyzed in that particular word, the glue is strengthened to the point that the pronunciation of the word can eventually be automatically retrieved from memory when the word is seen. While this is the most efficient way to read words, it may take emergent readers several exposures to a word in order for this amalgam to form.</p> <p>If the field of reading science has demonstrated that the best way to secure words in memory is by analyzing letter-sound relationships, why do instructional approaches continue to focus on whole word reading, especially of words that are used so often in print? One thing that may be causing educators confusion is that they may believe that high-frequency words are overwhelmingly irregular in spelling; and therefore, they need to be memorized. In addition, emergent readers may not yet have the skills to effectively analyze words at a glance during typical sight word reading practice. Phonemic awareness and adequate grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC) knowledge are critical skills necessary to segment the letter units, blend the sounds of those units together to say the word, and ultimately store the words in memory (Ehri, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref5">14</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref6">15</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref7">16</reflink>]; Miles & Ehri, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref8">33</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0179805730-4">Levels of Word Reading</hd> <p>The skills of phonemic awareness and letter-sound knowledge progress over time. Kilpatrick ([<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref9">28</reflink>]) explains three levels of word reading. In Level 1, students have alphabet or basic letter knowledge but are not yet able to use that knowledge to read words. In Level 2, students enter the phonic decoding stage, where they use letter-sound knowledge and phonological blending to sound out words. This is a print-to-speech or a part-to-whole process where students sound out and then blend the sounds together to read words. Kilpatrick explains that this is the gateway for automatically reading words. In level 3, students enter the orthographic mapping stage. Emergent readers who have repeatedly used their letter-sounds skills now have unconscious phonemic skills and therefore are able to activate pronunciations of words in memory and map them to the spelling of words (whole to part mapping). In other words, students use pronunciations of words that are stored in memory and anchor the spellings to the phonemes. This "whole" is not to be confused with whole word reading. Instead, proficient readers process all the letters in words rapidly, as Rayner et al. ([<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref10">47</reflink>]) and Dehaene ([<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref11">10</reflink>]), and Dehaene and Cohen ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref12">11</reflink>]) have explained, and that is how we know a word is <emph>step</emph> instead of <emph>stop</emph>.</p> <hd id="AN0179805730-5">Disconnect between Research and Practice</hd> <p>Whereas researchers use the term "sight words" to describe a process by which readers store words in memory, educators typically apply the term to a set of words. The disconnect between the researcher and practitioner definitions is evident in a quick internet search: Packets, flashcards, and lists of high-frequency words branded as "sight words" are widely available for teachers to use with students. It seems that the intention of these materials is to have students memorize the words as whole units without spending time analyzing the letter-sound relationships in the word, but as described above, such analysis is necessary for secure storage of the word in memory. The message that some teachers are receiving—or perhaps inferring—from these materials is that these are words that should not and/or cannot be decoded, or that the words do not necessarily need to be decoded to be stored in memory. This message, when passed from teachers to students, causes emergent readers to shift their focus away from the grapheme-phoneme relations in the words they are trying to learn (Miles et al., [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref13">37</reflink>]). Aside from Ehri's ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref14">14</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref15">15</reflink>]) theory, a large body of empirical evidence demonstrates the effectiveness of attending to grapheme-phoneme relations in words on word learning knowledge (Arra & Aaron, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref16">1</reflink>]; Boyer & Ehri, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref17">4</reflink>]; Castles et al., [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref18">7</reflink>]; Ehri et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref19">18</reflink>]; Miles, et al., [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref20">37</reflink>]; Ouellette & Sénéchal, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref21">45</reflink>]; Shahar-Yames & Share, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref22">50</reflink>]; Stuart et al., [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref23">53</reflink>]; Uhry & Shepherd, [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref24">56</reflink>]).</p> <p>One misconception that permeates the education realm is that some words must be memorized as whole units, as is done with these high-frequency word materials, because the spellings of these words are so irregular they are deemed non-decodable. However, a body of research explains that English spellings are more regular than often perceived (Carreker, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref25">6</reflink>]; Ehri, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref26">13</reflink>]; Eide, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref27">19</reflink>]; Joshi et al., [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref28">26</reflink>]; Miles, et al., [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref29">37</reflink>]; Treiman & Kessler, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref30">55</reflink>]). It is true that there is an abundance of phonetic elements to master in English; however, as new phonetic elements are learned by students, high-frequency words as well as other words become increasingly regular for reading and spelling. A major hurdle in improving students' mastery of the various phonetic elements is teachers' linguistic knowledge. Numerous studies have shown the alarming lack of linguistic knowledge in teacher candidates, early elementary classroom teachers, and even reading specialists (Binks-Cantrell et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref31">3</reflink>]; Joshi et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref32">25</reflink>]; Moats, [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref33">38</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref34">44</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref35">39</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref36">40</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref37">41</reflink>]; Moats & Foorman, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref38">42</reflink>]; Moats & Rosow, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref39">43</reflink>]; Puliatte & Ehri, [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref40">46</reflink>]; Spear-Swerling et al., [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref41">52</reflink>]; Washburn et al., [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref42">57</reflink>]). Recently, Hudson et al. ([<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref43">24</reflink>]) conducted a meta-analysis to investigate if teacher training facilitates knowledge of foundational reading skills. While they found that in general, teacher prep programs can improve knowledge of these critical early literacy skills, teachers who had opportunities to apply this newly acquired knowledge during coursework with guidance and support from an expert had the largest growth in knowledge.</p> <p>In two experimental studies of kindergarten native and nonnative English-speaking emergent readers, the traditional approach of learning to read high-frequency words as whole units on flashcards was examined. Miles and Ehri ([<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref44">32</reflink>]) divided a set of high-frequency words into content words (words that hold their meaning or can be defined independent of context; e.g., nouns) and function words (abstract words that rely on sentence context for meaning; e.g., propositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs), and found that the function words were more difficult for both native and nonnative emergent readers to read, spell, and use in a sentence even though they were considered to be at a lower grade level for word reading difficulty. In a follow-up study, Miles, McFadden, and Ehri ([<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref45">37</reflink>]) found that instead of examining outcomes of high-frequency word reading using flashcards based on school-provided language status of native and nonnative English speakers, regrouping the students as partial vs. full alphabetic readers showed that partial alphabetic readers were unsuccessful reading words on flashcards regardless of whether they were content or function words. When examining these partial alphabetic readers pretests, the authors conclude that these very emergent readers likely lack the phonemic awareness and grapho-phonetic mapping skills to anchor the words in memory when they are quickly presented on flashcards. The authors recommend emergent readers spend more time building up critical foundational skills and apply some word analysis approaches to learning high-frequency words.</p> <p>Miles et al. ([<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref46">37</reflink>]) put forth an explanation of how teachers should use these lists of high-frequency words in order to best support students in learning to decode and store words securely in memory. They describe three bins, previously used by Carnine et al. ([<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref47">5</reflink>], as cited in Honig et al., [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref48">23</reflink>]) into which words on these high-frequency word lists can be sorted: regularly spelled, temporarily irregularly spelled, and permanently irregularly spelled words. Regularly spelled words have letters that abide by the sounds that students have been taught. Temporarily irregularly spelled words have grapheme-phoneme relations that students have not yet learned, but once learned can be applies to read words that contain the spelling pattern. Permanently irregularly spelled words have grapheme-phoneme units that are idiosyncratic to that word or only a few others, or violate grapheme-phoneme relations or spelling rules. Another way to think about permanently irregularly spelled words is that they do not follow the grapheme-phoneme correspondences presented in a phonics curriculum. Importantly, it should be noted that even though these words are considered permanently irregular, overwhelmingly, there is only one irregular GPC in the word, meaning that all the other GPCs can be reliably used to securely store the word in memory.</p> <p>Miles et al. ([<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref49">37</reflink>]) emphasized that there is fluidity between the first two categories based on what phonetic elements have been taught and acquired by students. Therefore, words that are considered temporarily irregular at one point in the school year may transition to being regularly spelled when new knowledge of phonetic elements is obtained. For example, for a first grader at the beginning of the year, the word <emph>tight</emph> may be a temporarily irregularly spelled word. However, during the school year, the student may learn that -igh makes the long i sound, and will be able to apply the -igh phonetic element to the word <emph>tight</emph>, as well as to other words such as <emph>high</emph> and <emph>light</emph>. At this point, all words that contain the -igh unit will become regularly spelled, so long as the student has learned the other phonetic elements in the spelling of the word.</p> <p>Based on this approach to thinking about regularity of the spellings, along with Ehri's ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref50">14</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref51">15</reflink>]) theory and supporting evidence (2005; 2014; 2020) of how words are most efficiently stored in memory, Author suggest that educators analyze the lists of high-frequency words and consider which words are currently decodable for students and which words have phonetic elements that have yet to be taught. Also, educators should help students analyze the letter-sound relations that are reliable in permanently irregularly spelled words in order to help students store these words in memory. These approaches are an alternative to the whole word memorization approach typically used in early elementary classrooms when addressing high-frequency words.</p> <p>To further support these claims, Miles and Kearns ([<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref52">35</reflink>]) analyzed a list of 419 high-frequency words across the Dolch and Fry word lists, and found that expert coders, who were teachers and held master's degrees, determined that 84% of the words were regularly or temporarily irregularly spelled (i.e., decodable) at the kindergarten level, and a computer system determined that 86% were decodable. The kindergarten level refers to the grapheme-phoneme correspondences that were expected to be addressed in the state standards for that grade. This finding aligns with the claims of Duke and Mesmer ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref53">12</reflink>]) that roughly two-thirds of high-frequency words are regularly spelled, and the finding further supports the idea that the words on these regularly and irregularly spelled high-frequency lists should be broken into grapho-phonetic connections to best secure them in memory for automatic retrieval.</p> <p>It is important to note that Miles and Kearns ([<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref54">35</reflink>]) based the analysis of the 419 high-frequency words on a widely used phonics scope and sequence so that the parameters that were set for the word analysis reflected the general phonetics knowledge of most trained teachers. While this analysis shed light on the common misconception that high-frequency words are typically irregularly spelled and therefore difficult to analyze into letter-sound correspondences, the analysis did not provide information on the extent of phonetic knowledge needed by teachers to accurately analyze lists of high-frequency words, nor did it consider phonetic knowledge that teachers may be lacking or that programs may not address, which would make even more words on these lists decodable. In fact, this analysis leaves 14–16% of the words on these lists as irregularly spelled or exceptions words; however, if the expert coders had more advanced linguistics knowledge or if the computer program had different GPC thresholds set for determining decodability, the percentage of words that determined to be irregular would be dramatically reduced.</p> <p>Confusion remains about the number of high-frequency words that are permanently irregular and the rules of the English language that determine regularity of words (Seidenberg et al., [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref55">49</reflink>]). Efforts are being made to interpret findings from the field of reading science into instructional practices, but empirical evidence on the best instructional approaches to learn specifically high-frequency words is still needed. The Heart Word method, in which the irregular parts of high-frequency words are highlighted, is also recommended by programs such as LETRS (LETRS® Lexia Learning 2019), Orton-Gillingham (Arredondo, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref56">2</reflink>]), Really Great Reading (Science of Reading Virtual Workshop Really Great Reading, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref57">48</reflink>]), and 95% Group (Student Literacy Solutions & Teacher Development | 95 Percent Group, 2022) as an interpretation of research to practice. While Farrell et al. ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref58">22</reflink>]) recommend the Heart Word approach, they also recommend approaches such as learning groups of words as "flash words," and that educators teach 10–15 pre-reading high-frequency words only once students have learned all of their letter names, but before the start of phonics instruction—an approach that does not appear to be aligned to the research. Also, Shanahan ([<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref59">51</reflink>]) states that memorizing a hundred high-frequency words does have a place in the 1st grade classrooms, despite questions about the value of this approach.</p> <p>The extensive body of literature on the effectiveness of phonics and mapping letters to sounds in words to retain them in memory is the guiding light for abstracting what should work for learning high-frequency words (see Kilpatrick et al., [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref60">29</reflink>], for a review of literature on phonics and orthographic mapping research), but there is limited research on approaches that solely focus on teaching high-frequency words in the early years. In an effort to translate research, Miles et al. ([<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref61">37</reflink>]) proposed a GPC mapping activity specifically for high-frequency words, in which attention is brought to the GPCs in these words instead of using a flash card approach. Recently, Colenbrander et al. ([<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref62">8</reflink>]) randomly assigned kindergarten students to learn a set of irregular words and found that students who practiced spelling the words and those who received mispronunciation correction learned the words significantly better than students who used a more traditional look-say memorization method, suggesting that having students attend to the GPCs in the irregular words was beneficial to securing the words in memory.</p> <p>While this article does not test instructional approaches, it does attempt to clarify the regularity of words on high-frequency word lists and demonstrate that they do not constitute a discrete group that should be taught differently from words in a general phonics curriculum. In fact, as is explained below, 99% of the GPCs on the Dolch high-frequency word list are decodable based on knowledge of specific GPCs and spelling rules. We acknowledge the tension that exists between teaching too few or too many rules, and we agree with Seidenberg et al. ([<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref63">49</reflink>]), that enough teaching needs to happen to "engage the implicit and explicit learning mechanisms (p. 43)" for statistical learning of GPCs to be activated. We also agree that research is still needed to determine this balance of <emph>what (rules or patterns) to teach to whom at what age.</emph></p> <p>The purpose of the article is to provide examples of the linguistic knowledge needed in order to be able to decode vast amounts of the words on these HFW lists. Research shows that teachers typically lack this linguistic knowledge (Miles & Fletcher, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref64">34</reflink>]) and often phonics programs provide an insufficient scope and sequence to support the level of grapheme-phoneme skills needed for advanced decoding. Therefore, teachers are left to accumulate their own linguistics knowledge in order to provide the most accurate instruction to students in need of word reading support.</p> <p>The next section provides an extensive analysis of the Dolch list of words in a way that elucidates the extent of phonetics knowledge needed to most thoroughly deal with high-frequency words. The intention is that readers will develop an awareness for the decodability of these words and the need to strengthen their own linguistic knowledge, if needed. The authors recognize that teachers may or may not teach their children all of these phonetic elements depending on the age, grade, and skill level of their students. However, teachers of emergent readers will likely feel empowered by knowing there are rules that govern these words and by being able to provide decoding guidance when needed for words they previously thought were irregular. Teacher may also choose a few of these rules to enhance their more traditional phonics instruction.</p> <hd id="AN0179805730-6">Facilitating the Orthographic Mapping of High-Frequency Words in the Dolch List</hd> <p>The Dolch List consists of 220 high-frequency words and 95 nouns organized by grade level for whole word instruction and is one of the most commonly used lists to determine the order of instruction for high-frequency words. The weakness of organizing the list by grade level and teaching students to read "whole words" is readily apparent even when looking at the list through the lens of commonly taught phonics knowledge. For example, the Dolch List includes the word <emph>if</emph> in third grade, even though <emph>if</emph> is the 44th most frequently used word in English and is easily decodable with the GPCs commonly taught in kindergarten.</p> <p>Instead of organizing the list by grade level, the authors propose organizing high-frequency words in the order of the grapheme-phoneme correspondences and phonics rules presented in the curriculum and providing students with a more complete understanding of the GPCs and rules that govern them, similar to the 82 GPCs suggested by OG (1997), 70 GPCs and 29 spelling rules suggested by Spalding (2019), and 75 GPCs and 31 spelling rules suggested by Eide ([<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref65">19</reflink>]) and Eide and Kringelis ([<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref66">21</reflink>]). It should be noted that many programs do not disclose the number of phonetic elements taught in their scope and sequence. For the purpose of this paper, we will demonstrate how teaching 75 GPCs and 31 spelling rules facilitate orthographic mapping by helping students move words from temporarily irregularly spelled to regularly spelled and by minimizing permanently irregularly spelled words. The Dolch words are spelled using 1004 GPCs, of which only 12 or 1% are permanently irregular (see Table 1) when applying the 75 GPCs and 31 rules. In other words, 99% of the GPCs used to spell the Dolch Words are regular. In addition, these same GPCs can be used to decode and orthographically map hundreds of thousands of additional English words.</p> <p>Table 1. Dolch list phoneme-grapheme correspondence breakdown.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td /><td>Total number</td><td>Percentage of GPCs</td></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td>Phonemes</td><td char=".">1004</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Single-letter GPCs (a-z)</td><td char=".">813<xref ref-type="table-fn" rid="tfn1">*</xref></td><td char=".">81%</td></tr><tr><td>Multi-letter GPCs</td><td char=".">182</td><td char=".">18%</td></tr><tr><td>Exceptions</td><td char=".">12</td><td char=".">1%</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>1 qu has been classified as a single-letter GPC (a-z).</p> <hd id="AN0179805730-7">Complete Knowledge of Single-Letter Graphemes</hd> <p>This new approach to teaching high-frequency words, such as the Dolch Words, begins by teaching students all the sounds of the 26 single-letter graphemes (a-z) from the beginning (see Table 2). This can be accomplished by following the current scope and sequence for introducing a-z and adding missing sounds to the instruction. Students who have already learned the sounds of a-z will benefit from going back to fill in missing sounds. Thirty-eight of the 43 GPCs found in Table 2 are used in the Dolch Words. The remaining five GPCs, including that z says/z/, are needed to orthographically map thousands of words (see Table 3). Some educators, however, may question the value of teaching additional sounds for a-z beyond the short and long vowels. One clarifying example is to consider the grapheme S. It is common to teach that S has one phoneme/s/as in <emph>see.</emph> Teaching only one phoneme results in the Dolch Words in Table 3 as being permanently irregular as well as over 20,000 additional words (Kearns, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref67">27</reflink>]). Teaching S represents both/s/and/z/provides students the complete phonics knowledge needed to orthographically map high-frequency words and tens of thousands of additional words.</p> <p>Table 2. Single-letter grapheme-phoneme correspondences including sample words from dolch list.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><tbody valign="top"><tr><td><bold>a</bold> /ă-ā-ä/ <bold>a</bold>nd, m<bold>a</bold>ke, <bold>a</bold>ll</td><td><bold>j</bold> /j/ <bold>j</bold>ump</td><td><bold>s</bold> /s-z/ <bold>s</bold>mall, hi<bold>s</bold></td></tr><tr><td><bold>b</bold> /b/ <bold>b</bold>e</td><td><bold>k</bold> /k/ <bold>k</bold>itty</td><td><bold>t</bold> /t/ <bold>t</bold>ell</td></tr><tr><td><bold>c</bold> /k-s/ <bold>c</bold>an, on<bold>c</bold>e</td><td><bold>l</bold> /l/ <bold>l</bold>ook</td><td><bold>u</bold> /ŭ-ū-ö-ü/ c<bold>u</bold>t, <bold>u</bold>se, bl<bold>u</bold>e, p<bold>u</bold>t</td></tr><tr><td><bold>d</bold> /d/ <bold>d</bold>own</td><td><bold>m</bold> /m/ <bold>m</bold>ilk</td><td><bold>v</bold> /v/ ne<bold>v</bold>er</td></tr><tr><td><bold>e</bold> /ĕ-ē/ r<bold>e</bold>d, w<bold>e</bold></td><td><bold>n</bold> /n/ <bold>n</bold>est</td><td><bold>w</bold> /w/ <bold>w</bold>ish</td></tr><tr><td><bold>f</bold> /f/ <bold>f</bold>or</td><td><bold>o</bold> /ŏ-ō-ö/ r<bold>o</bold>bin, s<bold>o</bold>, t<bold>o</bold></td><td><bold>x</bold> /ks/ bo<bold>x</bold></td></tr><tr><td><bold>g</bold> /g-j/ bi<bold>g</bold>, lar<bold>ge</bold><xref ref-type="table-fn" rid="tfn3">*</xref></td><td><bold>p</bold> /p/ <bold>p</bold>ick</td><td><bold>y</bold> /y-ĭ-ī-ē/ <bold>y</bold>es, g<bold>y</bold>m<xref ref-type="table-fn" rid="tfn3">*</xref>, m<bold>y</bold>, funn<bold>y</bold></td></tr><tr><td><bold>h</bold> /h/ <bold>h</bold>ouse</td><td><bold>qu</bold> /kw/ s<bold>qu</bold>irrel</td><td><bold>z</bold> /z/ <bold>z</bold>oo<xref ref-type="table-fn" rid="tfn3">*</xref></td></tr><tr><td><bold>i</bold> /ĭ-ī-ē-y/ <bold>i</bold>n, f<bold>i</bold>nd, med<bold>i</bold>um<xref ref-type="table-fn" rid="tfn3">*</xref>, jun<bold>i</bold>or<xref ref-type="table-fn" rid="tfn3">*</xref></td><td><bold>r</bold> /r/ <bold>r</bold>ed</td><td /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <ulist> <item>2 <emph>Note</emph>. The most common sound of the letter is listed first.</item> <item>3 Grapheme phoneme correspondences not represented in the Dolch Words.</item> <item>4 Adapted from Eide ([<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref68">19</reflink>]).</item> </ulist> <p>Table 3. Additional phonemes and their frequencies.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td>Grapheme</td><td>Phoneme</td><td>Dolch words</td><td>Total words (Kearns, <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr27">2022</xref>)</td></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td>s</td><td>/z/</td><td>is, please, his, as, has, those, use, these, because</td><td char=".">20,186</td></tr><tr><td>c</td><td>/s/</td><td>once</td><td char=".">3,555</td></tr><tr><td>g</td><td>/j/</td><td>-</td><td char=".">2,315</td></tr><tr><td>i</td><td>/ē/</td><td>-</td><td char=".">4,046</td></tr><tr><td>i</td><td>/y/</td><td>-</td><td char=".">304</td></tr><tr><td>u</td><td>/ö/</td><td>blue</td><td char=".">2008</td></tr><tr><td>y</td><td>/ĭ/</td><td>-</td><td char=".">662</td></tr><tr><td>y</td><td>/ī/</td><td>my, by, fly, buy, why, myself, try, goodbye,,</td><td char=".">993</td></tr><tr><td>y</td><td>/ē/</td><td>funny, pretty, any, every, very, many, only, carry, baby, kitty, party</td><td char=".">6061</td></tr><tr><td>z</td><td>/z/</td><td>-</td><td char=".">2050</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p> <emph>Broad Vowels.</emph> The broad vowels represented by/ä, ö, ü/are another example of the importance of teaching all the sounds. Each of the broad vowel sounds are formed with a forwarded rounding of the mouth. These sounds are needed to decode words that are commonly used by children such as <emph>ball, wash, watch, to, do, pull,</emph> and <emph>full</emph>. Understanding broad vowels also facilitates the development of phonemic awareness skills and helps students distinguish the phonemes in words such as <emph>putt</emph> and <emph>put</emph>. Finally, learning the broad sounds provides the knowledge needed to decode and orthographically map thousands of additional words (Table 4).</p> <p>Table 4. Broad vowels.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td /><td>Dolch words</td><td>Total words (Kearns, <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr27">2022</xref>)</td></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td><bold>ä</bold></td><td>all, want, walk, call, wash, always, fall, small, ball, father, watch, water</td><td char=".">2068</td></tr><tr><td><bold>ö</bold></td><td>to, two, do, into, who, today, together,</td><td char=".">190</td></tr><tr><td><bold>ü</bold></td><td>pull, full</td><td char=".">506</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Each of these examples illustrates how introducing all the phonemes represented by each grapheme prevents permanently irregularly spelled words commonly known as exceptions and provides students the critical information needed to decode and orthographically map words encountered in the world around them. Learning all the phonemes from the beginning also preloads the knowledge needed to scaffold lessons such as teaching the rules that explain long vowels. It also helps students to trust that phonics rules are a reliable way to decode words (Eide, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref69">19</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0179805730-8">Decoding Words with the Most Common Sounds of the Single-Letter Graphemes</hd> <p>Though students benefit from learning all the sounds of the single-letter GPCs, it is best to begin decoding words using the most common sounds of a-z and then scaffolding instruction to include practice with the additional sounds. The most common sounds are the first sounds represented in Table 1. The first sounds are used to encode 685 or 68% of the GPCs in the Dolch words. Students who have developed the phonemic awareness skill of blending and have been taught the sounds of the graphemes benefit from applying their knowledge to decode the words in Table 5. One suggested progression is to begin with CV words, followed by CVC words, then words with consonant blends, words with double consonants, and finally two-syllable words. With this knowledge alone, students will be able to decode 67 or 21% of the Dolch words.</p> <p>Table 5. Short vowel words using only the most commonly taught sounds.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td>VC</td><td>CVC</td><td>Consonant blends</td><td>Double consonants</td><td>Two-syllable words</td></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td>am an at if in it on up us</td><td>bed big box but can cat cut did dog get got</td><td>had him hot sun leg let men man not pig ran</td><td>red run sit six ten top yes</td><td>and ask best drink fast hand help its jump just</td><td>milk must nest stop went wind</td><td>bell doll egg grass hill off tell will well</td><td>robin rabbit seven upon</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>5 Adapted from Eide and Kringelis ([<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref70">21</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0179805730-9">Decoding Words with Less Common Sounds</hd> <p>Once students are able to decode words that use the most common sounds of a-z, they are ready to build upon their skills by learning to decode words that use less frequently used sounds. A good place to start is to practice decoding words where S says/z/, such as <emph>is, as, his,</emph> and <emph>has</emph> (Eide & Kringelis, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref71">21</reflink>]). Students can also then decode the plural forms of the Dolch words such as <emph>beds, cans, dogs, hands, legs, pigs, robins, bells, dolls, eggs, hills,</emph> and <emph>robins</emph>. The key is to have students practice reading all the sounds of the GPCs when practicing GPCs in isolation. Scaffold decoding lessons by systematically practicing reading words that include the additional phonemes. These lessons are also a good time to introduce additional spelling rules (see Table 7). This is particularly helpful with vowels because English has a complex vowel system. Once students can read words with short vowels, introduce words with long vowels that follow one of the rules such as <emph>AEOU usually say their long sounds at the end of the syllable</emph>. Then introduce words that follow another rule such as <emph>The vowel says its long sound because of the E</emph>. Continue to scaffold the lessons until all the vowel rules for long and broad vowels have been introduced. These rules can also be used as quick explanations when students are attempting to decode temporarily irregular words (see Table 6).</p> <p>Table 6. Vowel rules.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td>Vowel rule</td><td>Sample Dolch words</td></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td><bold>Open Syllable</bold> A E O U usually say their long sounds at the end of the syllable.</td><td>he, be, me, we, she, so, no, go open, over, going, paper, before</td></tr><tr><td><bold>Silent E Rule</bold> The vowel says its long sound because of the E.</td><td>home, make, take, came, name, ate, game, cake, made, here, use, those, these, fire, time, ride, like</td></tr><tr><td>I and O may say /ī/ and /ō/ before two consonants.</td><td>hold, cold, old, kind, find, both</td></tr><tr><td>When a one-syllable word ends in a single-vowel Y it says /ī/.</td><td>I, my, by, fly, buy, why</td></tr><tr><td>Y says /e/only in an unstressed syllable at the end of a multi-syllable word.</td><td>funny, very, kitty, carry, baby, party, every, pretty, many, any, only</td></tr><tr><td>When a word ends with the phonogram A it says /ä/. A may also say /ä/ after a W or before an L.</td><td>want, water, all, ball, fall, small, call, was, always, wash, Santa, Claus, watch, walk</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>6 Adapted from Eide ([<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref72">19</reflink>]).</p> <p>Table 7. The 12 multi-letter graphemes used most frequently in the dolch list.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td /><td /><td>Dolch words</td><td>Number of Dolch words</td><td>Number of word for each phoneme (Kearns, <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr27">2022</xref>)</td></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td>th</td><td>/th/</td><td>think, thank, with, three, thing, both, birthday</td><td char=".">21</td><td>/th/ 670</td></tr><tr><td>/TH/</td><td>that, them, then, this, the, together, those, these, there, mother, brother, father, they, their</td><td /><td>/TH/ 445</td></tr><tr><td>er</td><td>/er/</td><td>her, never, under, letter, after, sister, better, farmer, over, water, together, flower, were, mother, brother, every, father, paper</td><td char=".">18</td><td>/er/ 10795</td></tr><tr><td>ow</td><td>/ow/</td><td>cow, how, brown, now, down, flower</td><td char=".">13</td><td>/ow/ 757</td></tr><tr><td>/ō/</td><td>grow, own, yellow, snow, window, show, know</td><td /><td>/ō/ 790</td></tr><tr><td>ou</td><td>/ow/</td><td>out, our, round, around, found, about, ground,</td><td char=".">13</td><td>/ow/ 1430</td></tr><tr><td>/ō/</td><td>house</td><td /><td>/ō/ 51</td></tr><tr><td>/ӧ/</td><td>four, your</td><td /><td>/ӧ/ 263</td></tr><tr><td>/ŭ/*</td><td>you</td><td /><td>/ŭ/ 227</td></tr><tr><td>/ü/</td><td><bold>country (not a Dolch Word)</bold></td><td /><td>/ü/ 14</td></tr><tr><td>could, would</td><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>ee</td><td>/ē/</td><td>see, green sleep, keep, feet, seed, tree, street, three, sheep</td><td char=".">10</td><td>/ē/ 1672</td></tr><tr><td>oo</td><td>/ö/</td><td>too, soon, school,</td><td char=".">9</td><td>/ö/ 1309</td></tr><tr><td>/ü/</td><td>wood, good, look, good-bye</td><td /><td>/ü/ 729</td></tr><tr><td>/ō/</td><td>door, floor</td><td /><td>/ō/ 66</td></tr><tr><td>ay</td><td>/ā/</td><td>way, may, day, play, say, away, always, today, chair</td><td char=".">9</td><td>/ā/ 991</td></tr><tr><td>ar</td><td>/ar/</td><td>far, start, car, warm, farm, garden, farmer, are, party</td><td char=".">9</td><td>/ar/ 2635</td></tr><tr><td>sh</td><td>/sh/</td><td>fish, wish, she, sheep, shall, wash, show, shoe</td><td char=".">8</td><td>/sh/ 2999</td></tr><tr><td>ng</td><td>/ng/</td><td>long, sing, song, bring, ring, thing, going, morning</td><td char=".">8–</td><td>/ng/ 7308</td></tr><tr><td>ch</td><td>/ch/</td><td>children, much, chair, chicken, which,</td><td char=".">7</td><td>/ch/ 1788</td></tr><tr><td>/k/</td><td>Christmas, school</td><td /><td>/k/ 572</td></tr><tr><td>/sh/</td><td><bold>chef (not a Dolch Word)</bold></td><td /><td>/sh/ 200</td></tr><tr><td>ea</td><td>/ē/</td><td>eat, clean, read, please</td><td char=".">7</td><td>/ē/ 1694</td></tr><tr><td>/ĕ/</td><td><italic>read</italic>, head, bread</td><td /><td>/ĕ/ 638</td></tr><tr><td>/ā/</td><td>bear</td><td /><td>/ā/ 89</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <ulist> <item>7 This chart includes ou =/ŭ/in only stressed syllables. It also says its schwa sound/u/in an additional 449 words.</item> <item>8 Adapted from Eide ([<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref73">19</reflink>]).</item> </ulist> <hd id="AN0179805730-10">Decoding with Multi-letter GPCS</hd> <p>Once students are familiar with the 26 single-letter GPCs, they can begin to learn multi-letter GPCs. Instruction in multi-letter GPCs can be interspersed with teaching the vowel rules. It is suggested to choose one rule or multi-letter GPC per lesson. Select high-frequency words and additional words that illustrate the new concept to practice decoding and spelling. This helps students to orthographically map these words as well as develop the skills to decode additional words. Thirty-five of the 49 most common multi-letter GPCs are used in the Dolch List. Table 7 is a good starting point for instruction as it includes the twelve GPCs mostly frequently used in the Dolch List. Once again, it is important to teach all the phonemes represented by each grapheme. For example, <emph>th</emph> has both an unvoiced (<emph>think, thank, with</emph>) and a voiced sound (<emph>that, them, then, this</emph>). Interestingly, the unvoiced sound is most commonly taught in classrooms, however, the voiced sound is more frequently used in the Dolch Words. Though there is no right or wrong order for introducing multi-letter GPCs, it can be helpful to consider (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref74">1</reflink>) the number of high-frequency words the grapheme unlocks, (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref75">2</reflink>) the number of additional words the grapheme unlocks, (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref76">3</reflink>) questions the students are asking about words, and (<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref77">4</reflink>) the order presented in the curriculum.</p> <hd id="AN0179805730-11">Decoding with Schwa</hd> <p>Instruction in English phonetics would be incomplete without including lessons about schwa. Any vowel may say one of the scwha sounds,/ŭ/or/ĭ/. Schwa is the most common vowel sound in English (Knight, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref78">30</reflink>]) and is found in 8% of the single-letter vowels in the Dolch List. Skipping schwa generates hundreds of thousands of permanently irregular words, including important high-frequency words such as <emph>a</emph>, <emph>the</emph>, <emph>of</emph>, and <emph>was,</emph> and multi-syllable words such as <emph>mount</emph><bold><emph>ai</emph></bold><emph>n</emph>, <emph>rock</emph><bold><emph>e</emph></bold><emph>t</emph>, and <bold><emph>e</emph></bold><emph>stablish</emph>. Students can be taught about schwa at any time after learning the single-letter GPCs and learning about short and long vowels. One engaging way to teach schwa is to introduce that schwa is a lazy vowel and that any vowel can be lazy (Eide, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref79">20</reflink>]). First, introduce students to the fact that vowels are sounds that can be made louder and softer. Perform a simple experiment with the students by asking them to quietly say a vowel sound such as long ā and then make it louder. Notice how when they say a vowel sound quietly, their mouths are barely open. Observe together how as they make a vowel sound louder, they open their mouths bigger. Perform a second experiment and observe how when saying the sounds/ŭ/and/ĭ/, they barely need to open their mouths. The sounds/ŭ/and/ĭ/are lazy, and any vowel can be lazy and say/ŭ/or/ĭ/! This is because in English, we de-emphasize grammatical words such as <emph>a</emph>, <emph>the</emph>, <emph>was</emph>, and <emph>of</emph> by saying them quieter or with a lazy vowel (schwa). In multi-syllable words, we say some syllables louder, resulting in stressed syllables and clearly pronounced vowels, and other syllables more quietly, resulting in unstressed vowels saying one of their lazy (schwa) sounds. After introducing schwa, ask students to be on the lookout for vowels that sound like/ŭ/or/ĭ/. Gather examples on a chart in your classroom.</p> <hd id="AN0179805730-12">Decoding Temporarily Irregular Words</hd> <p>As students scaffold their phonics knowledge, many words will be temporarily irregular. When encountering temporarily irregular words, model how to decode the word and point out the GPCs. Rather than telling students words are "exceptions," teachers unfamiliar with the phonics rules are encouraged to look up the words in resources (Eide & Kringelis, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref80">21</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0179805730-13">Decoding Words with One Irregular Grapheme</hd> <p>Once students have learned the 75 GPCs and 31 spelling rules, they will have the knowledge needed to decode 99% of the graphemes in the Dolch List. Only 12 of the 315 Dolch Words include permanently irregular GPCs (see Table 7). In each word, only one GPC has a sound that is not included in the complete set of the 75 GPCs. When teaching these words, emphasize the regular graphemes, explore the relationship of the spelling to other words as included in Table 8, and identify the grapheme that is an exception.</p> <p>Table 8. Typically considered permanently irregular.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><tbody valign="top"><tr><td>s<bold>ai</bold>d</td><td>Teach <italic>lay</italic>, <italic>laid</italic> and <italic>pay</italic>, <italic>paid</italic>. Discuss how <italic>ay</italic> changes to <italic>ai</italic> in the past tense form. Teach <italic>say</italic> and <italic>said</italic>. Discuss how language is changing. New words added to languages and the pronunciation of words can change over time. Words are also pronounced differently in different places. Note that vowel sounds are the most common sounds to change. Ask the students if they think <italic>said</italic> once had a different pronunciation. Ask students to identify what is common about the pattern and to identify the exception to the GPCs.</td></tr><tr><td><bold>o</bold>ne <bold>o</bold>nce</td><td>Teach <italic>lone</italic>. Define that <italic>lone</italic> means one. Teach <italic>alone</italic>. Define that when someone is <italic>alone</italic> there is one person in the room. Teach <italic>one</italic>. Compare the spellings. Teach <italic>once</italic>. Compare the spellings. Ask students to identify the exception to the GPCs.</td></tr><tr><td>t<bold>w</bold>o</td><td>Teach <italic>twin</italic>, <italic>twice</italic>, <italic>twelve</italic>, and <italic>twenty</italic>. Ask students what these words have in common. They all include <italic>tw</italic>. They all mean 2. Teach <italic>two</italic>. Identify the <italic>w</italic> is silent.</td></tr><tr><td><bold>wh</bold>o</td><td>Most Americans pronounce <italic>wh</italic> in <italic>when</italic>, <italic>why</italic>, and <italic>what</italic> as a voiced sound. Ask students to try to pronounce <italic>when</italic>, <italic>why</italic>, and <italic>what</italic> with an unvoiced sound. Explain that in some regions of the world, <italic>wh</italic> is an unvoiced sound. Teach <italic>who</italic>. Discuss the shape of the mouth and how <italic>wh</italic> is unvoiced before the broad ӧ.</td></tr><tr><td>b<bold>ee</bold>n</td><td>In many Commonwealth Countries, <italic>been</italic> is pronounced with a long ē. In American English, this is an exception to the GPCs.</td></tr><tr><td>o<bold>f</bold></td><td>Ask students to compare how their mouths are shaped when pronouncing /f/ and /v/. The mouth is in the same position. How are they different? /f/ is unvoiced. /v/ is voiced. Teach the word <italic>of</italic>.</td></tr><tr><td>pr<bold>e</bold>tty</td><td>Vowels are the most common exceptions. The <italic>e</italic> is saying the short ĭ sound in a stressed syllable. Many students will not realize that this is not a schwa, but is an exception.</td></tr><tr><td><bold>a</bold>ny m<bold>a</bold>ny</td><td>Teach these words together. Ask the students which phonogram is an exception.</td></tr><tr><td>ag<bold>ai</bold>n</td><td>Ask students to identify the exception.</td></tr><tr><td><bold>e</bold>ye</td><td>This is one of the most unusual words in English. Discuss how y is saying the long ī sound. Discuss how the silent E at the end maybe there to make the vowel say its long sound. Notice how the first e is also silent.</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>9 Adapted from Eide and Kringelis ([<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref81">21</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0179805730-14">Application</hd> <p>Based on the analysis put forth in this paper, we encourage practitioners of emergent literacy to consider the following three recommendations. First, increase teacher knowledge of GPC knowledge in the English language and show the trove of words connected to each new rule or pattern learned. Teacher knowledge of linguistic structures, phonemes, and morphemes is essential to pedagogical skills in HFW instruction. Teachers should understand that the English orthography is significantly low in transparency, meaning that the relationship between graphemes and phonemes becomes increasingly complex once students are past one-to-one letter-sound connections. Acknowledging this about the English language heightens the need for educators to have the ability to teach and explain phonics rules and spelling patterns. Teachers should increase their knowledge to make sense of more words.</p> <p>Even if teachers just learn that "the letter s makes both the/s/and/z/sounds," they will now have the knowledge to explain more than 20,000 words with the <emph>s</emph> representing/z/. When teachers have a more complete understanding of GPC they will be able to better support students in building their knowledge of the phonetic structure of English rather than resorting to rote memorization. For example, a striving 8-years-old reader, who one of the authors worked with, repeatedly misread words such as <emph>is</emph> and <emph>has</emph> with the/s/sound. These word reading errors were occurring frequently and were disrupting the student's comprehension. In addition, the student was experiencing anxiety and self-doubt about reading. By learning that <emph>s</emph> makes both the /s/ and /z/ sounds, the student was able to apply this knowledge to these HFWs, as well as to thousands of additional words. It immediately improved the student's confidence when reading words with the letter s because it removed guessing and provided reliable GPC knowledge.</p> <p>While we didn't address this rule above, if teachers learn the "words don't end in -v, add an e" rule, they will then be able to explain words such as <emph>give</emph>, <emph>have</emph>, <emph>move, curve, solve,</emph> and <emph>serve</emph>. In addition to explaining HFW, understanding accurate phonics empowers students at all levels of learning. When one of the authors presented the concept of adding a silent final <emph>e</emph> every time a word ends with/v/to a high school honors English class, one of the students exclaimed, "Why didn't someone tell me this!"</p> <p>Each of these are examples of phonics skills that may not be presented in a given curriculum; therefore, teachers may need to seek out additional resources or training to enhance their GPCs knowledge in order to provide feedback when students misread words. We acknowledge the financial and time barriers that come with this recommendation and the inundation of professional learning that may impact teachers in seeking effective training to improve GPC knowledge. This type of training is highly specific and is beyond typical reading science professional development. Therefore, teachers should advocate for professional development with in-depth knowledge on the structure of English.</p> <p>Our second recommendation is that teachers need to know the general extent of their students' GPC knowledge. Regularly assessing students' phonetic elements knowledge is critical to knowing what GPC knowledge they have and what needs to be learned. This informal type of assessment can be done using a diagnostic decoding tool or by recording word reading errors during oral reading practice. Noting which words contain GPCs that students are regularly misreading, the teacher should look deeper into whether there is a phonics rule to explain the misread element as opposed to just dismissing the word as an exception word/non-decodable word. Teachers can then determine what needs to be taught, or not, in order for a new batch of words to be decodable.</p> <p>Our third recommendation is to reorganize your high-frequency word lists to align to students' GPCs knowledge. High-frequency words should always match the instruction you have taught explicitly or will teach explicitly before exposing students to new words. Strive to gain a systematic framework of organizing high-frequency words to the student's mastery level of GPCs. Knowing what GPCs have been covered in your curriculum aids you in determining what high-frequency words can be taught. Based on new knowledge, critique your phonics curriculum to see how it aligns to the rules and patterns of English. We understand that some school agencies may require students to master specific HFW based on a grade level list of words. To overcome this barrier, teachers should analyze the required word lists and reorganize the list according to the words that students are able to decode based on their current phonetic knowledge. After teaching these words, educators have two options: (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref82">1</reflink>) organize the remaining words by phonetic skill and teach those skills, even if the skills are outside of the phonics program, or (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref83">2</reflink>) move the remaining HFWs to later in the curriculum when the phonics skills will be taught.</p> <hd id="AN0179805730-15">Conclusion</hd> <p>By organizing high-frequency words around phonetic concepts the students have learned in the curriculum and supplementing the curriculum with a more complete set of GPCs, educators will give students the tools needed to orthographically map 99% of graphemes in high-frequency words and hundreds of thousands of additional words. In addition, students will continue to deepen their understanding of English orthography and thereby be able to orthographically map new words using GPCs rather than approaching some words as "not decodable" and attempting to memorize the "whole word." Teachers should be supported in learning more about GPCs so they can critically examine their phonics scope and sequence in order to supplement it where necessary. This knowledge will equip them for the teachable moments involving decoding high-frequency words.</p> <p>In addition to teaching more GPCs to unlock words, instead of relying on lists of words, there is also a need to learn about the origins of words. Both enhanced GPC instruction and knowledge of word origins will set teachers up with practices that will transfer into vocabulary instruction, which will ultimately increase comprehension skills.</p> <p>Previously we noted that it is beyond the scope of this paper to determine precisely which rules and patterns need to be taught to whom at what age. Rather, further research is needed to better determine a set of GPCs that is most effective for teaching emergent readers. Since high-frequency words are so frequently encountered by all readers, the GPCs that are needed to orthographically map high-frequency words should be considered, as well as the GPCs that are most frequently used in the language. Tables 3, 4, and 7 demonstrate how the GPCs needed to decode high-frequency words are not exceptions, but rather are useful for decoding additional words.</p> <p>Additionally, this paper provides general strategies for applying this GPC knowledge to curriculum that requires high-frequency word instruction. Traditionally, teachers are required to have emergent readers master a set of high-frequency words each year. This requirement is often put forth without consideration of phoneme segmentation and letter knowledge skills, two essential foundational skills for word reading (Miles et al., [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref84">36</reflink>]). We hope this paper encourages educators to push back against developmentally inappropriate or ineffective methods to teach high-frequency words and empowers them to align high-frequency word instruction with GPC instruction to enhance high-frequency word learning.</p> <p>As teachers discover how regular English really is, they become less reliant and focused on strategies anchored in exceptions, and come more fully into their roles as language teachers. This is not just about mastering lists of words; it is about mastering the English language. In order to teach a child how to read, the instructor must understand that the letter-sound correspondences in <emph>nearly every word the child will encounter</emph> are reliable and regularly spelled.</p> <hd id="AN0179805730-16">Authors' Contributions</hd> <p>Katharine Pace Miles, Ph.D., Department of Early Childhood Education, Brooklyn College, City University of New York; Denise Eide, CEO and Founder, Logic of English; Janee' R. Butler, M.Ed., Senior Literacy Content and Training Specialist, The Center for Literacy & Learning.</p> <hd id="AN0179805730-17">Disclosure statement</hd> <p>No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).</p> <ref id="AN0179805730-18"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref16" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Arra, C. T., & Aaron, P. G. (2001). Effects of psycholinguistic instruction on spelling performance. Psychology in the Schools, 38 (4), 357 – 363. doi: 10.1002/pits.1024</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref56" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Arredondo, V. (2019). Orton-Gillingham word list dictionary volume 1: Consonants, short vowels, blends, floss, end blends, compound words, closed syllable exceptions. Independently Published.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib3" idref="ref31" type="bt">3</bibl> <bibtext> Binks-Cantrell, E., Washburn, E. K., Joshi, R. M., & Hougen, M. (2012). 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Butler</p> <p>Reported by Author; Author; Author</p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib32" firstref="ref1"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib37" firstref="ref2"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl3" bibid="bib14" firstref="ref5"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl4" bibid="bib15" firstref="ref6"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl5" bibid="bib16" firstref="ref7"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl6" bibid="bib33" firstref="ref8"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl7" bibid="bib28" firstref="ref9"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl8" bibid="bib47" firstref="ref10"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl9" bibid="bib10" firstref="ref11"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl10" bibid="bib11" firstref="ref12"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl11" bibid="bib18" firstref="ref19"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl12" bibid="bib45" firstref="ref21"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl13" bibid="bib50" firstref="ref22"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl14" bibid="bib53" firstref="ref23"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl15" bibid="bib56" firstref="ref24"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl16" bibid="bib13" firstref="ref26"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl17" bibid="bib19" firstref="ref27"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl18" bibid="bib26" firstref="ref28"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl19" bibid="bib55" firstref="ref30"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl20" bibid="bib25" firstref="ref32"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl21" bibid="bib38" firstref="ref33"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl22" bibid="bib44" firstref="ref34"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl23" bibid="bib39" firstref="ref35"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl24" bibid="bib40" firstref="ref36"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl25" bibid="bib41" firstref="ref37"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl26" bibid="bib42" firstref="ref38"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl27" bibid="bib43" firstref="ref39"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl28" bibid="bib46" firstref="ref40"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl29" bibid="bib52" firstref="ref41"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl30" bibid="bib57" firstref="ref42"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl31" bibid="bib24" firstref="ref43"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl32" bibid="bib23" firstref="ref48"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl33" bibid="bib35" firstref="ref52"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl34" bibid="bib12" firstref="ref53"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl35" bibid="bib49" firstref="ref55"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl36" bibid="bib48" firstref="ref57"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl37" bibid="bib22" firstref="ref58"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl38" bibid="bib51" firstref="ref59"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl39" bibid="bib29" firstref="ref60"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl40" bibid="bib34" firstref="ref64"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl41" bibid="bib21" firstref="ref66"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl42" bibid="bib27" firstref="ref67"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl43" bibid="bib30" firstref="ref78"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl44" bibid="bib20" firstref="ref79"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl45" bibid="bib36" firstref="ref84"></nolink>
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  Data: The Regularity of High-Frequency Words (Sight Words): Teacher Phonetic Knowledge Is Key
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Katharine+Pace+Miles%22">Katharine Pace Miles</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5039-8921">0000-0002-5039-8921</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Denise+Eide%22">Denise Eide</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Janee'+R%2E+Butler%22">Janee' R. Butler</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Reading+Psychology%22"><i>Reading Psychology</i></searchLink>. 2024 45(8):832-852.
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  Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
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  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Evaluative
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Sight+Vocabulary%22">Sight Vocabulary</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Sight+Method%22">Sight Method</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Word+Lists%22">Word Lists</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Knowledge+Base+for+Teaching%22">Knowledge Base for Teaching</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Emergent+Literacy%22">Emergent Literacy</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Phonetics%22">Phonetics</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Graphemes%22">Graphemes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Phonemes%22">Phonemes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Morphophonemics%22">Morphophonemics</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Phonics%22">Phonics</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Professional+Development%22">Professional Development</searchLink>
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  Data: 10.1080/02702711.2024.2379255
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  Data: 0270-2711<br />1521-0685
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  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: High frequency words, commonly referred to as sight words, are often a focus of emergent reading instruction. Instructional practices abound that require emergent readers to memorize the spelling and pronunciation of the words without drawing attention to grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) in the words. These approaches ignore a critical aspect of Ehri's theory of orthographic mapping. This article reviews the literature on storing words in memory, in general, and the research on learning high frequency words, more specifically. Analyses of high frequency words on the widely used, Dolch list, are included that show the overwhelming regularity of the GPCs in these words. The analyses provide insight into the most common GPCs in these high frequency words, and they provide examples of GPCs that if taught, unlock the regularity of several other high frequency words. Discussion focuses practitioners gaining more advanced phonetic knowledge in order to better understand the orthographic regularity of high frequency words. Recommendations include supplementing traditional phonics programs for students with at least some advanced phonetic knowledge, ensuring practitioners have this level of knowledge in order to capitalize on teachable moments with high frequency words, and/or organizing classroom lists of high frequency more strategically.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2024
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1440746
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1440746
RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1080/02702711.2024.2379255
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 21
        StartPage: 832
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Sight Vocabulary
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Sight Method
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Word Lists
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Knowledge Base for Teaching
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Emergent Literacy
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Phonetics
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Graphemes
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Phonemes
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Morphophonemics
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Phonics
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Professional Development
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: The Regularity of High-Frequency Words (Sight Words): Teacher Phonetic Knowledge Is Key
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
    HasContributorRelationships:
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Katharine Pace Miles
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Denise Eide
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Janee' R. Butler
    IsPartOfRelationships:
      – BibEntity:
          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 01
              Type: published
              Y: 2024
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 0270-2711
            – Type: issn-electronic
              Value: 1521-0685
          Numbering:
            – Type: volume
              Value: 45
            – Type: issue
              Value: 8
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: Reading Psychology
              Type: main
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