I can read all of these words!

Word Recognition

I can read all of these words!

“The twenty-five most common words make up

about one-half of our written materials.”

Fry, Kress & Fountoukidis, 2000

“We have over a half-million words to communicate with,

but half of everything we write and read depends on only

0.02 percent—on only those 100 most frequent words.”

Frank B. May, Reading as Communication: To Help Children Read and Write 1998

It appears that instant recognition of words, especially

high-frequency words, develops best when students read

large amounts of text, particularly text that is relatively easy

for the reader (Cunningham, 1995).

The student who can read on sight 8 out of the 10 words in

the sentence before them can read that sentence and can

usually decode the remaining words by using phonics,

context or picture cues. Most importantly, they can

understand the meaning of what they are reading.

Without adequate high frequency/sight word knowledge, a

reader’s fluency, and therefore their comprehension, is

impaired.

Common High Frequency Word Lists

• Dolch

• Edward Fry’s “Instant Word” Lists

• San Diego Quick

• California Reading and Literature Results Project

• Rebecca Sitton’s Core Words

Assessment

• High frequency/sight word knowledge needs to

be assessed frequently and taught strategically.

• Students need to be able to read the word

without sounding it out and with automaticity.

Word Identification in a BalancedReading Program

• The focus on word identification is in line with a child’s

individual needs and skills.

• Teaching letter/sound relationships helps children build

fluency, automaticity and independence.

Word Identification in a BalancedReading Program (cont.)

• Children are encouraged to use alphabetic, semantic

and syntactic cues to identify unfamiliar words.

• Teacher modeling and multiple opportunities to interact

with text leads to the development of word identification

strategies.

Becoming Aware of Language

• When beginning readers and writers explore written

language, they develop critical concepts about print.

• When children explore oral language, they develop

phonemic awareness and the ability to manipulate and

play with the sounds of language.

Becoming Aware of Language (cont.)

• Phonemic awareness is sequential. Children become

aware of words, syllables, rhyme and eventually, to

individual phonemes.

• A child who has phonemic awareness can identify the

sounds he/she hears, segment words and blend sounds

into words.

What Does Research Say?

• Substantial evidence suggests that word identification

skills should be taught directly rather than waiting for

children to discover them on their own and that such

skills should be taught early.

• Effective readers are also strategic; that is, they learn

how and when to use combinations of word identification

skills

(Adams, 1990; Anderson et al., 1985).

Who Is At-Risk?

• Children who overuse context clues and fail to attend to

letter-sound associations may misidentify words, and that

could cause them difficulty in constructing meaning for a

passage (Simon & Leu, 1987).

Who is At-Risk? (cont.)

• Children who do not effectively use meaning clues often

sound out nonsense words or are so slow and laborious

in word identification that they cannot simultaneously

draw meaning from the words that they are reading

(Biemiller, 1970; Samuels, 1985).

Why Develop Automaticity?

• The first 300 words make up 65% of all written material.

(Frye)

• Comprehension begins to break down when students are

focused on trying to decode or sound out the words.

What Are High Frequency Words?

• High frequency words are phonetic and can be decoded,

but occur with such frequency that they often need to be

learned before their specific phonics pattern is taught.

• Examples of frequently occurring words: the, in, I, a, go,

to, that, with, about, please

What Are Sight Words?

• Sight words are words, usually Anglo-Saxon in origin,

that must be memorized because of their non-phonetic

structure and high degree of usage.

• Examples of nonphonetic words: come, said, was, two

and through

What Are High Interest Words?

• High interest words are words with special interest or

emotional overtones and are frequently used and

recognized by students in their personal reading and

writing.

• Examples of high interest words: mom, dad, dinosaur

Importance of Recognizing Words for Independent Reading

• Enables use of context clues.

• Increases fluency and ease of reading

• Children can read greater amounts and for longer periods.

• Focus can be more on comprehension than on decoding.

California LanguageArts Standards

1.0 Decoding and word recognition

• Kinder 1.15 Read simple one syllable and high frequency words (i.e.: sight words)

• 1st 1.11 Read common, irregular sight words (e.g. the, have said, come give, of)

• 2nd 1.6 Read aloud fluently and accurately with appropriate intonation and expression

Instructional Implications

• Rhyme awareness activities

• Sound awareness activities

• Teaching onset and rime/analogy strategy

• Letter-sound activities

• Multi-letter chunking

• Visual discrimination and configuration

• Building words

Instructional Implications (cont.)

• Word sorts

• Cross-checking and self-monitoring

• Context clues

• Cloze Activities

• Word Wall Activities

• Structural Analysis

• Phonetic cue strategies

Ways to Classify and Sort Words

There are many ways to sort and classify words on a word wall, in a literacy center, or in a whole or small group lesson:

• Words that start the same (beginning blend, consonant

cluster or onset)

• Words that end the same (rime)

• Words that rhyme

• Words that contain the same number of syllables

Ways to Classify and Sort Words (cont.)

• Long words, short words

• Words I know, words I think I know and words I

don't know at all

• Words with long or short vowels

• Words with schwa sound

• Synonyms, antonyms

• Compound words

Word Walls

• Using word walls is an effective classroom strategy for

learning and practicing HFW/sight words

• As new words are learned they are added to the wall in

ABC order

• HFW words walls are added to and utilized all year

• If it is on the wall, they are responsible for knowing how

to read and spell it correctly!

Activities for Word Wall Practice

• Speed reading all words under one letter

• Read using different voices/expressions

• Guess my word

• Rhyming words

• Read the entire wall forwards or backwards

• Preposition/pronoun/noun/verb etc. hunt

Whole Class HFW Practice

• Word wall games

• Slap

• I have_____, who has____?

• Wordo

• Word wall cards in ABC order

• Pass the cards

Small Group HFW Practice

• Slap

• ABC order

• Pass the card

• Guess my word(s)

• Concentration

• Wordo

Individual Student Support

• Word cards on rings

• Word lists on desk

• New words added to individual spelling dictionaries

• Word hunts while reading

• Practice, practice, practice!

Practice at Home

• Flash cards

• Concentration

• Word hunts for focus words

• Make words with magnetic letters on fridge

• Words posted around the house

• Read, read, read!

Beyond the Word Bank

• Match cards whose word begins with the same

letter or syllable.

• Match cards whose word ends with the same letter

or syllable.

• Match cards whose word is the same.

• Match cards whose words rhyme.

• Arrange cards according to alphabetical order.

Beyond the Word Bank, cont.

• Arrange cards according to the number of syllables in

each word.

• Make up sentences using the words on the cards.

• Make up a story using all the words on the cards.

• Find synonyms, antonyms or homonyms.

• Find cards whose words have the same root or base

word.

Beyond the Word Bank (cont.)

• Find cards whose words have prefixes or suffixes.

• Find cards with compound or derived words.

• Arrange cards by the stress on the words.

• Make up a story or poem using all or most of the words

on the cards.

Designing Word Recognition Instruction

• Identify word recognition error types.

• Provide systematic word recognition instruction on

specific skills.

• Pre-teach word types in the text prior to reading.

• Structure time for student to practice the text with a

peer, adult, or tape.

• High frequency/site words: is, be, to, us, am, in

• High frequency phrases:

by the dog

for the day

on the bed

over the top

Source: Building Fluency: Do It Well and Do It Right! Molly McCabe

Recommended Reading

• Behr, Donald, et al, Words Their Way

• Fox, Barbara, Word Identification Strategies: Phonics

from a New Perspective

• Frye, Edward, 1000 Instant Words, Laguna Beach

Educational Books.

• Throop, Sara (1999) Success with Sight Words:

Multisensory Ways to Teach High Frequency Words,

Creative Teaching Press.

For more information or explanation of ideas outlined in

this presentation, please contact Cherry Carl at

carl1404@msn.com.