Demystifying High-Frequency Words
High-frequencywordsareatthecoreofEnglishreadinginstruction.Thecommonapproach toteachthesewordstochildrenisbyaskingthemtomemorizethemusingtheirvisual memory.Butisthistherightapproachtoteachinghigh-frequencywords?
Anincreasingnumberofreadingexpertsarestartingtoquestionthesemethodologiesfor teachinghigh-frequencywordstochildren.Sciencehasdebunkedthecommonbeliefthat visualmemoryhasaroleinlearningtoread.
Brainscansshowthatthepartsofthebrainactivatedwhileperformingvisualmemorytasks aredifferentthanthepartsofthebrainactivatedwhilereading.
AccordingtoananalysisbytheLearningReadingHubthatlookingatthemostfrequently usedhigh-frequencywordsinprimaryschoollists(oftenreferredtoas'sightwords'),less than30%arenon-decodablephonetically.
Thatmeansthatmorethan70%(71.82%)are,infact,decodablephonetically.
Besides,amongthedecodableones(71.82%),almost40%(37.97%)followprettybasic phonicrules.
Ontopofthat,amongthenon-decodablewords,almost100%havesomedecodableparts.
Via:
https://learningreadinghub.com/blog/sight-words/understanding-high-frequency-words/