It’s True—Some Sight Words are Really Phonetic! Here’s Why!
Have you ever wondered what makes a “sight word” a “sight word”?
Let’s begin by looking at the first 20 high frequency words taught to beginning readers as “sight words”.
the* of* and a** to*
in is* you that it
he was* for on are*
as* with his* they I
at be this have from*
The ones with an asterisk are true sight words; the other words are not true sight words. They are actually phonetic words. Note: The word “a” has two asterisks because you can pronounce it two ways. If you pronounce it as ā, it’s a phonetic word. If you pronounce it as /u/, it’s a sight word.
When an educator begins teaching a child to read, there is no possible way to instantly teach a child to read every word applying all or even many of the phonics rules.
We begin teaching phonics by introducing two and three letter words containing a short vowel sound and single consonant sounds (no consonant digraphs or consonant blends at the beginning).
Look again at the list of the 20 high frequency words. Only “an”, “in”, “it”, “on”, and “at” are words that contain a short vowel sound and a single consonant sound.
The difficulty begins when we try to use only these two letter words in simple sentences. Beginning to read simple sentences right away is very important because children need to immediately find meaning in what they read as they learn to read.
We quickly discover that we need articles (a, an, the, that), prepositions (of, to, in, for, on, as, with, at, from), conjunctions (and, that, for, as), state of being verbs (is, was, are, be, have), pronouns (you, it, he, his, they, I), adverbs (that, as, this), etc. to make meaningful sentences.
Because we cannot read or write simple sentences without articles, prepositions, conjunctions, verbs, pronouns or adverbs, we must have children master many high frequency words as soon as possible in order to use simple short vowel words in simple sentences.
Therefore, most high frequency words are quickly taught as “sight words” to children even though many of them are not “true sight words”.
For Silent Elephant “e” I developed a process for learning sight words that’s extremely effective, multi-sensory and fun. See the post “How to Teach Sight Words”.
If you have further questions about sight word vocabulary, feel free to contact us.