Grant Wood AEA Summer Literacy Symposium 2018

High frequency words are traditionally taught separately from phonics. They are introduced to students in the order of their frequency, or sometimes grouped by subject (colors, numbers, etc.) While this approach may work for many students, struggling readers often have difficulty reading and spelling high frequency words such as saw, was, where, were, etc. In this session learn to organize and teach the words in any high frequency list (Dolch, Fry, etc.) using a phonics-based instructional sequence, including techniques for teaching students to read and spell the 50 or so high frequency words that don’t fit into phonics instruction because of their irregular spellings. Teachers who have used this approach to teaching high frequency words say that all students, not just struggling readers, read and spell high frequency words with much higher accuracy than using the traditional approach.