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Why are sight words part of structured literacy sets?

From “look-say” to decoding: why SpellMe still lists sight words

 

What is the problem?

A quick look through the SpellMe word lists, which are based on Structured literacy/Phonics will show a number of sight words by Dolch and Fry. This doesn't really make sense! Structured literacy is a process that teaches reading and spelling step-by-step, linking sounds to letters and word parts, in a clear, ordered way with regular checks (check out my post on The Science Behind SpellMe - Part 1: Word Lists for more on this). Sight words are - or at least were - not supposed to do that. So what is going on…?

 

What were sight words?

Sight words were supposed to be lists of words that were learned by memorization, without sounding out, with the intention of being instantly identifiable. Although there were many kinds, I am focusing on the Dolch's and Fry’s lists (info in the additional links section) as those are the ones that are included in the SpellMe word lists. These lists were curated when look-say/whole-word contexts (the precurser to whole language methods) were being used for literacy, Dolch in 1936 (updated 1948) and Fry in 1957 (updated 1980).

However, it was later found that whole language learning was not as helpful as people thought in teaching kids to read. Large reviews concluded that phonics and structured literacy were more effective. Over the years a move to structured literacy became the norm for many educators and the method of whole language was replaced. But sight words still remain?

This was very confusing for many (including me).  So what is the situation?

 

Why are they still used?

Well sight words are still important, but their meaning has changed. They are no longer a list of words that should be learned by rote, but they are words that can be recognised automatically after mapping. They still need to be learned using structured literacy methods of linking the phoneme and grapheme of the words together. But once that has been learned, students should be able to identify them without having to go through that decoding process again. So eventually, every word should be a sight word.

Let's clarify the naming a bit further. Many sight words are also known as high frequency words, which are words that are used most often in the English language. For example 'and', 'in' and 'it', which are all regular words so can be easily decoded using phonics. However, some of these are irregular, such as 'said', 'was' and 'one', and are then known as heart words, because parts of the words need to be memorized (due to their irregularity). There are very few heart words that are fully irregular. Most have parts that can be decoded, like the 's' and the 'd' in 'said' but parts parts like the 'ai', cannot. So, although these three terms - sight words, high frequency words and heart words - are often used interchangeably, they are quite different.

 

So to clarify, 

  • Sight words are words recognised instantly after mapping
  • All words become sight words through orthographic mapping, which is grapheme–phoneme bonding, not visual-shape memorization
  • Included within these are heart words and high frequency words with phoneme–grapheme analysis where possible but the irregular parts are still recognised and highlighted. 

So, that is why you will find both Dolch and Fry sight words among the SpellMe word lists. Identifying and spelling high frequency words is extremely important for reading fluency and spelling literacy. Check them out and feel free to use them for your teaching and practice sessions.

 

Additional Links

 

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