Expose Children to Irregular Sight Words Early & Often

Decoding words using phonics is a strategy that teaches children to use letter-sound relationships and word knowledge to translate printed words into spoken language. For example, combining the sounds of the letters d, o, and g (/d/ + /o/ + /g/) result in the word dog. This skill enables children to read words fluently. However, not all words can be decoded; irregular words need to be automatically identified. These words are phonetically irregular as they do not follow the phonic “rules”. Interestingly approximately 25% of the most frequently used words in children’s books are irregular.

Sharon Vaughn and Sylvia Linan-Thompson wrote a book called Research-Based Methods of Reading Instruction for Grades K -3, which provide the following guidelines when teaching irregular words:

1. Teach irregular words that a student will encounter regularly.
2. The number of words to teach in each session will vary depending upon the student.
3. Teach the irregular words prior to reading them.
4. Review those words on a daily basis.
5. Provide your child with opportunities to use the newly taught words (i.e. writing and reading).

One effective and fun way to provide children repeated exposure to these most common irregular sight words is by playing Er-u-di-tion, an educational board game that incorporates over 300 sight words and basic phonics.

Vaughn and Linan-Thompson suggest beginning this instruction with the following
30 Irregular Sight Words:

the	you	said	his	people
to	they	were	do	know
was	would	are	some	your
of	there	because	as	mother
is	one	what	could	who
two	too	should	put	whose

All of the above words are included in Er-u-di-tion’s game cards with the exception of one word. In addition, all of the irregular sight words noted below are incorporated into Er-u-di-tion:

a	again	answer	any	been
both	brought	cold	color	come
does	earth	enough	example	eyes
father	find	four	friend	from
give	great	have	kind	learn
listen	live	many	most	move
off	often	old	on	once
only	other	their	though	through
want	water	where	word	work