Don’t make your kids memorize sight words, decode them instead! I know… this goes against all we were taught. But I say this with good reason, so just hear me out.

You’ve probably heard and uttered the phrase “sight words can’t be sounded out,” but it’s simply not true. In fact, there’s only a small number of sight words that truly cannot be decoded and need to be memorized.

Read on and learn how and why to teach kids to decode sight words instead of memorizing them.

What are Sight Words?

Sight words are those that we expect children to memorize by forming a mental picture of the word. Memorizing sight words does not come easily to many readers and it does not prepare them to manipulate the sounds in those words to read similar, more complex words.

Instead of teaching kids to visually memorize words, we should be showing them how to sound out these words using decoding strategies.

What is Decoding?

Decoding is sounding out words to read. Words that are easily decoded are words like cat and mop. Instruction that explicitly teaches kids how to sound out words is proven to help kids learn to read better than visually memorizing the words. But if we know this, then why are we making kids memorize words?

Why Decode and Not Memorize?

When children are taught phonics patterns, a mental process occurs in which sounds and letters are mapped together in the brain. As a child encounters a new word, their brain is prepared with a mental map that gives them the tools to tackle sounding out the word as opposed to guessing from memory. This leads to more accurate word reading which improves fluency and reading comprehension.

Regular vs. Irregular Letter-to-Sound Correspondence

Sight words fall into two categories: those with regular spellings, like in, at, and had, and those with irregular spelling, like has, the, and of.

Sight words with regular spelling patterns can be taught simultaneously when that phonics pattern is taught. For example, when working on the short I sound, the words in and it can be introduced. When students know the consonant and vowel sounds, they can decode these words. They do not need to be memorized.

Irregularly spelled sight words have a part or parts whose letter(s) do not align to their typical sounds. These words should be taught explicitly to help students identify the tricky part of the word that they must memorize.

Teaching Irregular Sight Words

For most irregularly spelled sight words, there is just one letter or one part that is tricky. Look at the word is. The I is regular (/i/) and the S is irregular (/z/). Others, like of, need to be memorized by heart since both parts are irregular (/u/ /v/).

Group sight words with similar irregular letter-to-sound correspondences together when introducing to students. For example, when teaching is, also teach his, as, and has since they all have an S that makes the /z/ sound.

The Takeaway

Sight words should be taught like any other word. Give your students the tools to decode sight words by teaching them explicitly.

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