Can someone PLEASE tell me how many high frequency words there are??????

[propercheesed]

DS is currently KS1 at school, I have requested a copy of any high frequency words he should be learning(along side his reading) but surprise surprise access denied!!. Anyone would think I wanted to help my son .

I have googled and googled and I keep getting different answers, please could any teachers or up to speed parents tell me where to find the answer?

Letters and Sounds, the government document on phonics has lists of HFWs (both decodable and "tricky") for each phase of the program.

Other schemes will have their own lists, and a few will not use HFW lists at all.

So find out what they're using to teach phonics, if you're keen to help in that way.

DS's school doesn't provide lists either .

One of my colleagues has kids who go to a school that does provide a list. From the little I understand there's 45 to start with. Then another 100 and another huge batch of 250 or so. 400 in total. She's photocopied the list for me.

Ok thanks. I can remember him getting lists in Reception, and the beginning of last year and then they stopped after he was sent into an older class.

Meglat- maybe your school actually takes the time to teach your DS :) unfortunatly my DS has the most useless TA who would much rather make up piss poor excuses as to why she hasn't changed his book for 2 wks and then makes out she doesn't know if he reads at home because she never sees his reading diary....

www.highfrequencywords.org/first-100-high-frequency-word-lists.html

Now you need to decide how you are going to teach them, what groupings you will make so that he sees logical connections and patterns within word families, and whether you want him to read all and spell a few, or spell as he reads.
Good luck.

hmmmm think I will need more than luck! thanks Fallen

God knows! I work in a school and there are several lists all different! We use rainbow/ lighthouse/ octopus words but letters and sounds is different. Given that they are meant to be a list of the most frequently used words, you'd think they'd be the same!

ProperCheesed - if your child is being taught to read by sounding out words (which they should be) they don't need to learn high frequency words.

There are only a handful of words they won't be able to sound out, and the teacher will introduce them at the right time.

You are far better helping your child learn to sound out words, then helping him memorise words.

There is no list of words he is expected to know at the end of KS1 - instead he is expected to be able to read most words, and spell all words either correctly or phonetically.

He is probably reading all the high frequency words and the tricky words that he needs to know for his level of reading.

Indigo Bell is spot on, as usual! There is absolutely no need for children to 'learn' lists of high frequency words'.

If your child is being given good phonics instruction with decodable books to read (which will provide practice in reading words containing the letter/sound correspondences he has been taught) he will be able to sound out and blend most of the HFWs without any particular need to specifically 'learn' them. The very few which have particularly bizarre letter/sound correspondences in them will be taught at school as being 'decodable but with a tricky bit' (or a 'grotty grapheme if the school is using RWI!).

The overemphasis on 'learning' HFWs' stems from the time when phonics teaching was more or less abandoned in favour of 'look & say' methods of teaching reading. Then there was a huge emphasis on discrete word learning and as it was calculated that the first 100 words on the dolch word frequency list made up some 50% of text these were the words that were taught initially. As 'whole word' learning is the most inefficient and ineffective way of learning to read for most children the more children failed to learn to read the harder the HFWs were 'pushed'! And the 'need' to learn them became embedded in teacher mythology.

Sadly for the '50%' of text theory, the HFWs don't include the words which convey the 'meaning' of the text. Take everything but the HFWs out of a story and you end up with gibberish...

The lists of HFWs might differ because some contain words which are thought to be useful in writing decodable texts to make it seem more 'natural', so they may not be quite the same as the Dolch word lists which inspired them.

What is absolutely essential to keep in mind is that 'high frequency' does not equate to 'irregular' or 'undecodable'; which is what some teachers will still try to tell you.

P.S.
Interestingly, the words that the KS3 'strugglers' I work with have the most problems with are the ones with 'ough' in them. And they are no-where to be seen on the first 100 HFW list that I have in front of me. Yet 'through', 'though' and 'thought', are really commonly encountered words!

Yes, I thought that was a funny question. I am lucky DS seems to pick up any tricky words that can't be sounded out very quickly but I wouldn't even have thought of getting him to learn a list, very strange .

DS seems to pick up any tricky words that can't be sounded out

[groan] They can be sounded out...

The only really bizarre ones are 'one', 'two' and 'eye'. Apart from 'one' and 'two' all the words on the 100 word list I'm looking at right now are decodable as long as you know the code. Problem arises when children have to 'learn' them before they have the appropriate code knowledge...

Then why is it on his IEP? To be able to read all Y1/2 high frequency words by the end of this school year? He seems to read ok at home but to be able to say LOOK! This is what he can actually read would be ideal.

anyone know what word probe is then?

Just for the record he is 'according to school' 2 yrs behind on his reading. Unless I have the list which I mentioned above I can not say...He can read everything but a,b,and c if anyone can see where I'm coming from.......is that a little less strange Tgger?

Do you think his reading is fine or are you concerned about it?

Even if he could read the 200 hfw that would not prove he is at a year 2 level. (is he in Y2?)

By the end if y2 a child should be a '2b' which means they're reading fairly well. Not whole chapter books, but quite long reading scheme books.

(approx turquoise book band, or Oxford reading tree stage 9)

Being able to read 200 words won't make him a level 2b.

What can he read? CVC words? More than that? What reading books does be bring home?

And is he getting extra help at school to help him catch up?

Word probe is a precision teaching programme.

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend. My comment was not about the 100 frequency words on the list (that I have never seen ), it was about any tricky words at all in the english language, of which I believe there are a fair few and so far my DS has picked up on just through coming across them. There are also quite a few where the sounding out is tricky if you are only at a certain level with your reading and perhaps haven't covered those phonics yet/haven't taken them in. Eg "dangerous", "beautiful", "museum". Or if you don't have a clue what the thing in question is eg "chariot".

My son seems to have found learning to read fairly straightforward so far and I know I am lucky with this. If my child was behind I think I would want to go over the phonics first before going through lists of words. As pp says, if your phonics is strong there is no need to learn long lists of words as most can be sounded out. Then hopefully the others will be picked up through general reading, but perhaps if they aren't then a list might be helpful and I guess this is what you are talking about.

Sorry Tgger but those "tricky words" can be sounded out once your child has been taught the letter -sound relationships for the tricky part of the word, then they stop being tricky

I agree with teaching phonic sounds. My DS (yr 3) is a 2A reader and could not read many HFW, certainly not the 200+ expected of a year 3 child. He can phonetically sound out words better than many of the level 3+ readers. Reading is more than just recognising a word. My DS has rapid recall/ naming issues and is having precision teaching - but although fluency is not there he can read as well as his peers to complete the work in class.

I found some fab fun games and activities online for learning phonics - DS responded to then well because they were games.

errrrr yes, mrz, I said that they could be sounded out. And yes I think I said that they are tricky when your phonics hasn't covered the tricky bit. ??

well dangerous, beautiful and museum aren't considered tricky words tgger but he, she, we, me, and be are

Tgger, I think you'll find that most of the 'trickiest' words in English aren't in the HFW lists at all.

I've just had a look at the supposed 'next 100 HFWs' in Letters and Sounds (the amount of google hits you get for these is frightening). None of them are 'tricky' either.

Why on earth Letters & Sounds are teaching 'HFWs' is a complete mystery to me. Phonics isn't about 'word learning' at all. It's about learning letter/sound correspondences and using them for decoding and blending. If L & S really expects kids to 'learn' that many words it is somewhat defeating the object of phonics teaching

To be fair L&S don't suggest learning them by sight

Interesting mrz. Perhaps I chose wrong examples. That is a bit strange to me though. I would think more children learning to read would find my examples "trickier" than yours, although I agree yours don't follow the phonics rules and are objectively tricky in this way. I think we are both agreed that phonics is the best way to learn to read though.