How do you teach High frequency words to reception child..?

[Macbeth8]

Is there a trick to teach them/help them with it?
I get the phonics sounding out and blending but is there a fun way to help with the HQ words. Dc seems quite frustrated when I tried today..

Fridge magnets. Write them on something stuck to a wall in another room. Give them a strawberry for every 5 words they can make from the list on the front of the fridge.
This is the vitamin rich, active child, look/cover/write (or whatever that tedious exercise is), method of learning spellings.

Prepare to be AMAZED at how quickly spellings are learnt to save time running backwards sand forwards.

During lockdown I used to stick them to a wall, set up a short obstacle course and then say the word they needed to touch...

mine had flash cards from school and bingo games. The high frequency words really clicked when his reading had progressed far enough with phonics to enable him to read the first few ladybird keywords birds. They are mainly high frequency words.

Flash cards, over and over again.

Are they high frequency words or also exception words (with silly spelling)?

Don't try to teach them together as it's just not fair.

Exception words are memory so snap, bingo, circling them, writing in coloured pens.

Hfw words that follow phonics rules are best taught by sounding out after reviewing the phonics rule and teach them in a little group.

Your poor children!

I think it sounds very inventive and fun.

They have to sight learn them. So put them up as posters /notes/ magnets etc everywhere and point them out as often as you can
read them a story every single night

DS1 was in Reception during the first lockdown so we did a lot of this. Search on Pinterest - try searching "sight words" as well as HFW. We did sitting in laundry baskets and catching words written on fish, writing words in chalk on the garage then squirting them with water pistols, writing them on the front steps and saying them each time we walked up or down, sticking them on the living room walls and throwing soft balls at them. He was a very reluctant reader so had to make it fun or he wouldn't engage at all.

The Tricky Word Song (Google it). Beware, it’s an earworm though!

I honestly can't imagine doing any of this. Reception age kids don't need spelling drilling at home. Just read and play with them.

I never did any soling practice with my daughter. She couldn't write her name when she started reception and by Yr 2 was reading independently.

Leave teachers to do the teaching

Actually for my son they give us a slip to complete and give back to then when the child knows the words by heart !

Wow! I'm glad we didn't have that, there were weekly spelling tests from year 1 but even those tended to ignore!

Leave teachers to do the teaching
Seriously?!!!

Two sets of flash cards and play snap. Spread out flash cards, ask for a word and see how many they can find in x minutes. Worked really well with GS who had dyslexia and got nowhere with phonics, did this in year 3 and he caught up really quickly.

Sorry Itisbetter, I just meant don't stress about spellings! My daughter used to get so cross if I tried to "teach" her so I just stopped and focused on reading and playing and learning together about things that interested her.

Try to group them into 'families' where you can. So, where the tricky part of the word is the same e.g. no, go and so
Me, she, we and be

Talk about which part of the word is tricky. E.g. the o in the first family is saying it's name not it's sound.

Then lots of repetition, bingo, snap, matching games etc

Hi @Macbeth8

Would you consider reposting in Primary Education? You’ll get some helpful comments there.

I am concerned some of the methods suggested would be counterproductive or plain unhelpful or just wrong.

I suggest splitting each High Frequency Word up
into its sounds.

For example if the word is WHAT you would say the sounds with your child while writing them.

w/o/t

repeat with all the HFW

THE

th/u

Dad

D/a/d

THERE

th/air

if you move over to Primary Ed someone will explain it much better than I can.

The “fun” comes up n being able to do it because that’s (hopefully) what they’ve been taught in school.

I'd seriously leave it to school if DC is getting frustrated. You'll suck the joy out of reading for both of you by trying to persevere.

Instead read together, read a variety of fact books and fiction, and encourage a love of reading. The spelling will come in time. Reading with parents and carers should be a pleasure not a chore for reception kids.

I'd seriously leave it to school if DC is getting frustrated. You'll suck the joy out of reading for both of you by trying to persevere.

Poppycock. Don't make parents afraid to support. Support parents to make learning at home enjoyable. That's the best way to avoid the joy getting sucked out of anything. Teachers rely on parents for their help with this.

That poster didn’t say don't bother supporting though did they? They said to read for pleasure instead which is the best advice on this entire thread.

moverofpaper

I'm always interested in this and would like to know if you're a professional? I ask because your advice runs counter to my professional experience and I'd like to know if you know something I don't, quite genuinely.

Encouraging a child to decode what alongside dad makes no sense to me. The short vowel /o/ sound made by the letter a is not taught until much later so it can't be learnt the same way as dad. IME confusion reigns with this approach. Do you have a rationale for this? Always learning.

One view I do hold onto is that parents need to worry less about getting it wrong and just get involved. It's scary if you didn't learn to read that way but parents backing off for fear of getting it wrong is a really bad outcome for the child. They can attend the phonics session most schools offer but I cannot see that most of the advice on this thread would be harmful or run counter to it.

Yes no problem with that part! Definitely important. But my view on the joy sucking part is a really unhelpful hangover from stressed home learning during lockdown and it needs to be unlearnt.

Why would you want to? 4/5 is too young to be forcing reading. If they are self taught fine, but there are zero benefits in training them.

I also think that if parents could see how little time there is to help struggling readers and how quickly the gap widens, they would want their child to have the best start possible by supporting at home. Not being able to read is a real disincentive to engagement and damaging to self esteem. Parents landing on thread like this to say don't bother helping are... Not helping. I really feel they should spend a day in a classroom and just take it all in.