Of the 100 most used English words, 61 are decodable, although with some irregular spellings: they (play), been (bean), see (sea), here (hear), first, her (heard).
A, an, can, and, as, at, back, that, had, has,
get, well, went, them, then, her, new,
in, is, it, if, big, did, him, his, this, little, with, will, first,
on, off, not, from, or, for,
go, no, so, over, old
but, just, much, must, up,
came, made, make,
been, see, here,
out, about, our,
I, like,
they,
by, my, right.
The other 39 all contain some tricky or surplus letters, with 13 especially tricky:
Said,
to, do, into, two, one, only, other, come, some, you, your, could,
the - he, she, we, me, be,
all, call,
of, down, now, look,
was, want,
when, what, where, which, who,
their, there,
are, have, before, more, were.
One way of helping children to learn to read the words which keep tripping them up is to write them in big letters with their pronunciation spelled out phonically next to them in smaller letters or a different colour and have them pinned up in their bedroom:
e.g. said [sed]
one [wun]
The phonic spellings get blanked out once the word has been truly learned.
I found this very effective with struggling readers who don?t get any reading help at home, but it should work with any child who prefers to learn independently.
I used to make a note of the words which tripped them up when I listened to them read and then gave them to learn that way at home.
The reason why children often still stumble when reading real books, even when they can read all the words in isolation, in little groups, is because in real books they come at them jumbled up: come home, go to, dish out soup...