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High-frequency words are words that occur most frequently in written material and do not follow phonetic rules or, as we say in the EL Education curriculum, "don't play fair." Due to this fact, it is important that students are able to navigate these words with ease to improve their reading fluency and comprehension. While high-frequency words on their own don't carry much meaning, they are essential to sentences and help students gather meaning. Below you will find five activities for each day of the week that parents can do with their children at home as high-frequency words are being introduced cycle by cycle.
Read it, say it, write it, read it again
Use high-frequency words in sentences (oral and written)
Read a list of high-frequency words and time yourself on fluency (keep running list)
Search for high frequency words in sentences / poems and underline them
Fishing for high-frequency words (one person reads the word aloud, other students find the word in a stack of other high-frequency words)
Cycle 1:
In this cycle, students review Reading Foundations skills from Kindergarten including hearing and counting syllables, rhyming, identifying onset and rime, segmenting and blending individual phonemes, identifying the position of phonemes, and substituting phonemes in spoken words. It also reviews decoding VC (vowel, consonant) and CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words from the end of Kindergarten.
Introduced in This Cycle
Review of kindergarten skills
High-Frequency Words
Not applicable
Cycle 2
Phonemes Introduced in This Cycle
“t,” “a,” “p,” “n,” “c,” “h,” “s,” “m,” “r,” “v,” “g,” “th”
High-Frequency Words
a, an, can, has, is, the, this
Cycle Word List
In this cycle, students work with short "a," the consonants "t," "p," "n," "h," "c," "s," "m," "r," "v," "g," and the digraph "th" to decode and encode a large quantity of words with two, three and even four (if students are ready) phonemes. The inclusion of "n" and "t" in this cycle allows for the introduction of the final consonant cluster "-nt." In addition, possessive's (for reading only) and plural noun "-s" are introduced.
Cycle 3
Phonemes Introduced in This Cycle
/i/, /ch/, /k/, /y/, /sh/, /z/, /d/, /l/, /f/
High-Frequency Words
"at," "and," "in," "look," "like," "his," "with"
Cycle Word List
In this cycle, students work with short "i," the consonants "k," "y," "z," "d," "l," "f," and the digraphs "sh" and "ch" to decode and encode a large quantity of words with two, three, and even four (if students are ready) phonemes. While words with short "i" are emphasized, short "a" is reinforced and reviewed. Note that the accumulation of the consonants from this and Cycle 2 allows students to start to work with words with initial consonant blends "fl," "dr," "gr," and "sp" and final "-nd," "-nk," and "-ng." In addition, students are introduced to "-s" as a doing suffix.
Cycle 4
Phonemes Introduced in This Cycle
“qu,” “u”
High-Frequency Words
"did," "on," "she," "her," "has," "are"
Cycle Word List
In this cycle, students work with the short vowel "u" using accumulated phoneme/graphemes from prior cycles with two, three, and even four (if students are ready) phonemes. This cycle introduces the partnering of "u" with "q" (as in /kw/ in "quit" and "quiz"). Short "a" and short "i" are reinforced and reviewed. This cycle allows for students to start to work with words with "-nch."
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