A high frequency word (HFW) is a word that crops up in writing regularly, such as ‘a’, ‘is’ and ‘that’. Some of the high frequency words can be sound it out, for example ‘in’ and ‘it’; others are not phonetically friendly, for example ‘the’ and ‘go’.
As these words come up so often in reading and writing, children are encouraged to read them by sight rather than sounding out.
How can I help my child to read high frequency words?
Here are a few activities you might like to try…
Read the blocks
Write the HFW that your child has learned or is learning on to a Mega Blok.
Read each block together and repeat until your child begins to read them themselves.
EXTENSION: Point to a block and your child calls it out.
Find the block
Call out a word and your child finds the correct brick.
Matching game
Write several of the same word on different blocks (on varied colours).
You child matches the words and builds word towers.
This helps them recognise the patterns in letters, even if they cannot yet read the words.
[one_half_first]
[/one_half_first][one_half_last]
[/one_half_last]
Building a phrase
Write HFW words and words that your child can read with the sounds they have learned. Put them in order to create a phrase. Your child can pick up the words, if they wish, to help them read the words.
EXTENSION 1: Muddle up the words. Support your child to read the words and rearrange to make a phrase.
EXTENSION 2: Build a sentence. Add a full stop and a word with a capital letter to help them associate sentences with capital letters and full stops.