So...What are heart words?❤️

Heart words are words we see A LOT and some parts either do not follow the rules OR have a spelling pattern students have not learned yet. These are the parts we need to know by heart.

Your child’s school may reference these as Red Words, Sight Words, or High-Frequency Words.

WHY heart words?❤️

Did you know that the majority of English words are phonetically regular (they MAKE sense). YAY! So there is no need to memorize a whole bunch of words!

The heart word method has learners focus on how sounds and letters work, instead of memorizing a list of sight words.

Forget about just memorizing words, which is a total pain in the neck for most learners. When we teach kids this method, we're helping them level up and say bye-bye to that frustration.

Have you ever noticed that your child sometimes struggles with a word they've seen a bunch of times? It can be super confusing for parents. If we pay attention to the bits of a word that actually make sense, we're showing learners that English is a language with rules that help us learn to read! And guess what? This fancy term is called orthographic mapping.

How do I teach them?

I focus on what parts of a word do work before moving on to the parts of a word that don’t make sense OR a learner has not practiced yet.

Count the sounds in the word

ex: said has 3 sounds s/ai/d

Figure out what sounds make sense!

said has 2 sounds that make sense

Figure out what sounds don’t make sense and draw a heart under those sounds

ai says /eh/ in said
This is the part we have to learn by HEART❤️

How to help?

When reading a word that “doesn’t make sense” point out the parts of the word that do make sense! Then, identify the sounds of the letters that do not make sense or are spelling patterns your learner has not practiced yet (just like in the steps above).

Make it FUN!❤️

Practicing Heart Words is CRUCIAL for students, as these are words they see and use constantly. However, there is no need for it to be boring!

Ideas:

Tic Tac Toe
Bingo
Memory
Hangman

Okay, Let’s recap: Steps to Teach a New Heart Word…❤️

Introduce the word: Say the word and have them count the sounds they hear. Let’s use “said” as an example. Said has 3 sounds /s/ /eh/ /d/. (great time to use sound boxes!)
Regular Sounds: Talk about the sounds that play fair FIRST! And have them write those down. In our example, the s says /s/ and the d says /d/. NO need to memorize these as we can just sound them out.
Heart Part: Talk about the part that is irregular (or not yet learned). The only sound that doesn’t “play fair” in said is ai, which is making /eh/ sound. This is irregular! So, we put a heart above this part and must learn it by heart!❤️❤️❤️❤️
PRACTICE! Provide a lot of different opportunities to have your learner practice both writing and reading their new heart word!