Banter Quick Tips: Phonics or sight words? Why it’s the wrong question; and where we should start
Phonics or sight words? I get this question a lot, and I understand why.
On the surface, written English seems chaotic:
- Not counting the words for numbers (which are infinite), we have somewhere between 520 million-2+ billion words in English – and it’s impossible to memorise anywhere near that number of words.
- We have over 460 possible mappings between letters and speech sounds, too.
But, under the hood, written English is much more ordered than we sometimes think:
- A large proportion of written English can be read with knowledge of about 64 high-frequency letter-sound links;
- English word usage follows Zipf’s law:
- just 100 words make up about 50% of written English; and
- 40% of those words can be read with the 64 most common letter-sound links.
Taken together, these facts suggest we should teach:
- the 64 most common letter-sound links and how to blend them together; and
- a small set of high frequency truly irregular sight words.
Here’s the infographic:
Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.
Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language
Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.
