Phonics Article Review 2

Marissa Lund-Zeiber
Phonics Article Review #2

“Reconceptualizing Sight Words” and “Rethinking Sight Words”
March 16, 2022
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One thing that every kindergarten classroom has in common during their school day is
the use and practice of high frequency/sight words. Whether these high frequency/sight word
lists are Dolch, Fry, or curriculum generated from classroom programs, they are still used every
day as a part of teaching a child how to read. What both articles “Reconceptualizing Sight
Words” and “Rethinking Sight Words” have in common is the understanding and opinion that
sight words are viewed and taught incorrectly in the classroom. When a person is asked what a
sight word is to them, they would most likely answer that a sight word is a word that is
automatically known and is unable to be decoded. This is a common response given and it is
even common for teachers to teach these words as such. What these two articles brought to the
surface of my attention was that sight words/ high frequency words should not be viewed as
words that need to be learned as automatic in isolation. What they have found was that students
were showing little progress in learning high frequency words through this style of teaching and
this struggle has affected the student’s ability to read. In the article “Reconceptualizing Sight
Words: Building an Early Reading Vocabulary” they state that Ehri calls the terms sight word
inaccurate because it implies that those words can only be learned by sight. With that being said
both articles discuss ways in which students can learn “sight-words” so that they are able to
apply them to their reading and show more success in their growth in reading development. It
also provides a better understanding for how “sight-words” should be viewed so that teachers are
presenting these words in ways that are easier for the students to understand and connect with.
In the article ““Reconceptualizing Sight Words: Building an Early Reading Vocabulary”
they state five assertions about sight word learning that apply to all early readers. Out of these
five there were a few that really caught my attention and changed the way that I view sight-
words. The first assertion that caught my attention was that words are easier to learn when they
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are concrete, high-imagery nouns, adjectives, or action verbs. Essentially meaning that it is easier
for students to learn words that they can visualize and relate to when they are reading. This
assertion caught my attention because it makes perfect sense when thinking of the mind of a
child. I think about the student that I am currently tutoring and when I have asked him what a
word means in isolation, he often is quick to say “I don’t know” but when I use the word in a
sentence, he is able to tell me what it means because he is able to create a visual for himself and
add meaning to the word. From this assertion, we as teachers should try to teach sight-words in a
way that allows the students to place meaning to the words that they are learning, and they will
most likely have a better chance at recalling the word when it is seen in a sentence. On the other
hand, what about the words that are unable to be visualized by the student? This leads to the next
assertion that caught my attention, which was “words stick in memory through careful mapping
of pronunciations to meaning through spelling”. Words need to not only have meaning, but the
pronunciation and spelling are also a huge factor in understanding a word. The English language
has so many patterns that it is possible for students to learn these patterns of irregularity as a way
to understand the meaning of sight words. The article goes on to explain that “the high-frequency
word continuum of irregularity allows students to apply graphophonemic analysis of meaning,
pronunciation, and spelling to add high frequency words as sight words and categorize them.” I
liked how this article went into depth about the importance of understanding why the words are
the way that they are as a way to help the students learn and grasp the concept of these high-
frequency words. This new understanding fit perfectly into the next article “Rethinking Sight
Words” because not only does it agree with the five assertions that this first article gave about
high frequency/sight words it also provides a way in which to teach students sight words without
relying on the student’s memorization.

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One way that was found to be successful in teaching students sight words without forcing
the students to learn through memorization drills, was to use a grapheme-phoneme intervention
activity to help students build relations with sight words. What the teacher had the students do at
first was to listen and repeat the word that they were working on. Then he had the students tap
and count the sounds that they heard in the word given to them. After they verbally stated the
word the teacher then wrote the word on a dry erase board for the students to see and physically
pointed to the grapheme stating the phoneme for each grapheme shown. The next step was to
have the students set aside counters for each sound that they heard as the teacher stated the word
again to them. Once the counters were set in place the students were instructed to spell the word
underneath their counters. This activity allowed the student to not only hear what the word
sounded like, but it also allowed the students to visualize the sounds and place the letters that go
with the sound. To connect this activity to the first article, it allows the students to apply
meaning, pronunciation, and spelling to the sight words. I liked how this activity was taught
because it showed the students that even though the word has an irregular spelling, they can still
apply their knowledge that letters form to make words and build an understanding for the high
frequency/sight words that are difficult to decode by looking at the individual letters. It provides
the students an answer to why words work the way that they do.
The English language is a very confusing language to teach and to understand, and at
times I wonder how I myself learned to read as I begin to learn more about the basics of phonics.
When teaching sight words before I read these two articles, I would often state to my students
that there was no easy way to learn the sight words other than to just practice and memorize the
spelling. What I was unable to provide to them was the meaning of those words and how they are
used and I myself even became confused as I tried to help my students learn these words. I
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taught similar to the way many other teachers teach when it comes to sight words in the
classroom. After reading these two articles, I now have a better understanding of how to
introduce high frequency/sight words without having to rely on the student’s memorization skills
for them to be able to learn. I now am able to place meaning to the words that “just do not make
sense” and I can apply this knowledge to the student that I am currently tutoring.
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Reference Page
Rawlins A. & Invernizzi M. (2019). Reconceptualizing Sight Words: Building an Early Reading
Vocabulary. The Reading Teacher, (72)6, 711-719
Miles K.P, Rubin G.B, & Gonzalez -Frey S. (2018). Rethinking Sight Words. The Reading
Teacher, (71)6, 715-726

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Marissa Lund-Zeiber

Phonics Article Review #2

In the article ““Reconceptualizing Sight Words: Building an Early Reading Vocabulary”

word continuum of irregularity allows students to apply graphophonemic analysis of meaning,

relying on the student’s memorization.

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