Irregular 'Heart' Words in Reading

Irregular "Heart" Words

• Irregular "heart" words are common words that present challenges to children because they don't follow the most common letter-sound correspondences.
• These words contain elements that must be learned "by heart".
• The collection of "heart" words includes both permanently and temporarily irregular words.
• Some words may be irregular based solely on the dialect.

Definition of Irregular Words

• An irregular word is a word that presents a challenge for decoding because either:
  • The sounds of the letters are unique to that word or a very small number of words (permanently irregular).
  • The student has not yet learned the letter-sound correspondences in the word (temporarily irregular).

Teaching Irregular "Heart" Words

• Many words can be taught in multiple ways, with different elements emphasized.
• Teachers may choose not to use all of the listed words as "heart" words or modify them to better align with their teaching method.
• The activity involves helping students learn to sound out words with unusual or irregular letter-sound correspondence.

Irregular "Heart" Words Activity

• Point out to students all the regular letter-sound correspondences in the word.
• Identify the part of the word that needs to be learned "by heart" (i.e., the part with irregular letter-sound correspondence).

Heart Word Teaching Tips

• Look for teacher guidance on the irregularities in the notes section of each slide.
• Group words that lend themselves to being taught together (e.g., could, would, should).
• Use the white box to cover the boxes and hearts when first presenting a word to allow students to identify the irregular part(s) of the word.

Kindergarten "Heart" Words

• Week 2: the, a, is, was
• Week 3: and, are, to
• Week 4: as, has, his