Teach the READER, not the Reading! The Sight Word Epidemic

Most beginning readers are asked to memorize hundreds of sight words they could simply READ. Stanford brain research shows that decoding builds far better reading circuitry than memorizing, and nearly all of those "sight words" become decodable once kids know the right phonics patterns.

So the real problem isn't the words themselves. It's that kids haven't been given the code they need to read them. Here's what the research says, and how to hand kids that code years sooner.

And the Research Says...

Research shows that teaching kids to decode, or "sound out" words, sparks far more optimal brain circuitry than instructing them to memorize them. Stanford University's study on brain waves shows how different teaching methods affect reading development:

In other words, never MEMORIZE what you can READ!

So why do beginning grade learners have to memorize so many sight words? That's easy. It's because they can't read them.

Decoding Sight Words vs. Memorizing Them

Most kindergartners spend the entire grade level year learning the individual letters and sounds, which means that the whole year they're in kindergarten, they can effectively read almost nothing. Even once they do master the individual letters and sounds, most still can't read almost anything.

That's because when letters get together in words, they most often make entirely different sounds than the ones they make by themselves. These letter sound patterns are called phonics skills, and they traditionally take between three and four grade level years to acquire, from pre-K to 3rd grade.

That's a long time to make kids wait for the whole code needed to read and write, especially since they're doing both every day, beginning in kindergarten!

But how do beginning grade learners read words like the, they, my, she, or, are, how, saw, too, day, girl, boy, more, and so on, when the letters they know aren't making the sounds they should?

The answer is: they don't. They just have to memorize them.

Early grade teachers often rely on sight word memorization to help beginning and struggling readers pass grade level text assessments. It's meant to compensate for all of the phonics skills not yet taught, and yet needed, in order to read the words.

The result, however, is that even "easy to read" words are added onto an already overwhelming list of required sight words that kids have to memorize. Not because they aren't decodable, but because kids don't yet have the code-based skills they need to read them.

Most districts across the U.S. currently require first grade students to "know" (not read) 300 words in order to pass on to second grade. That requirement shifts the instructional focus from teaching the reader to teaching the reading (i.e. the words).

Not only is word memorization ineffective and potentially harmful as a reading strategy, as per the Stanford research above and the science of reading research on dyslexia, but it's also highly inefficient and developmentally inappropriate.

With so much instructional time spent on memorizing words, there's little left over to help learners develop the skills they actually need to read them. Not to mention that, for young children, the most meaningful learning occurs through movement, play, questioning, and exploration.

Fast-Tracking Phonics Through the Brain's Backdoor

The Stanford study shows why it's so important to underscore the traditionally slow pace of phonics instruction with Secret Stories®, particularly at the earliest grade levels, where "daily reading and writing time" holds little value for students who haven't yet learned the phonics skills needed to actually read or write.

The Secrets give very young learners, as well as struggling upper grade learners, a way to make sense of letter sound behavior in the same way they make sense of their own behavior, and that of their classmates: who doesn't get along, who has crushes on whom, who always gets hurt, who is sneaky (and where they're likely to get away with it!), and doing what your mom or babysitter tells you to do (but only if they're close enough to make you!).

The bottom line: the Secrets make letter behavior make sense, so kids can use the code years before a traditional scope and sequence would hand it to them.

Social-Emotional "Superhighways" for Accelerated Learning

Brain science carves out a perfect "backdoor" pathway for learning, one that's rooted in the earlier-developing affective, or "feeling," domain. Our brain develops from back to front, and the earlier-developing feeling-based networks offer a more easily accessible and reliable pathway for learning than the later-to-develop, "higher level" cognitive processing centers.

This is especially true for very young learners, who often experience issues with developmental readiness, language delays, and the like, as well as for older, struggling readers with different language backgrounds, cognitive processing delays, and dyslexia.

Taking advantage of the brain's backdoor systems for learning, by aligning phonics skill concepts with already familiar social-emotional experiences, empowers even very young and inexperienced learners to easily predict the "most likely" and "next-most likely" sounds of letters in words, even words they have never seen before.

The Secrets put meaning where there would otherwise be none (i.e. letters and sounds), giving teachers a way to make phonics make sense to kids. The more Secrets they know, the more words they can read... and the fewer words they have to memorize!

"A Secret's Worth a Thousand Words"

Knowing the Secrets empowers kids to decode approximately 95% of the most commonly memorized sight words. That means those words can be crossed off the list of 300 words to memorize and instead be added to the ever-growing number of words that they can just read.

The Secrets work with any existing reading curriculum or phonics program to fast-track learner access to the code they need to read and write, with no grade level "walls" and no designated waiting times. That access is backed by independent ESSA Tier 1 STRONG research showing an average effect size of 1.62.

And to decode those seemingly "undecodable" words, like of, was, want, what, some, come, love, done, check out the Thinking Vowels "Head Bop" strategy in this video.

These little brain-based stories explain the sounds letters make when they get together, with posters to help kids remember for independent reading and writing. Together, they help cement the critical sound-symbol (i.e. speech to print) connections in the brain, and empower even the youngest learners with the tools they need to read and write, instead of just copying words and memorizing them.

A Secret Stories® sound wall crystallizes speech-to-print connections for reading and writing in a way that all learners can easily understand, even kindergartners!

Want to Dig Deeper?

• Watch: Teach Sight Words Stress-Free! How to Fast-Track Phonics in Your Reading Program
• Watch: Using Neuroscience to Deliver Phonics Faster, a "Backdoor" to the Science of Reading
• Join the Secret Stories® "Teaching Phonics with the Brain in Mind" Support Group on Facebook
• Download the FREE Secret Stories® Mini-Sample Poster Pack and try a "taste" of the Secrets with YOUR class!
• For information on scheduling a school or district professional development workshop, click here.

The Bottom Line

Sight word memorization isn't a reading strategy. It's a workaround for phonics skills that haven't been taught yet. Give kids the code sooner, and watch the "memorize it" list shrink while the "I can read it" list grows. Teach the READER, not the reading!

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