These high frequency word cards are ideal resources to support pupils when learning how to read and spell tricky words in the early stages of their literacy journey.
This pack includes numbers 101-300 of the most common words that children will come across in their reading, displayed as word cards. These could be used for classroom display or as flashcards for pupils to practise reading and spelling these words. It also includes a complete list of the words, which could be pasted into pupils’ books, or used for the teacher’s reference (for example, when compiling spelling lists).
How could I use these high frequency word resources to support learning?
- Words could be displayed in the classroom, on walls or tables, for pupils to use when writing independently to aid spelling.
- In phonics/spelling lessons, they could be used as flashcards to rehearse reading the first 100 high frequency words.
- Pupils could use the cards in pairs, with one reading the word on the card and the other writing it, using the card to check spelling.
- The cards could be used as part of an intervention to support pupils who may need more practice to read and spell these words.
What are high frequency words?
When we refer to ‘high frequency words’ in teaching, we are talking about the sight words that children are likely to come across most often in their exploration of everyday texts at primary school, and use during independent writing tasks. They include words such as “and”, “the”, “as,” and “it” - and whilst many of them may not mean much on their own, they do make a big difference when it comes to the overall meaning of a sentence.
Certain high frequency words are simple enough to sound out using phonics, like “it” for instance; and in their reading at school, children will do this regularly. Nevertheless, many of these commonly used words are not phonetically regular and cannot therefore be decoded; instead, they must be learnt, which is where high frequency word lists, flashcards and other printable resources can be invaluable.
Another challenge facing children in their reading at school is that often, high frequency words are not only non-decodable, but also hard to explain to pupils, due to their abstract meaning. Words like “children” and “tree” are easy to learn because they have a distinct meaning that is easy to represent with an image or verbal description, but it can be more difficult to remember more abstract words like “the” and “of”.