What are HFWs?

High-frequency words (HFWs) are words that have been identified as commonly appearing in children’s literature. The majority of HFWs can be decoded once students have learned the grapheme correspondences within those words. These words are then repeatedly read until students are able to read them in flash. PLD refers to these as ‘Flash Words’. The other HFWs usually only have one irregular component which needs to be explicitly taught so students can learn these by heart. PLD refers to these as ‘Heart Words’. Both of these types of HFWs have been represented on our HFW Charts. 

How to Teach the Regular HFW (i.e. Flash Words)

In the PLD program phonic concepts are introduced each week with accompanying word lists. On these word lists ‘HF’ indicates when a word is a HFW. These words are taught like any other word on the word list, a process called orthographic mapping (to read more about this click here).

Students say the sounds then blend the sounds together to read each word. Students then reinforce their learning through a speech to print mapping activity. In this activity the teacher will demonstrate one word from the word list, following the SSP version of ‘Look, Cover, Say, Write, Check’ routine.

How to Teach the Irregular and Complex HFWs (i.e. Heart Words)

The PLD program teaches a small number of ‘Heart Words’ across a number of weeks so that students have plenty of opportunities to revise and practise. Refer to the Teaching Sequence Manual for a termly plan of which ‘Heart Words’ to teach and when to teach them. 

How to Teach Heart Words

Heart Words are also taught through an orthographic mapping process. However, in a ‘Heart Word’ we explicitly teach the irregular or tricky grapheme within the word.

PLD provides two options for teaching Heart Words.

Option 1: Follow the process outlined in the Phonic and Sight Word Sequence.

Option 2: Follow a 5 day scripted process for each Heart Word outlined in the High Frequency Words within SSP program (see image on right).

Day 1: Initial Teaching of Heart Words

Explicitly teach the word following the steps outlined on the reverse of the card.

Day 2-3 : Review with Reduced Scaffolding

Reading cards are for students to practise reading the word with some scaffolding. The red is a reminder that this part is the tricky component of the word.

Spelling cards assist students to spell the words with a coloured dot for each sound and a red heart to represent the tricky component of the word.

For students requiring additional strategies to learn the word off by heart a mnemonic card is also provided.

Day 4-5 : No scaffolding and additional practise

Repeated Reading Activity is used for reading practice once all words in a stage have been taught.

Extra Practise Cards are plain text cards that can be used for repeated practice and consolidation of both reading and spelling within games and activities.