Glossary · Letters, phonics and word reading
What are heart words?
Definition
A heart word is a high-frequency word with one or more irregular letters that the student learns by heart, while sounding out the regular parts.
The name comes from the habit of drawing a small heart over the tricky letters. In said, s and d are regular, so only the ai gets a heart. The student sounds out what they can and memorizes only what they must.
Some heart words are permanently irregular, like of, was and the. Others are only irregular for now: she has a long e that the student hasn't been taught yet. Once open syllables are taught, she is decodable and the heart comes off.
This approach works better than whole-word memorization because it uses the same mapping that stores every other word. The student still links each sound to its letters; they just note the odd link.
In a lesson
Write was. “Which sounds can you read? /w/, yes. /z/, the s spells /z/ here. The a spells /ŏ/ or /ŭ/ in this word. That's the heart part.” Draw a heart over the a.
Examples
Each word with its spelling units, one per sound.
- sayss·ay·s
- lovel·o·v·e
- othero·th·er
- goneg·o·n·e
Words come from our lexicon, checked against a pronouncing dictionary. Words a student sees in our assessments are left out.
Why does this matter for the record?
Track heart words as their own short list with the date each became automatic. A word read correctly but slowly isn't done yet.
Rate each skill as you teach it
Needs support, Developing, Secure. The rating schedules the review and builds the report.