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Glossary

High-frequency words

High-frequency words are the words that appear most often in text, such as the, of, said and was; many are regular and some have an irregular part.

Modern programs teach the regular parts by phonics and point out the one irregular part, rather than asking students to memorize whole words by shape. Some programs call the irregular ones heart words.

Why it matters for the record

Track irregular words as their own small list; they are learned differently from patterns.