If you’ve ever wondered why your students keep forgetting high-frequency words, even after lots of practice, you’re not alone.

Practice is important.
​
But that should come after we’ve explicitly taught the word—how it sounds, how it’s spelled, and what it means.

Here are three common mistakes that keep kids stuck:

1. Starting with memorization instead of mapping​
When we ask students to memorize words as whole shapes, we skip the process the brain actually uses to store them.

Instead, we need to have students break a word into its sounds and spell each sound. This promotes an important mental process called orthographic mapping.

2. Promoting the "English is crazy" myth​
It’s easy to tell kids that English doesn’t make sense—especially when we come across words that don’t fit simple phonics rules.
But the truth is, most so-called “irregular” words actually do make sense once we look closely.
​
When we teach students why words are spelled as they are, we help them see that English is logical and learnable.

3. Forgetting to focus on meaning​
It can be hard to define abstract words like of and the. That’s why it’s so important to give a kid-friendly definition and use the word in different contexts during instruction.

When we combine all three pieces—sound, spelling, and meaning—students can finally store the word for good.

​
In our collection of High Frequency Word Lessons with Decodable Text, each lesson gives you everything you need to teach a word clearly and efficiently.

You’ll get:

• Step-by-step routines for introducing each word
• Built-in decoding and mapping practice
• Decodable sentences OR a short story for each word

It’s a resource that helps you teach high frequency words the way the brain actually learns them.

>> Take a closer look at the HFW Lessons here.​

Anna

P.S. This new resource is 60% off ... but only for a limited time. Click here to buy now.​