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High frequency words are the words that readers encounter the most often in printed text. Another term that you hear teachers and parents use when talking about early reading is the term sight words; words that are encountered so often that they should be learned and\/or memorized to the point that the reader can recognize them almost automatically as soon as he or she sees the word. By committing these words to memory, they are freed up to use their phonetic rules to attack new, or more complicated, words.<\/p>\n
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High frequency and sight words can be either \u201cregular\u201d, that is, phonetic rules apply, or \u201cirregular\u201d, where phonics don\u2019t work quite as well, but these words are foundational building blocks for future reading fluency and comprehension.<\/p>\n
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In most cases, high frequency words and sight words are used as interchangeable descriptions of those words that we read very often.<\/p>\n
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