Teaching Dyslexic Students to Read

The Sad Truth for Many Dyslexic Students!

Teaching Dyslexic Students to Read | Sight Words and Fry's Phrases 

Learning to read can take many paths, yet for a few Dyslexic students they find little success with many of the phonics based programs. Many children learn to read fluently with no phonics instruction or formal schooling? How do these children learn to read without sounding out words? Many students seem to absorb reading through osmosis, becoming sight readers! Sight-reading is the art of predictive reading, or reading words visually-holistically and predicting phrases by auditory cues. How is this done in schools or at homes? The direct approaches is best also known as direct instruction.

Start with sight words practice using games, flashcards, word sorts and old school drill and drill. The second part is Fry Phrase practice and fluency practice. 100 words make up 50% of every word a struggling children will ever encounter when reading. Fry's phrases include about 70% of all words encountered when reading. Daily practice with sight words, Fry Phrases and read-alongs will help all struggling readers make gains. Sean Taylor The Reading Sage

Sight words, often also called high frequency sight words, are commonly used words that young children are encouraged to memorize as a whole by sight, so that they can automatically recognize these words in print without having to use any strategies to decode.

Sight words account for a large percentage (up to 75%) of the words used in beginning children's print materials. The advantage for children being able to recognize sight words automatically is that a beginning reader will be able to identify the majority of words in a beginning text before they even attempt to read it; therefore, allowing the child to concentrate on meaning and comprehension as they read without having to stop and decode every single word. Advocates of whole-word instruction believe that being able to recognize a large number of sight words gives students a better start to learning to read.

Recognizing sight words automatically is said to be advantageous for beginning readers because many of these words have unusual spelling patterns, cannot be sounded out using basic phonics knowledge and cannot be represented using pictures. For example, the word "was" does not follow a usual spelling pattern, as the middle letter "a" makes an /ɒ~ʌ/ sound and the final letter "s" makes a /z/ sound, nor can the word be associated with a picture clue since it denotes an abstract state (existence).

A number of sight word lists have been compiled and published; among the most popular are the Dolch sight words and the magic 100 words. These lists have similar attributes, as they all aim to divide words into levels which are prioritised and introduced to children according to frequency of appearance in beginning readers' texts. Although many of the lists have overlapping content, the order of frequency of sight words varies and can be argued depending on contexts such as geographical location, empirical data, samples used, and year of publication

Fry Reading Phrases

A list of 600 words compiled by Edward Fry contain the most used words in reading and writing. The words on the list make up almost half of the words met in any reading task. Good readers decode words so that they are said "instantly", therefore, assuring the automaticity essential to comprehension. The words are divided into six levels, roughly corresponding to grade levels; then into groups of twenty-five words, according to difficulty and frequency. Each level should be taught and assessed sequentially, with the goal of increasing fluency on these high frequency words to the point that parallel processing can occur.

Sight Word and Fry Phrase Resources

Fry phrase lists and suggestions for use

Printable Phrases created by Karen Worsley
1st 100 phrases
2nd 100 phrases
3rd 100 phrases
4th 100 phrases
5th 100 phrases
6th 100 phrases

Dolch list: Non-nouns

Pre-primer: a, and, away, big, blue, can, come, down, find, for, funny, go, help, here, I, in, is, it, jump, little, look, make, me, my, not, one, play, red, run, said, see, the, three, to, two, up, we, where, yellow, you

Primer: all, am, are, at, ate, be, black, brown, but, came, did, do, eat, four, get, good, have, he, into, like, must, new, no, now, on, our, out, please, pretty, ran, ride, saw, say, she, so, soon, that, there, they, this, too, under, want, was, well, went, what, white, who, will, with, yes

1st Grade: after, again, an, any, as, ask, by, could, every, fly, from, give, giving, had, has, her, him, his, how, just, know, let, live, may, of, old, once, open, over, put, round, some, stop, take, thank, them, then, think, walk, were, when

2nd Grade: always, around, because, been, before, best, both, buy, call, cold, does, don't, fast, first, five, found, gave, goes, green, its, made, many, off, or, pull, read, right, sing, sit, sleep, tell, their, these, those, upon, us, use, very, wash, which, why, wish, work, would, write, your

3rd Grade: about, better, bring, carry, clean, cut, done, draw, drink, eight, fall, far, full, got, grow, hold, hot, hurt, if, keep, kind, laugh, light, long, much, myself, never, only, own, pick, seven, shall, show, six, small, start, ten, today, together, try, warm

Dolch list: Nouns

apple, baby, back, ball, bear, bed, bell, bird, birthday, boat, box, boy, bread, brother, cake, car, cat, chair, chicken, children, Christmas, coat, corn, cow, day, dog, doll, door, duck, egg, eye, farm, farmer, father, feet, fire, fish, floor, flower, game, garden, girl, good-bye, grass, ground, hand, head, hill, home, horse, house, kitty, leg, letter, man, men, milk, money, morning, mother, name, nest, night, paper, party, picture, pig, rabbit, rain, ring, robin, Santa Claus, school, seed, sheep, shoe, sister, snow, song, squirrel, stick, street, sun, table, thing, time, top, toy, tree, watch, water, way, wind, window, wood

Some Fry Reading Phrases

The people, Write it down, By the water, Who will make it?. You and I, What will they do?, He called me., We had their dog., What did they say?, When would you go?, No way, A number of people, One or two, How long are they?, More than the other, Come and get it., How many words?, Part of the time, This is a good day., Can you see?, Sit down., Now and then, But not me, Go find her., Not now, Look for some people., I like him., So there you are., Out of the water, A long time, We were here.
Have you seen it?
Could you go?
One more time
We like to write.
All day long
Into the water
It’s about time.
The other people
Up in the air
She said to go.
Which way?
Each of us
He has it.
What are these?
If we were older
There was an old man.
It’s no use.
It may fall down.
With his mom
At your house
From my room
It’s been a long time.
Will you be good?
Give them to me.
Then we will go.
Now is the time.
An angry cat
May I go first?
Write your name.
This is my cat
That dog is big.
Get on the bus.
Two of us
Did you see it?
The first word
See the water
As big as the first
But not for me
When will we go?
How did they get it?
From here to there
Number two
More people
Look up.
Go down.
All or some
Did you like it?
A long way to go
When did they go?
For some of your people