Heart Words

A heart word is a common word with a part that does not follow the usual spelling patterns, so that part, and only that part, is learned by heart. In said, the s and the d sound out exactly as your child expects. Only the ai is odd, because it says “e”.

Heart words are not a new name for sight words. They are the few sight words that cannot be fully sounded out yet. On our kindergarten list, that is 9 of the 25 words. The rest of the list is phonics practice.

This page explains what makes a word a heart word, gives a six-step routine for teaching one, and lists every heart word on our lists, with the part to learn by heart marked for each.

What are heart words?

Heart words are high-frequency words with a part that breaks the spelling patterns a child has learned, usually just one or two letters. Reading specialists Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter and Tina Osenga gave them the name. The heart marks the letters that have to be learned by heart, and every other letter in the word is read by its sound.

The University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI), which publishes the UFLI Foundations phonics program, describes two kinds:

• Permanent heart words have a spelling that belongs to that word or a few others, like the ai in said or the o in of. They stay heart words.
• Temporary heart words use a pattern your child has not been taught yet. Is, his and has are heart words for a child who does not know that s can say /z/, and ordinary words once they do.

Our sight word lists already sort the second kind out. A word like this is listed as one to sound out once your child learns th, rather than as a word to memorize.

Are heart words the same as sight words?

No. Sight words are the list; heart words are the part of the list that cannot be sounded out yet. A school’s sight word list is the most common words in children’s books, and most of them follow the patterns a child learns in phonics.

On the lists on this site:

List	Words	Heart words
Kindergarten sight words	25	9
1st grade sight words	75	21
2nd grade sight words	100	22
3rd grade sight words	99	18
Fry sight words, the first 300	299	70
Dolch sight words, all five levels	220	49

Other counts run higher. Farrell, Hunter and Osenga, writing for Reading Rockets, find 138 of the 220 Dolch words decodable, which leaves 82 heart words. Our count of 49 is lower because we count a word as decodable whenever it follows a pattern taught by third grade.

That is the thinking behind the name. UFLI puts it plainly: students “should not be taught to memorize irregular words by sight.” Teaching a word as a heart word keeps phonics doing the work on every letter it can, so heart words versus phonics is not a choice. A heart word is taught with phonics.

Which part of a heart word do you learn by heart?

Only the letters that break the pattern, and in most heart words that is one or two letters. UFLI’s guide to its heart word cards says the same: in most irregular words, “only one or two letters do not conform to their usual sound correspondence.”

Word	The part to learn by heart
said	ai says “e”
was	a says “uh”
from	o says “uh”
they	ey says “ay”
come	o says “uh”, and the e does nothing
of	o says “uh” and f says “v”

Not every heart word has a single odd letter. In of, both letters are odd, which is still only two letters to learn. In come, the c and m sound out and the rest does not.

A word can also stop being a heart word. UFLI’s example is the: while th has not been taught, both parts are odd. Once your child learns th, only the e is.

How do you teach a heart word?

Take the word apart by its sounds, mark the part that breaks the pattern, then put it back together and write it. These six steps follow the routine for irregular words from UFLI.

1. 1

   Say the word together

   Say the word and have your child repeat it. Use it in a short sentence, because many heart words, like of and was, mean little on their own.

2. 2

   Say each sound

   Say the word slowly, one sound at a time, and have your child tap a finger or push a counter for each one. Said has three sounds: s, e, d.

3. 3

   Match the letters to the sounds, and find the odd part

   Write the word, and match each sound to the letters that spell it. The s and the d do what your child expects. The ai, saying e, does not.

4. 4

   Draw a heart over the odd part

   Draw a small heart above the letters that break the pattern. That is the only part of the word your child has to learn by heart.

5. 5

   Say the sounds and blend them

   Point under each part and say its sound together, the heart part included, then blend them into the word. Then have your child do it alone.

6. 6

   Write it while saying each sound

   Your child writes the word, saying each sound as they write its letters. Repeat 2–4 more times, and vary it: big, small, fast, slow.

Step 2 is the same skill as Elkonin boxes, one box for each sound, and the boxes work well here if your child already knows them.

Adding 2 or 3 new heart words a week is plenty, with words from earlier weeks mixed into every session. For the practice around the routine:

• How often, and how much review: how to teach sight words has the full practice plan.
• Games instead of drills: sight word games has nine games built only from heart words.
• A word that will not stick: after a few weeks of practice, see why sight words do not stick for what to change.

Every heart word, by grade

These are all 79 heart words on our sight word lists, with the part of each to learn by heart. Each group links to that list’s printable word cards and worksheets. A word on more than one list appears in each of its groups.

The grade lists (kindergarten–3rd grade) come from the Fry list, and Fry and Dolch overlap, so most heart words appear in more than one group. If your school sent its own list, sort it into two piles first: the words to sound out, and the heart words.

Why do heart words work?

Because a heart word is still read by its sounds, so your child is never memorizing a shape. Recognizing a word by its outline fails as soon as two words look alike, like were and where. A heart word gives memory only the odd letters to hold, and the rest of the word is read the way every other word is.

UFLI ties this to how words are stored: instruction should focus “on connecting the letters in the word to the sounds they represent, even if the correspondence is an unusual one.” That connection is what lets a child read a word instantly later.

The Common Core standards say the same thing in their own words. First graders should “recognize and read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words” (RF.1.3g), which is heart words by another name.