Explicit Intervention in Sight Word Recognition

Intervention Overview

Explicit intervention in sight word recognition is designed to increase students' ability to recognize and read individual words using phoneme-grapheme mapping of regular parts and the explicit call out of irregular parts. They store the connected sounds and letters of words (along with their meaning) as instantly recognizable sight words. Sight word recognition intervention should focus on phoneme-grapheme mapping and not rely on practices such as the use of flashcards.

What is Sight Word Recognition?

Sight word recognition refers to the ability to instantly and effortlessly retrieve words, including ones spelled regularly and irregularly (Ehri, 2022). All words (not just irregularly spelled or high-frequency words) can become sight words read automatically from memory. Indeed, most of the words on this page are likely sight words to you if you are reading them quickly without needing to sound them out. Recent research supports teaching and learning sight word recognition aligned to orthographic mapping rather than through strategies focusing on visual memory (Ehri, 2014).

In fact, all words become sight words with practice.

Linnea Ehri, 2022, p. 1 Tweet

What is Orthographic Mapping?

Orthographic mapping is the mental process involved in remembering words and word parts for later, instant and effortless recall (Moats & Tolman, 2019). Orthographic mapping enables us to become efficient readers. During the orthographic mapping process, students build connections between specific pronunciations and specific letter strings in written words (Ehri, 2014). What we see and hear in a word gets processed together as a sight word in the brain. Phonemic awareness and letter-sound skills are central to orthographic mapping.

Explicit Intervention in Sight Word Recognition

In an intervention for sight words, it is important that intervention lessons target students' proficiency with phonemic awareness and letter-sounds. Phonemic awareness and phonics skills enable orthographic mapping, the process responsible for building students' sight recognition.

RIMP Code Video Series

Reading Improvement and Monitoring Plan (RIMP) Series – Watch Video

Preparing to Implement the Intervention

Before delivering intervention in sight word recognition, educators will need to fit the words targeted for intervention into phonics instruction. Group together high-frequency words with similar phonics patterns and teach them together. Plan explicit instructional routines that clue students into the sounds in words, such as those presented in the video, and teach the word parts students need to know “by heart.” Allow for students’ meaningful practice with target words through fluency drills, spelling/dictation, and reading words in connected text, making sure that students read words aloud as they are reading.

How to Teach:

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I get my students to remember the words we practice?

Memory for words occurs via an unconscious mental process called orthographic mapping. To facilitate orthographic mapping, students need to have phonemic awareness and phonics knowledge. Use the teaching strategies shown in the video or visit the resources below to help students retain words in memory via orthographic mapping.

Who benefits from explicit intervention in sight words?

Students with a limited sight vocabulary beenfit from explicit intervention in sight words. You may notice that students in need of sight word intervention read without good fluency and expression. They may stop to decode practically all words while reading rather than being able to recognize them instantaneously upon sight.

Shouldn't high-frequency words be taught as single units to be memorized by "sight"?

Using whole-word memorization is inefficient and very difficult for many struggling readers. Students' sight recognition increases when instruction helps students make connections to the sounds, spelling patterns, and meanings within words.