If you have been teaching reading for any length of time, you have probably heard both terms tossed around: sight words and heart words. They sound similar, and many parents and teachers use them interchangeably. But they are not the same thing, and understanding the difference can change the way you teach reading.
Explore the PRIDE Reading Program curriculum to see how heart words fit into a complete structured literacy system.
The traditional sight word approach asks children to memorize whole words by shape and repetition. The heart word approach, rooted in the Science of Reading and Orton-Gillingham methodology, teaches children to decode as much of a word as possible and only memorize the small irregular part “by heart.” This distinction matters because it determines whether a child builds real decoding skills or simply stockpiles visual memories that break down as texts get harder.
What Are Sight Words?
Sight words are words that a reader recognizes instantly, without needing to sound them out. The term comes from the idea that fluent readers process familiar words “on sight.” For decades, teachers relied on word lists created by Edward Dolch in the 1930s and later by Edward Fry in the 1950s. These lists contain the most common words in children’s reading material, words like the, was, said, have, and come.
The standard method for teaching sight words involved flashcards, repetition drills, and “rainbow writing” activities. Children looked at the whole word, said it aloud, and practiced it over and over until it stuck. The assumption was that these common words were too irregular to decode, so memorization was the only option.
This approach works for some children. Visual learners with strong memories may pick up sight words quickly. But for many struggling readers, and especially for children with dyslexia or other reading differences, rote memorization places a heavy load on working memory without building transferable skills. A child who memorizes 200 sight words has learned 200 individual facts. That child has not learned a strategy for tackling the thousands of new words they will encounter next year. Without a decoding strategy, each new word becomes another item to memorize, and the list never stops growing.
What Are Heart Words?
Heart words are high-frequency words that contain an irregular spelling pattern, a part of the word that does not follow the standard phonics rules a child has learned so far. The term “heart word” comes from the idea that students must learn this tricky part “by heart.”
Here is the difference that matters: with heart words, you do not ask a child to memorize the entire word. Instead, you first identify every part of the word that is decodable using known phonics rules. Then you isolate the one small piece that breaks the pattern. That irregular piece is the “heart part.”
Take the word said as an example. The /s/ sound at the beginning and the /d/ sound at the end are completely regular. A child who knows their consonant sounds can decode those. The tricky part is the ai making an /eh/ sound instead of the expected long /a/. That ai is the heart part, the one piece the child needs to commit to memory.
Another example: the word was. The /w/ is regular. The /z/ sound at the end (spelled with an s) is a common pattern children learn early. The tricky part is the a making an /uh/ sound. That one vowel is the heart part.
Ready to teach heart words the right way? Try the PRIDE Reading Program, which builds heart word instruction into every level.
Why Does This Distinction Matter?
The difference between sight words and heart words is not just a matter of vocabulary. It reflects two fundamentally different beliefs about how children learn to read.
The sight word approach treats irregular words as exceptions that must be memorized whole. This method aligns with the “whole language” philosophy that dominated reading instruction for decades and has since been challenged by a large body of research.
The heart word approach aligns with the Science of Reading, which shows that the brain learns to read by mapping sounds (phonemes) to letters (graphemes). Even irregular words contain regular, decodable parts. When children analyze words phoneme by phoneme, they strengthen the neural pathways responsible for reading. This is called orthographic mapping, and it is how words truly become automatic “sight words” in the fluent reading sense.
Studies in educational psychology have found that children who learned high-frequency words through phoneme-grapheme mapping retained those words significantly better than children who relied on rote memorization. The reason is straightforward: connecting sounds to letters creates deeper, more durable memory traces than visual memorization alone. This is why the shift toward heart words is not just a preference among reading specialists. It is a change driven by evidence about how the brain actually processes written language.
How to Teach Heart Words Step by Step
Teaching heart words follows a consistent, explicit process that you can use with any high-frequency word list. Here is how it works:
Step 1: Say the Word and Count the Sounds
Start by saying the word aloud and having the child count the individual sounds (phonemes), not the letters. For example, the word where has three sounds: /w/, /air/, and a silent e that does not add a sound. Use fingers, tokens, or sound tiles to make the sounds concrete and tangible for the learner.
Step 2: Map Each Sound to Its Spelling
Write the word and draw a line under each grapheme (letter or letter group that represents one sound). For where, you would underline wh and ere. Have the child point to each spelling and say the corresponding sound. This step reinforces the connection between what the child hears and what they see on the page.
Step 3: Identify the Heart Part
Ask the child: “Which part is tricky? Which part do we need to learn by heart?” The child identifies the irregular spelling. You can mark it with a small heart drawn above or below the tricky letters. In where, the ere spelling for the /air/ sound is the heart part.
Step 4: Practice with Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping
Have the child build the word using letter tiles, write it in sound boxes (one box per sound), or trace it while saying each sound. Each practice repetition reinforces the connection between the sounds and their spellings, including the irregular part.
Step 5: Review in Connected Text
Once the child has mapped and practiced the word, have them read it in sentences and short passages. Seeing the word in context strengthens automatic recognition. Use multisensory activities to keep practice engaging: sand trays, dry erase boards, or arm tapping while spelling aloud.
Heart Words, Red Words, and Trick Words: Clearing Up the Confusion
If you have explored Orton-Gillingham programs, you have likely encountered the term “red words.” In the Orton-Gillingham tradition, red words are words that contain spellings the student has not yet learned or that are genuinely irregular. They are written in red to signal “stop and think, this word has a tricky part.”
Heart words and red words refer to essentially the same concept, just using different terminology. Some programs call them “trick words,” “star words,” or “camera words.” Regardless of the label, the teaching strategy is the same: decode what you can, learn the rest by heart.
The important thing is not which name your program uses. What matters is how these words are taught. If a child is simply looking at the word and repeating it, that is the old memorization method regardless of whether the word is printed in red ink. If the child is analyzing the word sound by sound, mapping letters to phonemes, and isolating the irregular part, that is the heart word method.
Which Children Benefit Most from the Heart Word Approach?
Every child benefits from explicit phoneme-grapheme mapping, but the heart word approach is especially powerful for:
- Children with dyslexia: Dyslexia affects phonological processing, making rote memorization of whole words especially difficult. Heart word instruction gives these children a systematic, phonics-based strategy they can rely on.
- Struggling readers: Children who have stalled on sight word lists often make immediate progress when they learn to break words into decodable and irregular parts. The task feels manageable instead of overwhelming.
- English language learners: Analyzing words at the phoneme level helps ELL students understand English spelling patterns rather than treating every word as an arbitrary sequence of letters.
- Advanced decoders: Even strong readers benefit from understanding why certain words are spelled the way they are. This deepens vocabulary knowledge and spelling accuracy.
Programs built on Orton-Gillingham principles, such as the PRIDE Reading Program, integrate heart word instruction into every lesson. Rather than treating irregular words as separate from phonics, the curriculum weaves them into the same systematic, multisensory framework used for decodable words. Each level introduces heart words at the right pace, ensuring students have the phonics foundation to decode as much of each word as possible before isolating the irregular part. This structured progression means fewer words feel “tricky” as students advance, building confidence alongside competence.
The Research Behind the Shift from Sight Words to Heart Words
The movement from whole-word memorization to phoneme-grapheme mapping is not a passing trend. It is supported by decades of cognitive science and reading research.
In 2000, the National Reading Panel concluded that systematic phonics instruction significantly improves children’s word reading and spelling. More recently, neuroscience research using fMRI brain imaging has shown that skilled readers process words by activating the brain’s phonological pathways, the areas responsible for connecting sounds to letters. These pathways develop through explicit instruction, not through repeated visual exposure to whole words.
Linnea Ehri’s research on orthographic mapping explains how words become stored in long-term memory. According to Ehri, readers form lasting memories of words by bonding the spellings to their pronunciations and meanings. This bonding happens at the phoneme-grapheme level. When a child maps each sound in a word to its corresponding letter or letter group, the word gets anchored in memory far more reliably than through visual memorization alone.
This is exactly what heart word instruction does. By having children analyze each word sound by sound and identify the irregular part, the method leverages the brain’s natural reading circuitry. It turns what was once a memorization chore into a phonics exercise with one small exception to learn “by heart.”
Forty states have now passed legislation requiring reading instruction aligned with the Science of Reading. Many of these laws explicitly call for systematic phonics instruction, which includes teaching high-frequency words through decoding rather than memorization. The heart word approach meets these requirements while also being more effective for the children who need the most support.
Common Mistakes When Teaching Heart Words
Switching from sight words to heart words is straightforward, but a few common mistakes can undermine the process:
Labeling Too Many Words as Heart Words
Not every high-frequency word is a heart word. Words like it, can, sit, and plan are fully decodable. These should be taught through regular phonics instruction, not marked as heart words. Reserve the heart word label for words that genuinely contain an irregular part the child cannot yet decode.
Skipping the Decoding Step
The whole point of heart word instruction is that children decode what they can before memorizing the rest. If you simply point to the word and say “learn this by heart,” you have reverted to the old memorization approach. Always have the child map the sounds first.
Introducing Heart Words Before Foundational Phonics
A word is only “irregular” relative to what a child already knows. The word night looks irregular to a child who has only learned short vowel sounds. But once that child learns the igh spelling pattern, night becomes fully decodable and no longer qualifies as a heart word. Teach phonics patterns systematically, and the number of heart words shrinks over time.
Neglecting Review
Heart words need spaced repetition just like any other skill. Practice them in isolation, then in sentences, then in connected reading. Return to previously taught heart words regularly so they become truly automatic. A simple weekly review of five to ten previously mastered heart words takes just a few minutes and prevents the forgetting that undermines months of careful instruction. Keep a running list of mastered words and cycle through them during warm-up activities at the start of each lesson.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are sight words the same as heart words?
No. “Sight word” traditionally refers to any word a reader recognizes instantly, often taught through whole-word memorization. “Heart word” refers to a high-frequency word with an irregular spelling part, taught through phoneme-grapheme mapping. The goal is the same (instant recognition), but the teaching method is different. Heart words use phonics-based analysis, while traditional sight words rely on rote memorization.
How many heart words should I teach per week?
For most children, three to five new heart words per week is a sustainable pace. The priority is deep learning over speed. Each word should be fully mapped, practiced in isolation, and read in connected text before moving on. Children with dyslexia or other reading challenges may benefit from two to three words per week with additional review cycles.
Can I still use Dolch or Fry word lists with the heart word method?
Yes. Dolch and Fry lists organize words by frequency, which is useful for choosing which words to teach first. The heart word method changes how you teach those words, not which words you teach. Simply sort each list into fully decodable words (teach through phonics) and words with irregular parts (teach as heart words).
What if my child already memorized sight words the old way?
That is perfectly fine. Children who already recognize words by sight do not need to unlearn them. Going forward, introduce new words using the heart word method. For words the child still struggles with, revisit them with phoneme-grapheme mapping to build a stronger foundation.
Does the PRIDE Reading Program teach heart words?
Yes. The PRIDE Reading Program integrates heart word instruction (called “red words” in the Orton-Gillingham tradition) into every level of its curriculum. Each lesson uses multisensory, phoneme-grapheme mapping to teach high-frequency words with irregular parts, ensuring children build both decoding skills and automatic word recognition.
Give your child the tools to become a confident reader. Start with the PRIDE Reading Program and see the difference structured literacy makes.