Understanding early reading
They show up in every sentence, but they break every phonics rule. Here's why heart words matter and how to help your child learn them.
Most reading instruction starts with phonics — teaching children to sound out words letter by letter. That works great for words like "cat" and "dog." But English has hundreds of common words that don't follow those rules: "the," "was," "said," "could," "there," "where."
These are heart words. They're called that because children need to learn them "by heart" — through repeated exposure and memorization rather than sounding them out.
Heart words make up a huge percentage of everyday text. Research suggests that just 100 high-frequency words account for roughly 50% of all written English. If your child can instantly recognize these words, reading becomes dramatically easier and more fluent.
You'll sometimes hear these terms used interchangeably, but there's a subtle difference. "Sight words" is the broader category — any word a child should recognize on sight. "Heart words" specifically refers to the irregular ones that can't be decoded with standard phonics. All heart words are sight words, but not all sight words are heart words.
The best approach is simple repetition in short, daily sessions:
Heart Words Flash Card Game automates this entire process — you just pick a word set and practice together.
Kindergarten (ages 4-5): the, and, is, it, a, to, in, he, I, was
1st Grade (ages 5-7): said, could, would, there, their, where, were, come, some, one
These are the words that trip up early readers most often. Mastering them unlocks fluency across everything else they read.
Heart Words has built-in word sets for kindergarten and 1st grade heart words. Five minutes a day is all it takes.
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