PhonicsTutor Frequent Words

Teachers and parents across the country asked us to make educational software that teaches the most frequent words of English using the PhonicsTutor method of phonics. PhonicsTutor Frequent Words does just that. We started with the 1,000 most frequently used words of English.  The vocabulary of popular word lists, such as the Ayres, Dolch, and Fry, were added to make a list of 1,500 different words. Another one hundred words were included to increase the sampling of some spelling patterns.

PT Frequent Words  teaches Orton-Gillingham phonograms with spelling rules to examine each word.  The teach of Orton-Gillingham phonograms are essential for the treatment of dyslexia. Words are presented in spelling patterns to increase the rate of student vocabulary acquisition.

PT Frequent Words teaches students:

• phonics
• the code of English and its spelling rules
• to read phonetically
• to read most common non-content words, e.g. prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, etc., which hold the language together
• to read the most common irregular words, e.g. "of", "to", "you", "said", etc.
• the decoding skills needed to read vocabulary outside the reading curriculum
  
  Most reading programs based on word frequency examine one word at a time beginning with the word "the", which is the most frequent word. These programs require a student to learn a large set of phonograms before beginning to read.
  
  In Lesson 1, PT Frequent Words introduces two vowels and three consonants that are found in many frequent words. More are added in each lesson. By the end of Lesson 2, students are typing and reading sentences created from taught vocabulary.

The unit sequence of PT Frequent Words is:

1. Single letter consonants and short vowels
2. Most frequent digraphs and multi-letter consonants
3. Use of Silent Final E, sounds of vowels at the end of words, sounds of vowels at the end of syllables, and all common sounds of single-letter vowels
4. Phonograms beginning with A and E
5. Phonograms beginning with I and O
6. Phonograms beginning with U and letter Y's common sounds
7. Less common spelling patterns of English, including the /sh/ phonograms CI, SI, TI, and XI

View the lesson plans for PhonicsTutor Frequent Words by going to the Phonics Lessons page to read more details.

Each of phonics lesson plans presents 18-24 words, has an open-ended study time, provides practice and testing, and ends with five sentences students are asked to type and read.

Students will improve in spelling as phonograms that follow the same rule, e.g., CK, DGE, and TCH, are presented together. Exceptions like "watch" are also addressed, showing why another spelling rule takes precedence.

Unit three of the educational software demonstrates everything students need to know about single-letter vowels. Many words ending in Silent Final E are included because many frequent words end in Silent Final E, including words like "have" and "since" that need a Silent Final E for reasons other than making the first vowel long.

Students can progress at their own pace or complete a teacher's assignment, whichever you, as the instructor, desire. Scores and key strokes are tracked so you can diagnosis specific learning difficulties. A toolbar makes it easy to review previous lessons or look ahead to future lessons.

PT Frequent Words introduces phonograms in the same sequence as the PhonicsTutor Student Workbook of Spelling & Grammar.  Use them together for maximum benefit. The 80 SilentSpell tests in the workbook are not the same set of words found on the CD-ROM.  The SilentSpell tests are the ten most frequent words of 173 spelling patterns, e.g., words for "ei" saying Long E include conceived, protein, seized, Keith, and perceived. None is found in PT Frequent Words.  Overlap of vocabulary occurs when the most frequent words are the most common for specific phonograms.

PT Frequent Words is ideal for young students with no apparent reading limitations, remedial students who need to be able to read instructions in other subjects, ESL students who want to learn to read and spell the vocabulary they are learning to use, and adult literacy programs.