irregular word

Word Type Definitions Specific to Individual Students

Type of Word	General Definition	Definition Related to Individual Readers
Regular Words	Are decodable because they conform to phonetic rules	Are restricted to those words for which the reader HAS MASTERED all of the letter sounds and phonetic rules
Irregular Words	Are not decodable because they do not conform to phonetic rules	Include all words for which the reader has NOT MASTERED all of the letter sounds and phonetic rules
Sight Words	Are recognized automatically	Also includes high frequency words that the reader needs to learn to recognize automatically

In general, regular words are those words that have common letter patterns and can be easily sounded out, but the definition changes in relation to individual readers. For individual readers, regular words are those for which the reader has mastered all of the phoneme-grapheme associations and letter patterns. Words that may be considered regular for one reader may be considered irregular for the next because different readers may have mastered different phoneme-grapheme associations and phonetic rules. When working with students with reading disabilities, this is especially important to remember.

In general, irregular words are not able to be accurately decoded because they do not conform to phonetic rules; however, in relation to individual readers irregular words are any words for which the reader has not mastered the letter sounds and the phonetic rules. The result is that even though some words might be considered regular for most people, these same words would be considered irregular words for those who do not have the letter-sound or phonetic knowledge to sound them out.

In general, sight words can be either regular or irregular words that a reader recognizes instantaneously. Most readers need to be exposed to a new word over a dozen times in order to be able to recognize it automatically; however, individuals with reading disabilities may require many more exposures to learn a new word. One factor that differentiates proficient readers from poorer readers is the size of the sight word vocabulary. Proficient readers have extensive sight word vocabularies; beginning readers have small ones.

Another category of sight words is high frequency words. These are words that are used so frequently in written language that all readers need to learn to recognize them automatically. These may be decodable words or undecodable words. Some high frequency words are IN, OF, THE, THAT, IS, WAS, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, AND, HOW.