How to teach irregular words

Should we ever ask kids to memorize words by sight?

Educators often ask me, "If you're so focused on phonemic awareness, how do you teach irregularly spelled or pronounced words? Why not just have kids memorize them as sight words?"

My answer is simple: I use so-called "sight words" to teach students how to think analytically about all words.

Instead of treating these words as rule-breakers to be memorized in isolation, I treat them as linguistic puzzles—opportunities to explore spelling, sound, history, and meaning. This approach shifts the focus from what's "wrong" with a word to what's still "right."

Rethinking Sight Words

Let's start by clarifying what we mean by "sight words." The term is often used in two ways, and in neither case is memorizing words useful or required.

1.     In scientific academic literature, the term “sight words” refers to those words that students can recognize and read rapidly and accurately without consciously applying decoding skills. Students attain these automatic decoding skills through orthographic mapping, or the ability to match phonemic sounds to alphabetic symbols instantly and subconsciously. Orthographic mapping cannot occur through rote memorization. It can only be achieved through progressive alphabetic and phonemic awareness.

2.     The second (and most popular) use of the term “sight words” refers to words that schools tell kids to memorize because they don't follow regular phonetic patterns. We classify them as rule-breakers, exceptions, or irregular words because the way we say them doesn’t match the way we spell them. When the school year begins, educators will start giving kids “sight word” handouts to memorize for the dreaded weekly quiz. Yet though this strategy is well-meaning, requiring kids to memorize words by rote repetition is a profound mistake and gives them a false impression of how words work and how they should be analyzed, spelled, and read. Moreover, memorization (when necessary) becomes much easier when we give kids phonemic anchors and etymological tools that make words unforgettable.

For here's the truth: even so-called irregular words contain regularities. They have histories. They have structures. They have phonemic anchors.

Take the word the. It's often labeled as irregular, but the initial th corresponds perfectly to the same phoneme that begins the words “them and that.” That's a foothold. When we highlight that connection, we give students something to hold onto—something to reason with.

Words Have Names—and Stories

I tell students that words have names. Sometimes, the way we pronounce a word today differs from how it was pronounced when it first entered the language. Over time, pronunciation evolves, but spelling often remains rooted in its historical origins.

Imagine a word as a person. When it was "born," it had a name—its spelling. But as it "grew up," people started calling it by a nickname—its modern pronunciation. This is a good way to explain how words like WAS became /wuz/. The spelling is the birth name; the pronunciation is the nickname shaped by usage.

This metaphor helps students understand that spelling and pronunciations don't always match—and that's okay. It's not a flaw. It's a story. And kids love stories.

From Memorization to Analysis

When we teach sight or irregular words, we should:

1.     Highlight phonemic anchors: Point out any part of the word that corresponds to a known sound.

2.     Explain deviations: Show how and why the rest of the word differs from expected patterns.

3.     Explore etymology: Share the word's origin and how its pronunciation has changed over time.

4.     Use context: Reinforce meaning by using the word in a sentence that students are already familiar with.

This strategy turns each word into a mini lesson in language structure. Instead of saying "this word breaks the rules," we say "this word has a story." That shift creates curiosity, not confusion.

Why It Matters

When we ask students to memorize sight words without explanation, we deprive them of the opportunity to understand the language more deeply. But when we invite them to analyze, compare, and explore, we build linguistic reasoning—and long-term retention.

Sight words aren't just exceptions or rule-breakers. They're invitations. They invite us to teach spelling, history, phonology, and grammar simultaneously.

If we want kids to recognize words by sight, let’s make them bright with analytical insight.