What are the differences?
These concepts are similar and related, but are not the same. They are important for fluent reading and comprehension. There are also many opinions about these and how to teach them, and there are different approaches that are based upon student age and readiness. Some of this is pushed too aggressively in Kindergarten, and probably even in First Grade.
This is a topic you can research online, and form your own philosophy of what and how to teach them. Teachers Pay Teachers has many great resources for these lessons, print and go with it! Some are free, and others have reasonable costs that make it easy to own the products to use in your program. You can even make your own activities and tools, with your computer.
HIGH FREQUENCY WORDS:
These are words that are most frequently encountered in reading and writing. They are necessary because the reader memorizes them, and when encountered, they can read more fluently without making errors or having to stop and decode the words. These include easily decoded words, such as it, an, or am and words that do not follow simple phonics rules, such as could, is, and are.
SIGHT WORDS/HEART WORDS
The Sight Words or Heart Words are often interchanged with High Frequency Words, but to be a purist, they should only be words that cannot be easily decoded. Words such as the, which, and to, break rules or have sounds other than the regularly blended and decoded sounds. Because of this, they are memorized and learned by heart, hence, Heart Words. I love using the heart idea over the sight idea, because I do orthographic mapping when I teach spelling and a heart can be placed on the flash cards, reminding students that the sound is not totally decodable. Heart/Sight words do contain decodable letter sounds, and students should be encouraged to engage with those letter sounds as well as memorizing the atypical parts of the words.
SPELLING WORDS
Spelling words can include High Frequency or Heart words, but more often are to expand vocabulary and teach spelling rules. This is where you teach double letters, tenses, suffixes, prefixes, and various other rules. Students normally learn a list of words each week, and are tested on those weekly, except for Kindergarten. Spelling tests at that age are inappropriate. The spelling lists should ideally be reinforced with decodable readers or reading passages that contain the words. The more students have repeated exposure to their spelling words during the week, the more quickly they can learn them. Every day they need encounters with reading, spelling, and writing their spelling words. The reading should be within the context of stories and passages. I made sentence ladders for my struggling learners, so that they could see the words repeated. Kids who struggle with remembering a word that repeats in a passage, will benefit from sentence ladders. You can see examples of this on Teachers Pay Teachers, and you can even make your own that are based upon the spelling words you are working with.
Leveled readers are not the same as decodable readers. Leveled readers are not related to the spelling lists for that week. They progress at the student’s speed, becoming increasingly more difficult. In a classroom, the students are grouped according to ability, and given readers that are on the different levels. This kind of grouping can stigmatize lower proficiency students and even make them embarrassed to read. Leveled readers are good for the way they progress in difficulty, and in a home program there shouldn’t be any stigma if a student struggles to read.
Decodable readers are a collection of stories that align with the spelling words. They progress at the speed of the spelling word introductions. They help reinforce the week’s spelling, because they repeat the words often and present many encounters, within different contexts.
It is important for any reader to have interesting stories. Some are inauthentic and contrived, not interesting or relatable. Readers should also not be entirely fictional, but should contain a variety of genres, like nonfiction, fairy tales, poetry, and others. You can present a list of new vocabulary and spelling words, to review prior to reading the story, too. This can help prepare the student for the encounters with those words, so that the reading is more fluent.
A way to extend this, is to have the student write an opinion piece about the chapter. This again uses the spelling words and puts the demand on developing abilities. If you have the student relate their reading to their own life, it is a way to engage them and make them think more deeply about the material and how they feel about it. Writing is an excellent way to reinforce reading.
INVENTIVE SPELLING
I never did spelling tests for Kindergarten because of their emergent skills. I relied more on Inventive Spelling, having them spell/write what they hear, and accepting that. If a student wants to learn to correctly spell a particular word at that age, I help them by sounding it out and having them write each letter they hear. That does lead to misspelled words, such as love being luv. If you correct the child and tell them that’s spelled wrong, then fix it, you risk robbing them of their love for writing. Too many people, including teachers, dislike writing. Part of that comes from expecting perfection, instead of joy. Perfection nurtures anxiety, but being allowed to free-write on any topic, being encouraged to spell things the way they sound, that really helps young children develop a passion for writing! All of my students eagerly wrote. I loved seeing their excitement as they got their journals or a paper out, and prepared to tell a story. They will carry that with them through every grade, unless a teacher or other adult expects perfection and destroys that joy.
The wonderful thing about Inventive Spelling is it reinforces reading skills. I taught reading through writing. Students have to make a demand on their letter sound knowledge to write. When they can write the letter that makes the sound, they also are able to read it and make sense of it in print. I teach them to make the letter sound and write the letter that represents that sound, and they can do it. Eventually, they do this without my coaching, other than when stumped.
Inventive Spelling is useful in all the grades. As students progress through the grades, they learn to quickly get their thoughts onto the paper, not worrying about any of the conventions of grammar or spelling, just spilling words onto the page. During the editing stages, they can fix their conventions and refine the writing. When we expect perfection on the first round of writing, we cause writer’s block, fear, and anxiety. Editing is where their wonderful stories become fleshed out, more elaborate, correct, and develop into magnificent works that are a joy to read.
A tip about stories: encourage your child to start thinking in terms of storytelling. When they do something, ask them what kind of story they could write about it. If they are building with blocks, ask them what their story is. When they can think about life as a series of stories, it makes it easier for them to come up with topics to write about.