Laying a strong foundation for early literacy is essential, and one of the biggest keys is mastering high frequency words. We are thrilled to announce the launch of our newest product, the Little Lions First Red Words —a collection designed to help your young learner master these crucial Red Words for reading success.Â
In many structured literacy, programs, high frequency words — words that appear most often in written English — are sometimes called Red Words, Sight Words, Tricky Words, or Heart Words. These words are crucial for reading fluency, but many of them either don’t follow typical phonetic rules (Red Words / Heart Words like the or said) or they are simply so common that children need to recognize them instantly by sight (High Frequency Words like a or I). Instant recognition of these sight words allows young readers to focus their energy on decoding more complex, phonetically regular words.
Research on teaching high-frequency words, often called “Red Words” or “Heart Words” in structured literacy, overwhelmingly supports an approach rooted in orthographic mapping rather than simple rote memorization. This body of research indicates that children do not learn to read these words by viewing them as “sight words” to be recognized purely by shape. Instead, effective instruction teaches children to connect the sounds (phonemes) in the word to the letters (graphemes), a process that is essential even for irregular words. For the “tricky” parts of words like the ‘a’ in was or the ‘o’ in to, the research suggests explicitly teaching the regular parts first, and then highlighting and “mapping” the single irregular or “heart” part of the word that must be memorized by heart. This method ensures that the words are stored in the brain’s long-term memory for instant retrieval, building a true sight-word vocabulary rapidly and effectively.
The set specifically targets the first 10 foundational Red Words that are most critical for immediate reading fluency: I, the, a, is, you, are, was, have, and to. These words are introduced early because they are among the most frequently encountered in all English texts and are essential building blocks for creating and understanding simple sentences. While some, like I and a, are easily decodable, others like the, was, and have contain irregular or “tricky” parts that don’t follow basic phonetic rules. By mastering instant recognition of this core set, young readers can rapidly increase their confidence, reduce reading frustration, and free up cognitive resources to apply their phonics skills to less common, phonetically regular words.
Give your child the best start on their reading journey with the Little Lions First Red Words book set. Watch as your little learner transforms into a confident, fluent reader!
