What is a Heart Word for Kids? Your Guide to Early Reading

Table of Contents

1. The Shifting Landscape of Early Reading: From Rote to Relational
2. What Exactly is a Heart Word for Kids?
3. The “Why” Behind Heart Words: Empowering Young Communicators
4. Practical Strategies for Teaching Heart Words at Home
5. Integrating Heart Words into Daily Life with Speech Blubs
6. Is Your Child Ready for Heart Words? Consider a Quick Check-in.
7. The Science Behind Our Playful Approach
8. Unlock Your Child’s Communication Potential with Speech Blubs

Introduction

Imagine your child confidently picking up a book, sounding out most words with ease, and only pausing briefly for a handful of “tricky” ones they quickly remember. This isn’t a distant dream, but a tangible goal made more achievable with a modern, science-backed approach to teaching reading known as “heart words.” For years, many of us, as parents and educators, relied on traditional “sight word” memorization, often leading to frustration and confusion when our little learners encountered words that didn’t seem to follow any rules. But what if we told you that most of those seemingly irregular words do follow rules, and the parts that don’t can be learned with a simple, effective method?

At Speech Blubs, we believe in empowering children to “speak their minds and hearts,” and that journey includes building strong literacy foundations. Our mission, born from our founders’ personal experiences with speech challenges, is to provide immediate, effective, and joyful solutions for the 1 in 4 children who need speech support. This commitment extends to early reading, recognizing the profound link between spoken language and written word comprehension. This comprehensive guide will demystify heart words, explain why they’re revolutionizing early literacy instruction, and equip you with practical, playful strategies – including how Speech Blubs can support this learning journey – to help your child navigate the exciting world of reading with confidence and joy. Our aim is to illuminate a path where reading becomes a logical, rewarding adventure, rather than a puzzle of endless memorization.

The Shifting Landscape of Early Reading: From Rote to Relational

For generations, the concept of “sight words” dominated early reading instruction. These high-frequency words, like “the,” “said,” or “was,” were presented as words children simply needed to “know by sight,” memorizing their appearance without necessarily understanding their phonetic structure. While this approach seemed to work for some children, it often left many struggling, creating a sense of bewilderment and undermining their burgeoning confidence.

Why Traditional “Sight Words” Can Be Tricky

The limitations of pure sight word memorization become clear when we consider how children actually learn to read.

• Word Shape Confusion: When children memorize words based purely on their visual “shape,” they often confuse similar-looking words. Think of “them” and “then,” or “would” and “could.” If a child’s primary strategy is to recall the overall visual outline, these words can easily blend into one another, leading to reading errors and frustration. A child might read a sentence incorrectly and not even realize it because they’re focused on the general shape, not the precise letter sounds.
• The Disconnect with Phonics: Modern reading instruction heavily emphasizes phonics – the understanding that there’s a predictable relationship between sounds and letters. We teach children to “sound out” words, segmenting them into individual sounds and blending them back together. Then, suddenly, with sight words, this rule is abandoned, and children are told to just “remember it.” This creates a significant gap in their learning, making reading feel inconsistent and illogical. How can a child apply phonics rules to “cat” but then ignore them for “said”?
• Cognitive Overload: Memorizing hundreds of unrelated visual patterns is a monumental task for a young brain. It doesn’t leverage the brain’s natural ability to make connections and find patterns. This rote learning can be exhausting and disheartening, turning reading into a chore rather than a discovery.

What Orthographic Mapping Has Taught Us

The “Science of Reading” has brought to light powerful insights into how children’s brains actually learn to read and store words for instant recall. Central to this understanding is the concept of orthographic mapping. Simply put, orthographic mapping is the process by which our brains connect the sounds (phonemes) in spoken words to the letters (graphemes) in written words. When a child orthographically maps a word, they establish a strong, lasting link between how the word sounds, how it’s spelled, and what it means. This isn’t memorization in the traditional sense; it’s about forming a robust mental representation of a word.

Instead of storing “the” as a picture, the brain connects the /th/ sound to the letters ‘th,’ and the /uh/ sound to the letter ‘e.’ This process is far more efficient and leads to truly automatic word recognition, allowing children to read fluently without conscious effort. It’s about making reading systematic and logical, building on what children already know about spoken language. Our approach at Speech Blubs, with its foundation in scientific principles and a high MARS scale rating, is designed to support these natural learning processes, ensuring that children develop foundational skills effectively. You can learn more about the research behind our methods on our research page.

What Exactly is a Heart Word for Kids?

Enter heart words, a game-changing method that aligns perfectly with how the brain learns to read through orthographic mapping. This approach acknowledges the phonetic nature of most words, even those that appear “irregular,” and provides a clear strategy for learning the exceptions.

The Core Concept: Regular Parts + “Heart Parts”

A heart word is a high-frequency word (a word that appears very often in print) that contains one or more letter-sound relationships that a child either hasn’t learned yet or that are truly irregular. The magic of heart words lies in breaking down these words into two categories:

• Regular Parts: These are the parts of the word that do follow the phonetic rules the child already knows. For example, in the word “said,” the ‘s’ makes the /s/ sound, and the ‘d’ makes the /d/ sound. These parts can be sounded out just like any other decodable word.
• “Heart Parts”: This is the irregular portion of the word – the part that doesn’t follow the expected phonetic rules, or a spelling pattern that hasn’t been explicitly taught yet. This is the part the child needs to learn “by heart” until they learn a broader phonetic rule. In “said,” the ‘ai’ combination makes the short /e/ sound, which is irregular. We mark this part with a little heart, signifying “this part you need to know by heart.”

By using the heart word method, children are no longer asked to blindly memorize an entire word. Instead, they apply their phonics skills to the regular parts and focus their memorization efforts only on the truly irregular (or currently unlearned) “heart parts.” This makes the task of learning high-frequency words less intimidating and more logical, giving them tools to decode most of the word.

Heart Words vs. Flash Words: A Key Distinction

To further clarify, high-frequency words can be divided into two important categories for instructional purposes:

• Flash Words: These are high-frequency words that are fully decodable using the phonetic rules a child already knows. Examples include “can” (/c/ /a/ /n/), “but” (/b/ /u/ /t/), “it” (/i/ /t/), and “on” (/o/ /n/). These words should be treated as regular phonetic words, allowing children to practice their decoding skills and build automaticity. They should be read “in a flash” because they are regular.
• Heart Words (Tricky): These are the high-frequency words that contain one or more irregular spelling patterns (the “heart part”). Examples include:
  • “said”: The ‘ai’ is irregular, making the short /e/ sound.
  • “of”: The ‘o’ makes the /uh/ sound, and the ‘f’ makes the /v/ sound.
  • “was”: The ‘a’ makes the short /o/ sound.
  • “the”: The ‘e’ makes the schwa /uh/ sound.

It’s important to understand that a word’s categorization can be contextual and evolve as a child’s phonics knowledge grows.

• Contextual Heart Words: A word might be a “heart word” for a beginner because they haven’t learned a particular phonics rule yet, even if it’s perfectly regular later on. For instance, the word “see” (/s/ /ee/) is fully decodable if a child knows the ‘ee’ vowel team. However, for a kindergartner who hasn’t been taught long vowel teams yet, the ‘ee’ would be the “heart part” – something they need to learn “by heart” for now. Once they learn the ‘ee’ rule, “see” becomes a flash word.

This nuanced understanding helps parents and educators teach words strategically. Instead of a blanket approach to all high-frequency words, we can tailor instruction to each word’s phonetic structure and the child’s current phonics knowledge. This targeted approach is a cornerstone of effective early literacy, helping children build a robust internal “dictionary” of words that they can instantly recognize and understand.

The “Why” Behind Heart Words: Empowering Young Communicators

Adopting the heart word method isn’t just about a new way to teach words; it’s about fundamentally changing how children perceive reading and empowering them to become confident communicators.

Building Confidence and Reducing Frustration

Think about the sheer relief a child feels when they realize that most words, even those they once found “tricky,” actually make sense. By explicitly teaching them which parts are regular and which need special attention, we validate their phonetic learning and provide a clear, manageable path forward.

Consider a common scenario: a child repeatedly confuses “was” and “saw.” In a traditional “sight word” approach, they might be told to just “look at it again” or “memorize it better.” This can be incredibly frustrating. However, with heart words, we can guide them: “Listen to the first sound. ‘Was’ starts with a /w/ sound, like ‘wagon.’ The ‘w’ is a regular sound. In ‘saw,’ the ‘s’ makes the /s/ sound, like ‘sun.’ That’s a regular sound. Now, in ‘was,’ the ‘a’ makes a funny /o/ sound – that’s our heart part for this word! In ‘saw,’ the ‘aw’ says /aw/ – we’ll learn more about that later, but for now, that’s another heart part.” This approach breaks down the confusion, gives the child agency, and reduces the emotional burden of simply “not getting it.” It shifts the focus from failure to understanding, fostering a genuine love for learning.

Connecting Reading to Speaking and Listening

The heart word approach naturally bridges the gap between spoken language, phonological awareness, and reading. When we segment a word into its sounds and then map those sounds to letters, we reinforce a child’s understanding of how language works. This is incredibly powerful, especially for children who may be working on their articulation or phonological skills.

At Speech Blubs, our entire mission revolves around empowering children to “speak their minds and hearts.” This means helping them not only articulate sounds correctly but also understand the structure of language. The ability to identify individual sounds in words (phonemic awareness) is a critical precursor to reading. When a child engages with our app, practicing sounds and words through interactive video modeling, they are unconsciously building the very auditory discrimination skills needed to excel with heart words. For example, if a child is learning the word “the,” they can watch peers saying it, hear the /th/ and /uh/ sounds, and then articulate it themselves. This multi-sensory engagement, seeing and hearing others, then practicing, strengthens their neural pathways for language acquisition, directly supporting their future reading success. Our unique approach makes learning feel like play, allowing children to connect with language in a way that truly resonates, paving the way for confident communication in all its forms.

Practical Strategies for Teaching Heart Words at Home

Teaching heart words at home doesn’t require a classroom setup or specialized materials. It’s about being intentional, playful, and consistent.

Making it Playful: The Speech Blubs Approach

Learning should always be fun, especially for young children. This is a core philosophy at Speech Blubs. We transform screen time into “smart screen time,” where children actively engage with language rather than passively consuming it. Our unique video modeling methodology, where children learn by watching and imitating real peers, is particularly effective for heart words.

For a child learning the heart word “said,” they might engage with a Speech Blubs activity that features other children saying words with the /s/ and /d/ sounds, and perhaps even a story where “said” appears. By seeing and hearing peers, the intimidation factor is reduced, and the child is naturally motivated to imitate. Our app’s interactive nature encourages children to say the words, activating both auditory and motor speech pathways, which deeply reinforces orthographic mapping. For instance, in our “Word Play” section, children can practice common words in engaging contexts, reinforcing the sounds and patterns they’re learning. For a child learning a heart word like “from,” an activity involving different objects coming “from” various places would provide context and repetition.

• Speech Blubs is designed to be a powerful tool for family connection. Instead of just handing a tablet to your child, we encourage co-play. Sit with your child, join in the activities, and celebrate their communication breakthroughs together. This shared experience makes learning more impactful and joyful. We provide a screen-free alternative to passive viewing (like cartoons) and a powerful tool for family connection, ensuring that every moment spent with the app is an opportunity for meaningful interaction.

To begin this exciting journey with your child, you can download Speech Blubs on the App Store or Google Play and discover our unique approach to fostering confident communicators.

Step-by-Step Heart Word Instruction at Home

Here’s a simple, step-by-step guide you can use at home to introduce and practice heart words with your child:

1. Introduce the Word:
   • Start by clearly saying the word you’re focusing on. Have your child repeat it. “Our word today is ‘said.’ Can you say ‘said’?”
   • Present the written word (on a card, whiteboard, or paper).
2. Count the Sounds (Phoneme Segmentation):
   • Help your child identify each individual sound in the word. You can use your fingers, tap on a table, or draw “sound boxes” on paper.
   • For “said”: “/s/ /e/ /d/.” “How many sounds do you hear in ‘said’?” (3 sounds).
3. Map the Sounds to Letters (Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondence):
   • Identify Regular Parts: Point to the letters in the word. “What letter makes the /s/ sound?” (s). “What letter makes the /d/ sound?” (d). Emphasize that these parts “play fair.”
   • Identify the “Heart Part”: Now, focus on the irregular part. “What part of ‘said’ makes the /e/ sound, even though it’s spelled ‘ai’?” This is the “heart part” – the part they need to remember “by heart.”
   • Mark the Heart Part: Draw a small heart symbol above the irregular letters (e.g., above ‘ai’ in “said”). You can also underline it for emphasis. This visually distinguishes the part that needs special attention.
4. Practice, Practice, Practice:
   • Multi-Sensory Activities: Engage different senses.
     • Trace: Have your child trace the word in sand, salt, rice, or shaving cream, marking the heart part.
     • Build: Use magnetic letters or playdough to form the word, again highlighting the heart part. They can even make a little playdough heart!
     • Stamp: Use letter stamps to create the word and then draw a heart with a marker.
     • Write: Have your child write the word repeatedly, always including the heart symbol above the irregular part.
   • Reading in Context: The ultimate goal is for children to read these words in real text.
     • Use simple, decodable books and point out the heart words as they appear.
     • Create short sentences together using the target heart word.
     • Speech Blubs offers stories and interactive scenarios that naturally integrate these high-frequency words, allowing children to encounter them in meaningful contexts. Our “Early Sounds” activities, for instance, lay a crucial foundation for breaking down words into their phonetic components.

Integrating Heart Words into Daily Life with Speech Blubs

The beauty of heart words is their practicality, and Speech Blubs enhances this with its engaging, interactive platform, transforming learning into a joyful experience.

How Speech Blubs Supports Heart Word Learning

At Speech Blubs, we are deeply committed to providing immediate, effective, and joyful solutions for children’s communication development. Our app, designed with scientific principles and a touch of magic, aligns perfectly with the heart word methodology.

• Video Modeling for Sound-Letter Connection: Our core video modeling feature allows children to watch and imitate real children pronouncing sounds and words. This is incredibly valuable for heart words. For example, if a child is learning the word “from,” they can see and hear peers articulate the sounds. This vivid, interactive experience reinforces the connection between the spoken word, its individual sounds (phonemes), and eventually, its written form (graphemes). It’s an active, engaging process that beats passive cartoon viewing.
• Interactive Activities Reinforcing Foundational Skills: Speech Blubs offers a wide array of interactive activities that indirectly and directly support heart word learning. Our sections like “Word Play,” “Early Sounds,” and “Speech Sounds” build crucial phonological awareness, articulation, and vocabulary skills—all foundational for segmenting words and recognizing sound-letter patterns. These activities turn “screen time” into “smart screen time,” where children are not just watching but actively participating, listening, and speaking.
• Building Confidence and Reducing Frustration: The playful, encouraging environment within Speech Blubs fosters a love for communication. As children succeed in imitating sounds and words, their confidence soars. This reduction in frustration is key when tackling seemingly tricky words. We focus on building key foundational skills and creating joyful family learning moments, rather than promising instant mastery.
• A Powerful Tool for Family Connection: Speech Blubs is designed to be used with a parent or caregiver. We believe in strengthening family bonds through shared learning. Practicing heart words together using the app can become a cherished ritual, a moment for connection and celebration of your child’s progress.

Imagine a child learning the heart word “could.” Within Speech Blubs, they might encounter stories or activities where other children are using “could” in sentences. They see the word, hear it, and then have the opportunity to say it themselves, imitating their peers. This multi-modal engagement helps solidify the irregular ‘oul’ part of the word in a fun, pressure-free way, making it less about memorization and more about natural acquisition.

Ready to see how our unique blend of science and play can empower your child? Download Speech Blubs on the App Store or Google Play to explore how our smart screen time can support your child’s journey with heart words and overall communication.

Beyond the App: Simple Home Activities

While Speech Blubs is a powerful supplement, there are many ways to integrate heart word practice into everyday life:

• Read Together: When reading books, gently point out heart words. “Look, here’s ‘the.’ Remember, the ‘e’ makes that short /uh/ sound we learned by heart!”
• Heart Word Hunt: Turn it into a game! As you walk through a grocery store or read a cereal box, ask your child to spot any words they recognize as flash words or heart words.
• Creative Writing: Encourage your child to use their learned heart words when drawing pictures and adding simple captions or writing short stories. This applies their knowledge in a meaningful context.
• Make Personalized Flashcards: Create simple cards for each heart word, ensuring the “heart part” is clearly marked. Review these briefly each day.

Is Your Child Ready for Heart Words? Consider a Quick Check-in.

As parents, it’s natural to wonder if our child is on the right track with their language and literacy development. Heart words are a fantastic tool, but understanding where your child stands can help you tailor your support.

If you’re unsure whether your child could benefit from focused support in speech, language, or early literacy skills, we offer a simple way to gain clarity. Take our quick 3-minute preliminary screener. It involves just 9 simple questions and provides you with an instant assessment and a personalized next-steps plan. This can offer peace of mind and help you identify if additional support or resources, like Speech Blubs, would be beneficial for your child’s journey.

The Science Behind Our Playful Approach

At Speech Blubs, our commitment to empowering children is deeply rooted in personal experience and scientific validation. Our company was born from the personal journeys of our founders, who all grew up with speech problems and created the very tool they wished they had. This empathy drives our dedication to providing solutions that are not only effective but also genuinely joyful.

We blend scientific principles with play, crafting one-of-a-kind “smart screen time” experiences. Our unique video modeling methodology, where children learn by watching and imitating their peers, is supported by neuroscientific research on mirror neurons and observational learning. This approach makes complex communication skills more accessible and engaging. We pride ourselves on a high MARS scale rating, a testament to the quality and efficacy of our app, which means we consistently meet and exceed professional standards for health apps. Our goal is to provide an immediate, effective, and joyful solution for the 1 in 4 children who need speech support, fostering not just language skills, but also the confidence that comes with clear communication. See what other parents are saying about their child’s success with Speech Blubs and discover the impact we’ve made.

Unlock Your Child’s Communication Potential with Speech Blubs

Embracing the heart word method can fundamentally transform your child’s reading journey, making it more logical, less frustrating, and ultimately, more successful. By understanding that most words follow rules and only specific “heart parts” need to be learned by heart, we empower children with a robust strategy for decoding and fluent reading.

Speech Blubs is here to be your partner in this exciting adventure, offering a scientifically backed, playful, and engaging platform that complements your efforts at home. Our app provides the tools and environment for your child to practice articulation, phonological awareness, and early literacy skills, all of which are essential for mastering heart words and becoming a confident communicator.

We believe in making our empowering tools accessible to all families. Here’s a breakdown of our flexible plans:

• Monthly Plan: Priced at $14.99 per month, this option offers flexibility.
• Yearly Plan: Our best value at $59.99 per year, which breaks down to just $4.99 per month! This means you save 66% compared to the monthly plan.

Choosing the Yearly plan isn’t just about saving money; it unlocks a suite of exclusive, high-value features designed to supercharge your child’s progress:

• A 7-day free trial: Experience the full power of Speech Blubs before committing.
• The extra Reading Blubs app: Double the fun, double the learning with our dedicated reading companion.
• Early access to new updates: Be the first to enjoy our latest features and improvements.
• 24-hour support response time: Get prompt assistance whenever you need it.

The Monthly plan, while flexible, does not include these invaluable benefits. We strongly encourage you to choose the Yearly plan to maximize your child’s potential, gain access to all features, and enjoy the ultimate value.

Ready to provide your child with the tools they need to speak their minds and hearts, and embark on a joyful reading journey? Create your account and begin your 7-day free trial today! Remember to select the Yearly plan to get the best value and access the full suite of features, including the extra Reading Blubs app. Your child’s confident communication starts now!

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: What’s the main difference between heart words and traditional “sight words”? A1: Traditional “sight words” often refer to high-frequency words that children are expected to memorize by their overall visual shape, often without linking them to phonetic rules. Heart words, on the other hand, acknowledge that most of a high-frequency word is decodable. Children learn to identify the regular phonetic parts and only “memorize by heart” the small, irregular portions or the spelling patterns they haven’t learned yet. This approach aligns with how the brain naturally learns to read (orthographic mapping), making learning more logical and effective.

Q2: Can heart words really help my child with a speech delay or language challenges? A2: Absolutely! The heart word method emphasizes breaking down words into individual sounds (phonemic awareness) and mapping those sounds to letters. This focus on sound-letter correspondence is highly beneficial for children with speech or language delays, as it reinforces the auditory discrimination and phonological skills they are developing. It also reduces cognitive load by making reading more predictable, which can reduce frustration and build confidence in children who might already be working harder on language tasks.

Q3: At what age should I start teaching my child heart words? A3: The heart word method is typically introduced in kindergarten or early first grade, once children have a solid understanding of basic letter sounds and CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. However, the foundational skills (like phonological awareness) that heart words rely on can be nurtured from an even younger age through playful activities and apps like Speech Blubs. It’s about building readiness and introducing the concept systematically as children acquire more phonics knowledge.

Q4: How does Speech Blubs integrate with heart word learning? A4: Speech Blubs supports heart word learning by building essential foundational language and phonological skills through engaging “smart screen time.” Our video modeling feature allows children to see and imitate peers, reinforcing sound production and auditory-visual connections crucial for orthographic mapping. Our interactive activities help develop phonemic awareness, articulation, and vocabulary – all vital for segmenting words, identifying regular parts, and focusing on “heart parts.” While we don’t explicitly teach “heart words” with a heart symbol, our app provides the rich, interactive language environment that makes the heart word method more effective and enjoyable for your child.