Can we turn sight words regular?

Can we turn sight words regular?

Sőmè Ėnglish letterś havè morè τhan one (wun) sound

citations to the images forthcoming (in the comments)

Sight words

Following is a list of the 'Dolch Sight Words' as listed on Wikipedia. 'Sight words' are promoted by some educationalists as words that should not be learned as a sequence of letters, but learned together as a whole group, like recognising a picture. This avoids problems decoding some of the very common irregular English words. It also encourages learners to memorise words as units. This promotes fluency.

Pre-primer: (40 words) a, and, away, big, blue, can, come, down, find, for, funny, go, help, here, I, in, is, it, jump, little, look, make, me, my, not, one, play, red, run, said, see, the, three, to, two, up, we, where, yellow, you

Primer: (52 words) all, am, are, at, ate, be, black, brown, but, came, did, do, eat, four, get, good, have, he, into, like, must, new, no, now, on, our, out, please, pretty, ran, ride, saw, say, she, so, soon, that, there, they, this, too, under, want, was, well, went, what, white, who, will, with, yes

1st Grade: (41 words) after, again, an, any, as, ask, by, could, every, fly, from, give, giving, had, has, her, him, his, how, just, know, let, live, may, of, old, once, open, over, put, round, some, stop, take, thank, them, then, think, walk, were, when

2nd Grade: (46 words) always, around, because, been, before, best, both, buy, call, cold, does, don't, fast, first, five, found, gave, goes, green, its, made, many, off, or, pull, read, right, sing, sit, sleep, tell, their, these, those, upon, us, use, very, wash, which, why, wish, work, would, write, your

3rd Grade: (41 words) about, better, bring, carry, clean, cut, done, draw, drink, eight, fall, far, full, got, grow, hold, hot, hurt, if, keep, kind, laugh, light, long, much, myself, never, nine, only, own, pick, seven, shall, show, six, small, start, ten, today, together, try, warm

Nouns: (95 words) apple, baby, back, ball, bear, bed, bell, bird, birthday, boat, box, boy, bread, brother, cake, car, cat, chair, chicken, children, Christmas, coat, corn, cow, day, dog, doll, door, duck, egg, eye, farm, farmer, father, feet, fire, fish, floor, flower, game, garden, girl, good-bye, grass, ground, hand, head, hill, home, horse, house, kitty, leg, letter, man, men, milk, money, morning, mother, name, nest, night, paper, party, picture, pig, rabbit, rain, ring, robin, Santa Claus, school, seed, sheep, shoe, sister, snow, song, squirrel, stick, street, sun, table, thing, time, top, toy, tree, watch, water, way, wind, window, wood

Some words are already regular (ignore the marking for the moment)

regular	questionable	irregular
a, and, big, can, help, in, it, jump, not, red, run, up	før, lōòk, mâkè, plây, sêè, thrêè, dõwn	áwây, blüè, cőmè, fînd, funný, gô, hėŕè, Î, iś, littlè, mê, mŷ, one (wun), sãìd, τhé, tó/tö, twö, wê, wheŕè, yellôw, yöù

Marking long vowels, silent vowels, and clipped vowels

We could add marks to indicate when a letter is not taking its normal sound. For example, long vowels (when a vowel is pronounced like its name) could be marked with a circumflex - âêîôû; silent vowels by a Grave accent - àèìòù; and clipped vowels by an Acute acccent - áéíóú.

Now we have:

regular	questionable	irregular
a, and, áwây, big, can, fînd, gô, help, Î, in, it, jump, littlè, mâkè, mê, not, plây, red, run, sêè, thrêè, tó, up, wê, yellôw	før, lōòk, dõwn	blüè, cőmè, funný, hėŕè, iś, mŷ, one (wun), sãìd, τhé, tö, twö, wheŕè, yöù
am, at, âtè, bê, black, but, câmè, did, êàt, get, havè, hê, lîkè, must, nô, on, ran, rîdè, sây, well, went, whîtè, whö, will, yes	åll, ārè, brõwn, dö, føùŕ, gōòd, nëw, nõw, õυŕ, õυt, såw, ŝħê, söòn, τhat, τhey, τhis, töò, undèŕ, whîtè, wiτh	dö, plêàśè, prėttý, want (wont), was (woś), whát, whö

What should we do about regular spelling patterns like 'ea', 'sh', 'ch', 'th', 'oo', 'ow' ...

Some groups of letters have regular sounds. The 'sh' in 'shop', and the 'ch' in 'child', for example. We have two choices we could mark these letters individually as in 'ŝħop', 'ŝure', or 'ŝugar' or teach the pattern 'sh' . 'Shop' is now regular, but 'sure', 'tissue', ... , and 'sugar' are no longer regular unless we introduce the 'ŝ' anyway.

Perhaps, we could start without teaching 'sh'? Would the learner pick up the 'sh' pattern unconsciously - and we might only point out the pattern once they already know it implicitly?

Lettérâìd

I have developed some open-source (free to use, change, and improve) code that automatically adds marks to irregular words. Letteraid uses a set of marks to indicate when a letter is not making its usual sound. The treatment of letter patterns can be customized to suit the preferences of the user.

Here are some fairytales that demo the system online.

And some books including three McGuffey readers. The original diacritic scheme has been removed and I have replaced it with lettérâìd like in the image below.

More information and tools can be found at this website.