High Frequency Words Reading Mats

These Grade 1 High Frequency Words Reading Mats are designed to support early readers as they build fluency, confidence, and automatic recognition of essential everyday words. Each mat features a carefully selected set of high‑frequency words that 1st grade students encounter regularly in their reading and writing. This resource features ‘heart words’ high‑frequency words that contain parts students must learn by heart because they don’t follow regular phonics patterns. 

What Are Heart Words and How This Resource Works

Each card includes the target heart word presented in four context sentences as well as a word grid for further analysis and decoding practice.

Students are encouraged to:

• Identify the focus heart word in each sentence
• Highlight it to build visual recognition
• Circle the ‘tricky’ part of the word (the element that doesn’t decode regularly)
• Locate and read the word again in the word grid

This multisensory approach gives learners several meaningful encounters with the same word, strengthening both recognition and understanding.

Download and Explore Heart Words Today!

Use the dropdown menu to choose between the easy to print PDF of heart words – or if you would like to edit some of the words to make them easier or harder to suit your students’ levels – download the editable Google Slide version today.

This resource was created by Lindsey Phillips, a teacher in Michigan and Teach Starter Collaborator.

More High Frequency Word Resources

Looking for more high frequency word resources to use in the classroom? We have you covered…

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