Shouldn’t Children Just Learn Whole Words? (No – And Here’s Why)

Imagine if learning to read was as simple as remembering a list of words. No tricky sounds, no getting stuck over letters—just pure word recognition. Sounds easy, right? But here’s the catch: our brains aren’t wired to remember thousands of words by sight alone. Take maths as an example – it would be the equivalent of trying to remember as many equations as possible, instead of learning the logic of how to solve maths equations. In this blog, Mrs Wordsmith lifts the lid on how we come to read words (and the answer might not be what you expect!)

The Whole Word Myth: Why It Doesn’t Work

Learning to read by storing whole words to memory might seem like a shortcut, but it’s actually a dead end for most children. For a start, the English language has over 170,000 words in current use. Even the most dedicated memory champion couldn’t store all those words as unique images! Furthermore, children’s brains are naturally wired to spot patterns, not just remember random shapes. That’s why teaching kids to decode words—by connecting sounds (phonemes) to letters (graphemes)—is so powerful.So when kids learn the building blocks of words, they can tackle new and unfamiliar words with confidence. Instead of guessing, they’re decoding—unlocking the code of written language.

Systematic Synthetic Phonics: The Secret Weapon

Enter Systematic Synthetic Phonics—a proven approach that teaches children to blend sounds together to read words. It’s effective, but it can also be pretty fun with the right approach. And by right, what we really mean is fun – because fun is the best way to engage children with literacy learning. At Mrs Wordsmith, we’ve designed a range of phonics products that inject comedy into every part of the learning process:

• Blah Blah Blah is our hilariously fun phonics card game for ages 4 and up. Developed with teachers and phonics experts, it’s fast-paced, silly, and highly competitive—making learning irresistible for young readers.
• Readiculous takes the Science of Reading and turns it into 10-minute daily adventures. Through exciting mini-games, kids learn the sounds that each letter or spelling pattern makes, progressing from the most to the least common and building real reading skills. And with personal progress reports, you’ll see exactly which sounds, letters, and words your child is mastering.
• Designed in collaboration with teachers and phonics experts, ​​Get Reading with Phonics contains learning pages, activity pages, and 200+ stickers, all designed to help your child master phonics (while they’re having fun).
• Foolproof Phonics (Part 1 and Part 2) are step-by-step printable activity packs for children at Reception age, covering around 100 phoneme-grapheme correspondences in total. With unique audio support, kids (and parents!) can master pronunciation the right way.

Quick Tips for Parents: How to Support Your Child’s Reading Journey

• Read together every day, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
• Draw your child’s attention to words around them and encourage them to sound them out, starting from the letters they are familiar with and helping them with the rest.
• Celebrate progress—no matter how small!
• Show your child that reading is fun by sharing books you personally enjoy.

Ready to Make Reading Ridiculously Fun?

Unlock the power of phonics and watch your child become a confident, curious reader—one sound, one word, one laugh at a time!