Once your child has begun learning to read, there will come a time when learning and practicing Sight Words is something you'll be interested in.
Why learn Sight Words?
- there are certain words that you can not "sound out" using the basic letter and blend sounds; and because
- having a repertoire of known, commonly used words will help your child's reading to flow and therefore aid them in not just reading text, but more importantly, understanding and comprehending text.
The less your child has to stop to sound out a word, the more the text will flow and the easier it will be for them to read, (not just to decode symbols) for meaning.
SIMPLE SIGHT WORD GAME
"Spot-a-Sight Word"
M (aged 3) is very keen to read. She knows all her letters and letter sounds (which came about from her own interests and our activities. See here for more activities to help learn letters) and is now moving onto learning some of the common used words.
NOTE: At this stage and age, I do not force the learning. When she is interested and engaged, we play and learn, when she's had enough or it's not fun or she's not interested, we stop. There is no point pushing it at this stage as they will only resent and resist learning if it's not fun
Today's focus was on the word "The/the"
Materials: Favourite/familiar books, whiteboard and whiteboard/dry erase marker
(instead of the whiteboard and marker, you could use paper/pen, blackboard/chalk etc)
Talk about the focus word. What letters can they see? How do we read it, what does it look like etc?
Write the word for them to find on their board and explain that when they spot a word they place a mark on their record.
Have you child "read" through their favourite book (or another familiar text) and find as many of the chosen word as possible
Note: For added handwriting practice, have your child write the word each time they spot it
Extensions:
- Which page has the chosen word written on it the most?
- Add up the total amount found in each book.
- Which book contains the most of the chosen word? etc
9 More fun ideas from our friends on
"Learning Sight Words"
Sight Word Bowling by Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
Creating Sight Word Books by Boy Mama Teacher Mama
Sight Word Sensory Bin by Here Come the Girls
Word-Wac-Woe Sight Word Game by This Reading Mama
Boy Mama Teacher Mama |
Printable Sight Words Charts and Find the Same by 3 Dinosaurs
DIY Sight Word Cork Board by Glittering Muffins
Sight Word Connect Four by Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
Roll and Write Sight Words by This Reading Mama
Sight Word Practice Made Fun by Boy Mama Teacher Mama