My sight word stories

Sight words break the phonetic code. Sight words include: the, they, from, would, could, from, their….etc. They are common in text, especially beginning reader books. If you’d like your student to practice reading sight words in-context, click the links for FREE sight word stories pdf. Here’s one about camels:

Camels

If you’d like more FREE sight word stories, click the link below for one about polar bears.

Polar Bears

What are sight words?

Sight words are also called high frequency words. They are common words that break the phonetic code in some way. Kids are encouraged to memorize sight words. In Kindergarten, kids learn common sight words like the, to, of, from, they, have…etc. In 1st grade, kids continue to learn the 120 most common sight words. By the end of 1st grade, kids are typically done learning sight words. Struggling readers, however, often work on sight words in 3rd and 4th grade.

If you have a student that struggles to memorize sight words, start by teaching her the phonetic code systematically (meaning one phonics sound at a time). Sight words contain at least one phonetically regular component. Often, the first unit is regular as well as in words like they, from, would, could, their…etc. Often, kids need access to the regular component to decipher the word.

If you’d like to teach using systematic phonics instruction, you can work your way through Reading Elephant phonics books. Our books are a great resource for struggling readers.

Check out my – 900 pages of decodable texts!

What are decodable texts?

• Decodable texts emphasize specific phonics patterns.
• They follow a progression, building on previously learned phonics.
• Decodable texts allow students to “tap out” or sound out the words.

What are sight words?

• Sight words are also called high-frequency words, trick words, Dolch words, or Fry words.
• They are the words that appear most often in reading.
• They are not necessarily nouns and may not be visualized ~ such as the, is.
• Sight words must be recognized by sight – they often have irregular spellings and often can’t be sounded out.

• 89 decodable colored books that follow a specific phonetic sequence.
• Each book has worksheets to go with it!
• There are 89 titles.

• 

  • 262 FREE sequential lessons!
  • 4,400 words!
  • 2,100 decodable sentences!
  • Do one lesson per day starting in preschool.
  • Enlarge each lesson on 10×13 paper, or write words on index cards and drill.
  • Practice spelling these words as well!

Level 1
Level 2
Level 3 Part 1
Level 3 Part 2

• BeginningReads connects oral language knowledge with written language.
• Uses highly concrete and phonetically regular words – dog, cat, pet, big.
• Each level has 12 4-page books that share concepts.
• Readers see the same words in many different texts.

Someone compiled Reading A-Z texts.

100 pages of short vowel stories.

The Six-Minute Solution

Long Vowel Fluency Passages

Decodable Passages – Reading Practice

FREE READING ELEPHANT STORIES

Short a

Short e

ai/ay story

ee/ea story

Silent e story 1, silent e story 2,  silent e story 3

long a with magic e

Check out their other free stories.

This site teaches phonics systematically and in isolation. Great resource!

Decodable Reader: Unit 1 Getting to Know Us (romoland.net)

Take a New Step

Long Vowel Express

Let’s Make a Difference Decodable Reader

Really Great Reading “Blast” (starting with short a/i with sh)

Really Great Reading “Countdown” (beginning with CVC)

  Core Knowledge Reader 1
Practice Book to accompany (handwriting, phonics, additional stories, and questions)

     Core Knowledge Reader 2
Practice Book to accompany (grammar, phonics, additional stories, and questions)

     Core Knowledge Reader 3
Practice Book to accompany (grammar, phonics, additional stories, and questions)

     Core Knowledge Reader 4
Practice Book to accompany (grammar, phonics, additional stories, and questions)

     Core Knowledge Reader 5
Practice Book to accompany (grammar, phonics, additional stories, and questions)

     Core Knowledge Reader 6
Practice Book to accompany (grammar, phonics, additional stories, and questions)

     Core Knowledge Reader 7
Practice Book to accompany (grammar, phonics, additional stories, and questions)

Check out this link, too:  Core Knowledge

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Are you teaching sight words to young readers?

You’re in the right place!

In this post I’ll show you exactly how to teach sight words using hands-on lessons and free printable sight word books.

But first things first …

What ARE sight words, anyway?

It depends whom you ask.

When reading researchers use the term sight words, they’re referring to the words that a reader recognizes instantly, on sight.

Sight words can also refer to words that our readers encounter frequently when reading. That’s the definition I’ll be using here. We want our readers to know these words instantly as they work to become fluent readers.

It’s time to rethink how we teach sight words.

I used to think that when we teach sight words to young readers, we should teach them as whole words. This is why I used to share a collection of sight word books that taught the words through repeated exposure. (Those will soon disappear from the site and my shop.)

But research is telling us that this isn’t how the brain learns to read.

In order for kids’ brains to make new words a part of their permanent sight word vocabulary (the fancy word for this is orthographic mapping), they need to connect the sounds to the letters.

In other words? Sound it out.

Integrating high-frequency words into phonics lessons allows students to make sense of spelling patterns for these words. – readingrockets.org

I know what you’re thinking.

What about words that we CAN’T sound out?

We call attention to the parts of the word that are phonetic (and there’s usually at least 1-2 of them). Then we teach learners to learn the tricky parts by heart.

How to teach high frequency words to young learners

• First, know our goal here. Our goal is not to teach loads of sight words as whole words, because kids need to connect the sounds to letters when reading. Instead, our goal is to integrate sight word learning with phonics instruction.
• Next, we need to make sure our learners are ready to sound out words. Not sure? Check out this post.
• All set? Great. Name the new word, and have your learner repeat it.
• Name the individual phonemes (sounds) in the word. For example, in the word is, there are two phonemes: /i/ and /z/.
• Spell the sounds. Call attention to any unexpected spelling. In is, we spell /i/ with i and /z/ with s.
• If possible, have your learner read related words. Has and his are great words to read alongside is because they are short vowel words with an s that represents the the /z/ sound.
• Have your learner read connected text. Connected text can be decodable sentences or books.

Watch the video to see a sight word lesson in action …

Where can you find sight word lessons and decodable sight word books?

You’ll find a beginner’s collection below. Enjoy!

P.S. I look forward to adding more of these to our membership site, The Measured Mom Plus. I do not plan to add any more free books to this page. Learn more about membership here.

Sight word readers

 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9