What is a sight word reader

Overview

Learn the history behind Dolch and Fry sight words, and why they are important in developing fluent readers.

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Lessons

Follow the sight words teaching techniques. Learn research-validated and classroom-proven ways to introduce words, reinforce learning, and correct mistakes.

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Flash Cards

Print your own sight words flash cards. Create a set of Dolch or Fry sight words flash cards, or use your own custom set of words.

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Games

Play sight words games. Make games that create fun opportunities for repetition and reinforcement of the lessons.

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1. Overview
2. What Are Sight Words?
3. Types of Sight Words
4. When to Start

1. Scaling & Scaffolding
2. Research
3. Questions and Answers

1. Overview

Sight words instruction is an excellent supplement to phonics instruction. Phonics is a method for learning to read in general, while sight words instruction increases a child’s familiarity with the high frequency words he will encounter most often.

The best way to learn sight words is through lots and lots of repetition, in the form of flashcard exercises and word-focused games.

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2. What Are Sight Words?

Sight words are words that should be memorized to help a child learn to read and write. Learning sight words allows a child to recognize these words at a glance — on sight — without needing to break the words down into their individual letters and is the way strong readers recognize most words. Knowing common, or high frequency, words by sight makes reading easier and faster, because the reader does not need to stop to try and sound out each individual word, letter by letter.

Sight Words are memorized so that a child can recognize commonly used or phonetically irregular words at a glance, without needing to go letter-by-letter.

Other terms used to describe sight words include: service words, instant words (because you should recognize them instantly), snap words (because you should know them in a snap), and high frequency words. You will also hear them referred to as Dolch words or Fry words, the two most commonly used sight words lists.

Sight words are the glue that holds sentences together.

These pages contain resources to teach sight words, including: sight words flash cards, lessons, and games. If you are new to sight words, start with the teaching strategies to get a road map for teaching the material, showing you how to sequence the lessons and activities.

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3. Types of Sight Words

Sight words fall into two categories:

• Frequently Used Words — Words that occur commonly in the English language, such as it, can, and will. Memorizing these words makes reading much easier and smoother, because the child already recognizes most of the words and can concentrate their efforts on new words. For example, knowing just the Dolch Sight Words would enable you to read about 50% of a newspaper or 80% of a children’s book.
• Non-Phonetic Words — Words that cannot be decoded phonetically, such as buy, talk, or come. Memorizing these words with unnatural spellings and pronunciations teaches not only these words but also helps the reader recognize similar words, such as guy, walk, or some.

There are several lists of sight words that are in common use, such as Dolch, Fry, Top 150, and Core Curriculum. There is a great deal of overlap among the lists, but the Dolch sight word list is the most popular and widely used.

3.1 Dolch Sight Words

The Dolch Sight Words list is the most commonly used set of sight words. Educator Dr. Edward William Dolch developed the list in the 1930s-40s by studying the most frequently occurring words in children’s books of that era. The list contains 220 “service words” plus 95 high-frequency nouns. The Dolch sight words comprise 80% of the words you would find in a typical children’s book and 50% of the words found in writing for adults. Once a child knows the Dolch words, it makes reading much easier, because the child can then focus his or her attention on the remaining words.

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3.2 Fry Sight Words

The Fry Sight Words list is a more modern list of words, and was extended to capture the most common 1,000 words. Dr. Edward Fry developed this expanded list in the 1950s (and updated it in 1980), based on the most common words to appear in reading materials used in Grades 3-9. Learning all 1,000 words in the Fry sight word list would equip a child to read about 90% of the words in a typical book, newspaper, or website.

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3.3 Top 150 Written Words

The Top 150 Written Words is the newest of the word lists featured on our site, and is commonly used by people who are learning to read English as a non-native language. This list consists of the 150 words that occur most frequently in printed English, according to the Word Frequency Book. This list is recommended by Sally E. Shaywitz, M.D., Professor of Learning Development at Yale University’s School of Medicine.

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3.4 Other Sight Words Lists

There are many newer variations, such as the Common Core sight words, that tweak the Dolch and Fry sight words lists to find the combination of words that is the most beneficial for reading development. Many teachers take existing sight word lists and customize them, adding words from their own classroom lessons.

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4. When to Start Teaching Sight Words

Before a child starts learning sight words, it is important that he/she be able to recognize and name all the lower-case letters of the alphabet. When prompted with a letter, the child should be able to name the letter quickly and confidently. Note that, different from learning phonics, the child does not need to know the letters’ sounds.

Before starting sight words, a child needs to be able to recognize and name all the lower-case letters of the alphabet.

If a student’s knowledge of letter names is still shaky, it is important to spend time practicing this skill before jumping into sight words. Having a solid foundation in the ability to instantly recognize and name the alphabet letters will make teaching sight words easier and more meaningful for the child.

Go to our Lessons for proven strategies on how to teach and practice sight words with your child.

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5. Scaling & Scaffolding

Every child is unique and will learn sight words at a different rate. A teacher may have a wide range of skill levels in the same classroom. Many of our sight words games can be adjusted to suit different skill levels.

Many of our activity pages feature recommendations for adjusting the game to the needs of your particular child or classroom:

• Confidence Builders suggest ways to simplify a sight words game for a struggling student.
• Extensions offer tips for a child who loves playing a particular game but needs to be challenged more.
• Variations suggest ways to change up the game a little, by tailoring it to a child’s special interests or making it “portable.”
• Small Group Adaptations offer ideas for scaling up from an individual child to a small group (2-5 children), ensuring that every child is engaged and learning.

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6. Research

Our sight words teaching techniques are based not only on classroom experience but also on the latest in child literacy research. Here is a bibliography of some of the research supporting our approach to sight words instruction:

• Ceprano, M. A. “A review of selected research on methods of teaching sight words.” The Reading Teacher 35:3 (1981): 314-322.
• Ehri, Linnea C. “Grapheme–Phoneme Knowledge Is Essential for Learning to Read Words in English.” Word Recognition in Beginning Literacy. Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1998.
• Enfield, Mary Lee, and Victoria Greene. Project Read. www.projectread.com. 1969.
• Gillingham, Anna, and Bessie W. Stillman. The Gillingham Manual: Remedial Training for Students with Specific Disability in Reading, Spelling, and Penmanship, 8th edition. Cambridge, MA: Educators Publishing Service, 2014.
• Nist, Lindsay, and Laurice M. Joseph. “Effectiveness and Efficiency of Flashcard Drill Instructional Methods on Urban First-Graders’ Word Recognition, Acquisition, Maintenance, and Generalization.” School Psychology Review 37:3 (Fall 2008): 294-308.
• Shaywitz, Sally E. Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Reading Problems at Any Level. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.
• Stoner, J.C. “Teaching at-risk students to read using specialized techniques in the regular classroom.” Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal 3 (1991).
• Wilson, Barbara A. “The Wilson Reading Method.” Learning Disabilities Journal 8:1 (February 1998): 12-13.
• Wilson, Barbara A. Wilson Reading System. Millbury, MA: Wilson Language Training, 1988.

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© 2023 Sight Words: Teach Your Child to Read

If you’ve been teaching reading for a while, you’ve undoubtedly come across the term sight words, and you probably have some questions about them. Should you teach sight words? What’s the best way to approach sight words? Is it bad to use a curriculum that teaches sight words?

In fact, a common question we get is, “Do you teach sight words in the All About Reading program? ” But before we jump into the details, let’s be sure we’re talking about the same definition for the term sight words.

Our Working Definition of Sight Word

At its most basic–and this is what we mean when we talk about sight words–a sight word is a word that can be read instantly, without conscious attention.

For example, if you see the word peanut and recognize it instantly, peanut is a sight word for you. You just see the word and can read it right away without having to sound it out. In fact, if you are a fluent reader, chances are you don’t need to stop to decode words as you read this blog post because every word in this post is a sight word for you.

But there are three other commonly used definitions for sight words that you should be aware of:

• Irregular words that can’t be decoded using phonics and must be memorized, such as of, could, and said.
• The “whole word” or “look-say” approach to teaching reading, also known as the “sight word approach.” This approach is the opposite of phonics, and words are memorized as a whole.
• Words that appear on high-frequency word lists such as the popular Dolch Sight Word and Fry’s Instant Word lists. (Many educators believe that the words on these lists must be learned through rote memorization, but we bust that myth in this video.)

So now you can see why sight words can cause so much angst! Educators have conflicting ideas about sight words and how to teach them, and in large part that stems from having different definitions for what sight words are.

But you are in safe territory here.

In this article, you’ll find out how to minimize the number of sight words that your child needs to memorize, while maximizing his ability to successfully master these words.

How Fast Is “Instant”?

Now that we’ve settled on the definition for sight words as “any words that can be read instantly, without conscious attention,” that may lead some people to wonder how fast is “instant”? And that’s a great question!

Basically, we want kids to see a word and be unable to not read it. Even before they’ve realized that they are looking at the word, they’ve unconsciously read it.

Here’s a demonstration of what I mean.

(Download this PDF if you want to try this experiment with your family and friends!)

As explained in the short video above, the Stroop effect¹ shows that word recognition can be even more automatic than something as basic as color recognition.

So that’s what we mean by “instant.”

We want children to develop automaticity when reading, so they don’t even have to think about decoding words—they just automatically know the words. Ideally, we want reading to become as effortless and unconscious as breathing.

But what about words that aren’t as easily decoded? How should those words be taught?

Some Words Need to Be Learned Through Rote Memorization

The vast majority of words don’t need to be taught by rote memorization. Even the Dolch Sight Word list is mostly decodable (video). But there are some words that do need to be memorized.

Some programs call these “Red Words,” “Outlaw Words,” “Sight Words,” or “Watch-Out” words. In All About Reading, we call them Leap Words. Generally, these are high-frequency words that either don’t follow the normal phonetic patterns or contain phonograms that students haven’t practiced yet. Students “leap ahead” to learn these words as sight words.

Here’s an example of two flashcards used to practice the Leap Words could and again. In the word could, the L isn’t pronounced. In the word again, the AI says /ĕ/, which isn’t one of its typical sounds. The frog graphic acts as a visual reminder that the words are being treated as sight words that need to be memorized.

Leap Words comprise a small percentage of words taught. For example, out of the 200 words taught in All About Reading Level 1, only 11 are Leap Words.

Several techniques are used to help your student remember the Leap Words:

• Leap Word Cards are kept behind the Review divider in your student’s Reading Review Box until your student has achieved instant recognition of the word.
• Leap Words frequently appear on the Practice Sheets.
• Leap Words are used frequently in the decodable readers.
• If a Leap Word causes your student trouble, have your student use a light-colored crayon to circle the part of the word that doesn’t say what your student expects it to say.
• Help your student see that Leap Words generally have just one or two letters that are troublesome, while the rest of the letters say their regular sounds and follow normal patterns.

For typical students who do not struggle with reading, very little practice is needed to move a word into long-term memory. They may encounter the word just one to five times, and never have to sound it out again.

On the other hand, a struggling reader may need up to thirty exposures to a word before it becomes part of the child’s sight word vocabulary. So be patient and give your child the amount of practice she needs to develop a large sight word vocabulary.

Here Are 5 More Ways to Increase Your Child’s Sight Word Vocabulary

These five methods increase the number of times your child encounters a word, helping move the word into long-term memory for instant recall:

• Make use of interesting games and activities (such as Over Easy, Hatch the Turtles, and Pack Your Suitcase).
• Have your child read decodable books.
• Encourage your child to “sound out” phonetically-regular words.
• Use sentence dictation to encourage extra practice.
• Review Word Cards frequently until they are mastered.

The Bottom Line on Teaching Sight Words

When it comes to teaching sight words, here’s what you need to keep in mind:

• The goal of teaching sight words is to allow your child to read easily and fluently, without conscious attention.
• Some words—we call them Leap Words—can’t be decoded as easily and must be learned through rote memorization.
• Increasing the number of times a child encounters a word helps move the word into the child’s long-term memory.

Are you looking for a reading program that doesn’t involve memorizing hundreds of sight words via rote memorization? All About Reading is a research-based program that walks you through all the steps to help your child achieve instant recall. And if you ever need a hand, we’re here to help.

What’s your take on teaching sight words? Have anything else to share? Let me know in the comments below!

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¹Stroop, J.R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18, 643-662.

The term «sight word» has different meanings depending upon one’s philosophy of reading instruction. In today’s public schools, though, if your child brings home a list of words with «Sight Words» printed at the top of it, you can bet that the teacher wants your child to memorize every word on the list.

More than likely it’s a list of short, high-frequency words, that is, words that appear very often in print. The prime justification for such a list is that a lot of the words cannot be easily decoded by a child. They are considered «phonetically irregular,» or «difficult to sound out,» or some other similar term. Your child is being told that he has to just learn to say those words quickly, i.e., «on sight,» and the technique for learning them is usually by rote memorization, without considering the phonics information contained in the word.

The Problem: Every Word is a Sight Word

The main sight word lists circulating today were put together years ago by people who advocated a whole-word memorization approach to reading instruction. Just memorize every word you encounter and you’ll be a great reader. The advocates of whole-word instruction have always criticized phonics programs for slowing children down, that is, for forcing them to «laboriously» (a favorite word) decode each and every word accurately, a process that «hinders» (another favorite word) their comprehension of the story they’re reading.

But they’re wrong on every count. Memorizing even a dozen words is difficult without utilizing the phonics information that virtually every English word possesses. Phonics advocates don’t intend each word to be sounded out «laboriously» every time it’s encountered; they expect a child to learn the word, and to base that learning on the phonetic structure of the word. Once learned, it becomes what even whole-word advocates would consider a sight word, i.e., the child knows it on sight, without having to decode it.

As for whether the process is «laborious» or not, rote memorization of hundreds of words is just a prelude to rote memorization of thousands of words. If you don’t teach a child a strategy for decoding «sight words» like go and to, then how are they to ever develop a strategy for decoding government or together? Hint: These are the programs that tell a child to look for words within the word (like the to, get and her in together perhaps), and that then teach your child to recognize common prefixes and suffixes. Just memorize enough components and put them together becomes the strategy. Oh, and once you’ve figured a word out, memorize it so you don’t have to go through that process again.

Earlier, I said they’re wrong on every count. They are. They’re wrong about whether it’s easier to learn to read a word on sight by memorizing it, or by first analyzing its phonetic structure. They’re also wrong about whether it hinders comprehension for children taught by whole-word methods are continually misreading similar words whereas the children familiar with phonics easily comprehend which word is which. Does your child confuse that with what, or there with where? That’s the expected result of whole-word instruction via sight word lists.

They’re also wrong about the process being «laborious.» It’s the whole-word reader who hits a wall in 2nd or 3rd grade when the number of words that require memorization finally exceeds their memory capacity. From that point on, many just guess at unfamiliar words, filling in something that seems to fit the context. Within the context of a story, house and home are interchangeable; without context, so are house and horse. Inside the word, the letters just don’t matter much. After all, they weren’t taught to use them.

What Do You Do When that First Sight-Word List Comes Home?

Well, you might consider using the list to teach the phonics code. To do that, just use the OnTrack Reading Phonogram Set. It’s available here as a set of flash cards.

To illustrate, I’ll use the first 10 words of the Ayres List. They are me, do, and, go, at, on, a, it, is, and she. Each of these is on one of the first few sight word lists your child will bring home.

me: (/m/ee/) Take cards number 16 (m) and 10 (e) and teach their content. Chances are your child already knows the sound of the phonogram m, and might even know the /e/ sound for the phonogram e. Just teach him that the phonogram e is /e/ee/. Then show him me and write a 2 over the e. Then have him write me, saying /m/ as he writes the m and /ee/ as he writes the e. If he can’t remember how to spell the /ee/ sound, tell him that in the word me, he should use the phonogram he learned as /e/ee/. When he’s written me, have him put a 2 over the e to remind him its the second sound of the phonogram e.

do: (/d/oo/) Take cards number 18 (p) and 6 (o) and again teach their content. It might take a few attempts to teach the three sounds of the phonogram o, but the effort will pay off handsomely in the end. Once your child can respond /o/oe/oo/ when seeing the phonogram o, show him do and write the number 3 over the o to designate the third sound, /oo/. Then, as before, have him spell do, saying each sound as he writes each phonogram. If he needs it, tell him to use the phonogram for /oo/ that he just learned as /o/oe/oo/ and again have him put a 3 over the phonogram o to indicate that he used the third sound when spelling do.

and: (/a/n/d/) Take cards number 1 (a) and 17 (n) and teach their sounds. Your child might already know the first sound of both phonograms, but teach them anyway. Then show him and while pointing out that the /a/ sound is spelled with the phonogram he learned as /a/ae/o/, the second is spelled with the phonogram he learned as /n/ng/, and the last is spelled with the phonogram he learned as /d/. Add that no numbers are needed because he used the first sound of every phonogram.

go: (/g/oe/) Get card number 5 (g) and teach it’s two sounds, /g/j/. He might already know that it’s /g/, but make sure he knows both sounds. Then show him go and write a 2 above the o and tell him we use the phonogram /o/oe/oo/ when spelling go. Repeat the process of having him spell the word go himself and putting the number 2 above the phonogram o.

at: (/a/t/) Get card number 20 (t) and make sure your child knows it as the /t/ sound. The show him at and explain that it uses the the /a/ae/o/ phonogram to spell /a/, and the /t/ phonogram to spell /t/. Because only the first sounds of the phonograms are used, no numbers are needed. Repeat the spelling process described for the earlier words.

on: (o/n) Get no new cards. This is where the payoff begins. Just write on and tell him we use the phonogram for /o/oe/oo/ to write the /o/ sound and the phonogram for /n/ng/ to write the /n/ sound. They’re both first sounds of the phonogram, so no numbers are needed. Have him spell on, making sure he’s saying both sounds as he writes the phonograms.

a: (/ae/) Again, no new cards are needed. However, be sure to teach the word a as the second sound of the phonogram a. You can illustrate by using the word a with emphasis, saying something like «Give me A break!» as an example that we should associate the /ae/ sound with the word a. You can also explain that most of the time we say /u/, like «a car, a dog,» etc., but that he should always think of it as the /ae/ sound for spelling. Write a and don’t forget to put the number 2 above it, telling him it’s spelled with the phonogram /a/ae/o/.

it: (/i/t/) Get card number 12 (i) and teach your child that it’s /i/ie/ee/, and then repeat the process you’ve done above. No numbers are needed, since it uses the first sound of each phonogram.

is: (/i/z/) Get card number 7 (s) and teach your child that it’s /s/z/. You might want to illustrate a few cases where it sounds like /z/ in words, like at the end of has, his, and pens. When you spell is place a 2 above the s. Then have your child spell is and mark it with the 2 above the phonogram s.

she: (/sh/ee/) Get card number 27 (sh) and teach it as the /sh/ sound. Explain that sometimes we use two letters together to spell a sound and that we call that a digraph. Write she, underlining the phonogram sh and writing a 2 over the e. Explain that we underline any digraphs in a word with a single underline. Then have him write the word. Make sure your child is saying /sh/ just once as he writes the phonogram sh and that after writing she, he goes back and underlines the digraph sh and puts a 2 above the phonogram e.

Note: The reason to mark the word after writing it completely is so that your child doesn’t develop a habit of marking as he goes. After all, if all those markings show up on a spelling test, the words might be marked as incorrectly spelled. Explain that you are having him mark the words only once, at home, so that he can understand their spellings. He should not be marking words in a spelling test.

Summing Up So Far

What have you taught so far? If you add them up, you’ve taught the sounds for 11 phonograms. There are 84 in the complete set, many of them far simpler than the phonograms you’ve just taught, like a, o, i, and n, and you’re already over 10 percent of the way to teaching the complete set.

You’ve also taught a solid foundation for ten words. If you’d have taught them sight words to be simply memorized, you’d be just 4 percent of the way through a list of common sight words, and have established no foundation for learning any of them. Furthermore, there’s thousands more words that your child must learn to read on sight over the next few years.

As you go through the next 10 words on the Ayres List, you’ll need to teach fewer and fewer new phonograms. For example here are the next ten words and the new phonograms required to teach them: can (c), see (ee), run (r and u), the (th), in (none), so (none), no (none), now (ow), man (none), and ten (none). That’s six new phonograms for those ten words.

So, What’s a Sight Word, Really?

Notice that every single one of the first twenty words in the Ayres List is can be completely explained by referring to the common sounds associated with each of the phonograms. In other words, there isn’t a single sight word among them. Of course your child should learn to read them all by sight and he will. He will just find it far easier to do so when he knows the phonics information contained within the spelling of each word.

Furthermore, armed with that phonics knowledge, he’ll be able to extend it to read dozens, even hundreds, of new words almost immediately. When the next list comes home containing words like am, an, we, bed, us, and last, he’ll easily understand each of them, and will quickly learn to say them on sight, because he already knows the phonics code in all of them.

However, there are words, many of them quite common, that do contain some irregular, or unusual, spellings. The spellings in those words are so unusual that there is no value in teaching them as phonograms for the particular sound they represent, or even sometimes as phonograms at all.

The Double-Underline

The OnTrack Reading marking system treats unusual spellings by double-underlining them. If it’s an extraneous letter that appears randomly in the word, the double-underline just indicates that the letter represents no sound and can be ignored for pronunciation purposes, but must be remembered for spelling purposes.

On the other hand, if the spelling is an accepted phonogram, but represents an unusual sound in a particular word, then the phonogram is double-underlined and the sound it is representing is written under the word (using the notation described here.)

Rather than use random examples to illustrate the use of the double-underline convention, here are all of the words in the first 100 words of the Ayres List that require a double-underline:

of: Teach it as /o/v/, using the /o/ sound even though we tend to say «uv.» Double-underline the phonogram f and write «v» under the lines.

are: Underline the phonogram ar indicating a digraph. Double-underline the phonogram e to indicate that it’s an extraneous letter that must be remembered.

door: Double underline the phonogram oo indicating a digraph and write «oe» under it to denote the /oe/ sound.

floor: Same as door. If there were a lot more words like door and floor where the phonogram oo represents the /oe/ sound, it wold be taught as /oo/oul/oe/, but there aren’t so the /oe/ sound is treated as an unusual sound for that phonogram.

one: Teach it as /w/o/n/ with the ne phonogram underlined as a digraph for the /n/ sound. This is one of the weirdest English words (along with once) because it has a sound (/w/) without a phonogram to represent it. To mark it, double-underline the space in front of the word, and write «w» under the lines.

This takes us through about the first 120 words of the Ayres List and so far we have exactly five words that require double-underlining somewhere within the word. Even in those cases, there is obviously reliable phonics information contained within each of the five words.

We can now go through to about word 340 without requiring another case of double-underlining, at which point we hit the word eye. Now the word eye is probably one of the «sight words» most aggressively taught due to the apparent need to memorize every component of the word. (Most teachers probably draw a couple of e’s as eyes and then put the «y» between them as a nose, add a circle around the whole thing for a face, then add a mouth and ears. Trust me, this works. I worked with nearly 200 struggling readers, kids who were always misreading simple words, but nearly every one of them could read eye on sight.

But is there phonetic information in eye? If you compare it to words like bye, dye, lye, and rye, each of which contain a phonogram ye that represents the /ie/ sound, then you could, and should, mark the word eye as follows: Double-underline the e at the beginning to indicate an extraneous letter and single-underline the phonogram ye as a digraph that represents the /ie/ sound. As with other words containing double-underlines, this is a signal that the letter e must be remembered when spelling eye.

Note: The phonogram ye occurs infrequently enough that, while it is indeed a phonogram, it isn’t included in the 84-phonogram set that is formally taught. A number of phonograms are explained as they are encountered later, such as this one. Doubled consonants like bb and dd also aren’t included in the 84 phonograms formally taught; they are just explained as common spellings of the /b/ and /d/ sound when they are first encountered. Your child should already know the sound of the single phonograms b and d by that time that occurs.

Conclusion

You can let the public school system teach your child sight words if you wish, but your child will then be getting the very mixed, and misleading, message that some words are just not decodable and need to be memorized without regard to their phonetic content.

Or, if the above discussion has convinced you that all words have at least some phonetic structure to them, and that very few are actually irregular at all, provided the phonics code is properly taught, then you should consider teaching that structure to your child yourself, at home. Doing so will pay huge dividends if you can pull it off. And later, if you really want to create an advanced reader, consider teaching your child the OnTrack Reading Multisyllable Method for decoding longer words.

One last comment: As your child begins to learn short, simple words encourage him to write short sentences using the words learned so far. That’s one advantage of learning to read and spell the high-frequency words, and you might as well make the most use of it. These can be as simple as leaving each other notes around the house, with your child reading your notes while writing some of his own.

Teachers are always on the hunt for great sight word activities. Sight words are any words readers recognize automatically “by sight”—for fluent readers, that’s almost all words! High-frequency words, the most commonly occurring words in written English like those on the Dolch list, are often thought of as the most crucial sight words.

It’s a myth that blindly memorizing every letter in a sight word is the only way to learn it. The science of reading tells us that linking sounds and letters is the most effective way for kids’ brains to learn any word. Many common words are easy to tackle using beginning phonics skills (like “at,” “can,” “him,” etc.), so staying true to a strong phonics curriculum is one way to support kids’ sight word learning. Even irregularly spelled words have decodable parts, e.g., kids can use the sounds of “s” and “d” to help with “said,” even if the “ai” is unexpected. Experts often call these words “heart words” to call out for kids that they should learn the unexpected word parts “by heart.” (If all this is unfamiliar to you, it can feel overwhelming, but you’ve got this! Check out teaching guru Jillian Starr’s explanation for more help.)

Check out these low-prep and engaging sight word activities for both teaching and practicing words.

Sight Word Activities for Introducing Words

1. Map it and drive it

This is a genius way to introduce words with appealing materials: Say the word, represent each sound with a LEGO brick, write letters for each sound, and “drive” to read it.

Source: @droppinknowledgewithheidi

2. Smush play dough for each sound

Set up a routine that works for any word. Play dough squishing for each sound is the ultimate multi-sensory component.

Source: @playdough2plato

3. Map words with a magnet wand

It is so super-satisfying to drag those magnetic dots around! Watch the video below for lots of tips on introducing a word using this process.

Source: @warriorsforliteracy

4. Make a mini book

Lots of handy info in one place for your little learners.

Source: @hughesheartforfirst

5. Tap it, pop it, learn it!

Hardwire those words in kids’ brains with this comprehensive word intro routine. (You had us with the pop its!)

Source: @hellojenjones

Sight Word Activities for Practicing Words

6. Find and swat words

An oldie but such a goodie. Find a word in an array and WHACK! Swat it with a fly swatter!

Source: @kids_play_learn_laugh

7. Flip word pancakes

Serve up sight word pancakes while practicing spelling them aloud.

Source: @bee_happy_teaching

8. Wear heart word bracelets

Make kids feel like sight word VIPs.

Source: @teachingmoore

9. Search for sight word balls

Write sight words on ball pit balls with a chalk marker or dry-erase marker. Kids can race around hunting for balls to read and toss in a basket, or hunt through a big tub of balls for a certain word.

Source: @preschoolforyou

10. Start a sight word band

Loud but oh-so-fun! Feel the rhythm while tapping and reading sight words stuck to homemade percussion instruments.

Source: @earlyyears_withmrsg

11. Drive on a sight word path

This is one of many fun ways to use magnetic tiles for learning! Kids love “knocking down” word tiles with a toy car as they read each one.

Source: @travisntyler

12. Use sticky notes to inspire sight word sentences

Have kids stick words on items that give them ideas for sentences. “My Mom said to wear a helmet!” = so good!

Source: @kinneypodlearning

13. Write words on a sensory bag

So easy: Fill a zip-top bag with a small amount of kid-safe paint, seal well, and have kids practice “writing” sight words with their finger or a cotton swab.

Source: @makeitmultisensory

14. Wear a sight word crown

Wear your word proudly and practice reading others’ words. Fun in person or virtually.

Source: @mrsjonescreationstation

15. Play a magnetic-tile board game

We love new ideas for ways to use magnetic tiles for sight word activities. Easy to set up and fun to play.

Source: @twotolove_bairantwins

16. Spell words to a familiar tune

Get sight words stuck in everyone’s head, in a good way. We’d add a line for chanting the sounds in the word!

Source: @saysbre

17. Feed a word monster

Nom, nom, nom.

Source: @ecplayandlearn

18. Search for the pom-pom under sight word cups

Read all the words as you try to find the cup that hides the prize.

Source: @la.la.learning

19. Play sight word KABOOM

This classroom classic is perfect for sight words. If you need a refresher on the rules, Jillian Starr covers them.

Source: @essentiallykinder

20. Roll and write words

Roll, write, repeat.

Source: @mylittlepandamonium

21. Write words with rainbow colors

Bonus points for aromatic markers.

Source: @mylittlepandamonium

22. Trace words with flashlights

Stock up on batteries because kids never get tired of this!

Source: @giggleswithgerg

23. Find words in plastic eggs

Give kids a checklist of words to find as they open each egg.

Source: @blooming_tots1

24. Spy words around the classroom

Just add a magnifying glass and clipboard to make kids feel like supersleuths!

Source: @readingcorneronline

25. Find words in the morning message

Don’t forget about old standbys! This is one of our favorite ways to get kids to recognize sight words in connected text.

Source: @tales_of_a_kinder_classroom

26. Build words with bricks

Such a great use of extra building bricks!

Source: @raysinkinder

27. Write words in sand

Easy-peasy to set up and keep neat if you use plastic pencil boxes.

Source: @teacherhacks

28. Spell words on a construction site

Bulldozing over each word to read it is the best part!

Source: @planningplaytime

29. Spell words with toy cars

Drive on over!

Source: @lozlovesprep

30. Park in a sight word “parking lot”

This one is easy to modify based on whatever toys are available in the classroom or at home.

Source: @msbendersclassroom

31. “Plant” words in play dough

Watch those reading skills grow!

Source: @planningplaytime

32. Build words in a sensory tub

Because spelling is just more fun when your hands are covered in beans!

Source: @coffeeandspitup

33. Write words on a magnetic drawing board

That eraser track makes for a perfect word card holder!

Source: @moffattgirls

34. Or write words on the window!

Everyone wants a turn to write on the window!

Source: @kindergarten_matters

35. Shhh! Discover words written in invisible ink

Write words in white crayon and reveal them with watercolors on top!

Source: @teachstarter

36. Dot-paint words with a cotton swab

Calming and effective.

Source: @sightwordactivities

37. “Type” words on a keyboard

Busy day at the sight word office! Use a keyboard cover or any old keyboard.

Source: @lifebetweensummers

38. Read words before heading through the door

The line leader can double as the word pointer during transitions.

Source: @ms.rowekinder

39. Read the word the teacher’s wearing!

Wait, is there something on my shirt?

Source: @theprimarypartner

40. Take a sight word cakewalk

Choose a winning word when the music stops!

Source: @joyfulinkinder

41. Play sight word hopscotch

If you can’t get outdoors, tape on the floor works just as well.

Source: @wheretheliteracygrows

42. Play tic-tac-toe

I’ll be team “the.”

Source: @create_n_teach

43. Go sight word bowling

No bowling pins? Use half-filled plastic water bottles instead.

Source: @thecreativeteacher_

44. Ready, aim, read

Just throw a beanbag at a word target if foam darts are a no-go.

Source: @laurens_lil_learners

45. Play muffin tin ball toss

Toss and read. It’s easy to use colored muffin cups to prep different sets of words.

Source: @homeschooling_fun_with_lynda

46. DIY sentence flash cards

Authentic use of words in context for the win.

Source: @teachertipsandtales

47. Play sight word checkers

King me! If kids don’t have a partner available, they can “play” with a stuffed animal and get double practice.

Source: @sightwordactivities

48. Play sight word Guess Who?

Set up this game once and use it forever.

Source: @lessons_and_lattes

We’d love to hear—what are your favorite sight word activities? Share in the comments below.

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Plus, what are sight words?

It is important for beginning readers to practice reading sight words. Sight words are word that are most frequently used and they appear on almost every page of text. These are also words that can’t necessarily be sounded out, so they need to be memorized. For example, if you sound out the word ‘the’ it would sound totally different than how it should be pronounced.

I wanted to help you as educators out, so I created sight word reader booklets for beginning readers. There are 42 altogether! They all are from the Pre-Primer Dolch Sight Word List (with 2 extra sight words added in). Each sight word contains 3 sets of printable booklets.

You can download the readers for free on the colored buttons below, or you can save time and buy them in a bundle HERE.

Printing Directions:

Print the pages on paper. (Page 1 is my Terms of Use.) You can also print the pages front and back. If you have troubles printing, make sure Adobe is up to date. You can download the most current version here.

After printing, cut out the pages and staple them together. Enjoy reading!

Click on the pictures below to take you to the sight word readers!

Pre-Primer-

       

 

 
 
  

               

    

   

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Primer