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Continue ShoppingEffectively Teaching Sight Words
The term "sight words" is well known in early reading education circles. Teachers Pay Teachers, Pinterest and other sites for education resources are overflowing with activities, flashcards, and ideas for teaching sight words. So here I'll cover:
What exactly are sight words?
Which sight word list is best?
What I have found works best for kiddos in my classroom.
1. What are sight words?
It's important that we know and agree on what "sight words" really are. Of course, the name implies that they are words that children should "know by sight". But, as an adult reader, our brains recognize thousands of words "by sight". Of course, research has shown that decoding is the way we want our children to learn to read and the days of students memorizing whole words like pictures, is behind us.
But the continued popularity of the use of the Dolch or Fry "sight word" lists is something that's been left over from the days of "balanced literacy". The Dolch list contains 220 words, while Fry's full list contains 1,000 words, although these are split into 100 word groups. That really seems like a lot of words for children to "learn to read by sight".
So, as some of you might already be thinking, the words on these lists are actually "high frequency" words. This means, the lists actually contain words that occur frequently in texts that kindergarten through second grade students are likely to be reading. This means that many, in fact, the majority of words on these lists are completely decodable, even with just beginning reading and blending skills.
So, I argue that today, we should stop calling these "sight words" but should make a distinction between "high frequency words" that young children can decode with their phonics knowledge, and words with irregular spellings. The list of "irregular spelling" words is much shorter and more manageable both for teachers and students.2. Which sight word list is best?
When I designed my Fetch Phonics curriculum for my students, I took both lists (Fry and Dolch) and divided all the words into three categories:
-
Decodable, high frequency words. For example, jump, is, it, on, etc.
- Words that may not be decodable for very beginning students, but do follow clear rules of English OR use digraphs or vowel teams that students will encounter later. For example, he, she, see, day, each
- Words with truly irregular spellings. For example, are, to, of, was, were, etc.
I ended up with a much shorter list of sight words for kids to memorize. Most of the words have irregular spellings, but there are a few that follow patterns that students won't learn until a bit later in their reading journey, but need to know now to be able to read basic stories.
The four units of Fetch Phonics has a total of only 36 sight words. Of course, there are more words with irregular spellings in the English language. But if students can master these 36, they will know the most frequent sight words used in early reading texts. All other words in the curriculum can either be decoded phonetically, or, are used to teach important patterns in English that can help them understand even more complex words.
A quick example of this is that, with the exception of three sight words "he, go, and no", Fetch Phonics does not use any open syllable words, (such as she, we, by, why, etc) until students have learned the long sounds for the vowels, and have been explicitly taught the concept of open and closed syllables. Then, students can learn that in open syllables, the vowel says it's long sound. They can practice applying this new knowledge with these words that used to be considered sight words. Learning this pattern of English instantly opens up many words that are on sight word lists like, my, fly, be, me, etc. But also allows students to understand how to decode words like, robot, music and acorn.
3. What works for my classroom.
I have three parts to my classroom strategy for learning sight words.
First, I introduce only one sight word at a time. I explicitly teach that these words do not follow the regular sound and spelling patterns of English. Sometimes I call them mischievous or tricky words, which is why they are associated with mischievous little squirrels in the Fetch Phonics curriculum. I usually sound the word out phonetically and then make a silly sentence with the incorrect pronunciation. Then I say the word correctly. Students then think of their own sentence to fit in the word.Second, I keep a record of when students have grown confident with each word. I am constantly doing informal assessments by playing their sight word games with them, observing and making notes as they read a story from their workbook, or finding an empty minute or two when kids are waiting at the carpet or in line to get out my flashcards on a key ring and do a fast drill. This way, I can see if any students are struggling with a word, or just falling behind. If they are struggling, I can shift my teaching appropriately and wait to introduce more words until that student is ready.
Third, and perhaps most important, students get lots of fun practice with sight words.The days of writing the words over and over to memorize spelling is long gone. And good riddance! We build the sight words with letter tiles, trace the words in sand, use letter stamps to stamp the words on thin strips of paper that we turn into paper chains or bracelets. The ideas are endless. I also provide a lot of games that students can play together in groups. They play the Bang! game, memory, Candyland and other games.
And that's it! Keep sight words to a minimum, introduce them slowly and in an effective order, and giving kids lots of fun and interactive practice have been some of the best and easiest ways I have helped my classes learn their sight words!
Check out the sight words I use in Fetch Phonics with this freebie! My good friend Lydia from Green Urban Creative made these adorable flashcards with all the sight words in the Fetch Phonics curriculum. They're perfect for making a game of sight word memory, or a keyring of flashcards.