My oldest is interested in reading and I wanted to start teaching her sight words. I don't want to just drill her with flash cards, I want it to be fun. Any ideas?
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Look on amazon for a game called Pop for Sight Words.
We also have a game called Cheese Dip.
Another option is DK Silly Sentences, they're cards (with pictures) that you string together. We also have some Learning Journey sets that are self correcting puzzles.
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@Bao: we started with a few cards and then played little games with them. We did one where the cards are out and I say the word and he has to slap the correct one (or even better slap the card with a fly swatter- there areblank bug cards you can print online for free). Then we made silly sentences with them. You can play sight word bingo. Honestly his favorite game is just drill the cards but he gets a blueberry every time he gets one right.
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Post it notes on the door/mirror/wall. We would work on resorting them by matching first letter, rhyming, last letter, etc.
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My 3.5 year old gets a site work every week at school, and I just start pointing that word out during our story times and then letting her read that work while I point during story time. We just started, so she only has 3 words now (my, is, and go) but those words come up a fair amount in bed time stories, so she seems to have already internalized them.
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I just look for opportunities when we are hanging out. He is often interested in the words on the cover of a book, for instance. So we will read the letters together and say the word a few times.
Does anyone know if there long term cognitive value in learning sight words? Or does it just encourage interest in reading?
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I did the post it notes thing.
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For those of you that do post its, do you do the actual sight words from the high frequency lists, or are you naming objects? My understanding is that sight words are ones that appear often in text, are sometimes not able to be sounded out, and often not objects...words such as so, of, can, an, etc.
I am curious because my son consistently confuses me and my, and am looking for ways to help him on that pairing.
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@looch: would word families work for him? We have been working on word families and we have LO tell us as many words as possible with a word ending.
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@looch: thanks for the recommendations - I just checked out and ordered Pop for Sight Words. Looks like fun!
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@Bao: Before going full-bore with memorizing words, you might want to take a look at phonics. I think a lot of schools do a mixed approach--some phonics and some straight "whole word" memorization--but English is largely phonetic so starting with phonics will likely mean decoding and reading faster than starting with memorization of entire words. Some words that show up often are not phonetic, so those have to be memorized. But phonics gives you tools to figure out words that you've not seen before; memorizing entire words does not (necessarily--I think some children will internalize rules without having them pointed out, but I suspect that many won't).
@ElbieKay: I think memorization is a worthwhile thing to practice, but if you're going to have a child spend time memorizing words, I'd memorize them in a context that's independently meaningful. A passage from a good book or a poem would be far better than a vocab list, in my opinion. (This is what we do. My son's 6, however. I don't think I'd have a child who was younger than 5 memorize anything that they didn't spontaneously select and learn on their own.)
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@MamaG: I will have to look into it, thanks for the suggestion.
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@looch: We did actual sight words. The That And He She etc.
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@honeybear: I'll check it out, thanks for the tip!
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One thing my 4 yo likes to do is find words after reading a book. We've just started though, so I'm following looking for ideas!
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@ElbieKay: As a reading teacher I always advocate a mixed approach. Understanding how to decode a word (phonics, syllables, word families etc.) is the key to continued reading success. However, there are certain words in the English language that you simply cannot sound out as they don't follow the rules. Those have to be taught as site words. Also smaller words that are extremely frequent can be taught as site words because those allow the reader to move more fluently through a text (like, see, me)
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@honeybear: @travellingbee: Thanks! I am not really focused on this since my son is a week away from turning 3yo. But he loves books and knows his letters and seems to sort of understand that letters add up to words. Sometimes he tries to identify the letters in a word, especially on the cover of a book. I *really* don't want to pressure him but I also want to encourage him if he shows an interest.
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@ElbieKay: I would definitely start with short Decodable words. Like cat, mom, hot, pin... you want him to get the idea that sounds are put together to make words. That's the most important part. So you can start building some short words with letters together
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Zingo is a fun non-risk sight word game. You can always make sight words on index cards and then "flash" them quickly for fast identification. Sight words are just that--typical high frequency words that are commonly seen in text. It's just as important to practice writing them as it is to identify--you could do shaving cream on a table, magna doodle, sand or salt tray.
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I would stick with reading lots of books. She'll still pick up all the words. My son learned all of his sight words this way but also understood that you have to sound out others...
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@matador84: good point on writing them, thank you!
@Mrs Green Grass: how old was he when he was learning them? Just curious!
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@Bao: he's just 4 now, so 3. He was born in oct 2012...due Jan 2013.
He started with recognizing store signs which is a form of literacy so he understood symbols mean things. Then we just read a ton. I typically stop at certain words and have him say them, but I don't push it if he doesn't want to.
My fave books for this were/are Little Blue Truck since all of the animal sounds are different colors from the rest of the text. Also Elephant and Piggie because they change the size of the words, etc. to show inflection. Also The Book With No pictures because of all of the silly words. He really picked the sight words up along the way...
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@Mrs Green Grass: That's awesome! Smart little guy.
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I agree with @Mrs Green Grass 's suggestion of reading lots of books! Up until DD started reading on her own, we probably read to her 10-15x a day. By 3 she had pretty much memorized most of the stories but that also helped her with word recognition. The Elephant and Piggie and Pigeon series books were great for that.
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