These are usually small and easily spotted, but the spelling of these words is usually not straightforward in regards to how they sound. These are words like ‘a’, ‘I’, ‘or’, ‘and’, ‘the’, ‘but’, ‘then’ and so on. There happens to be a handful (about 100) of words that make up more than fifty-percent of text that young children begin to read. Having a stockpile of sight words ready, helps children read better and become more confident in the language so that it can be readily deployed in the service of reading. If students face difficulty with sight words, it is more than likely that they will be frustrated and less interested in decoding other words in the text, like those that follow a certain rule or have complex spellings. This is why educators recommend that children should be able to immediately spot these words so that their time and efforts can be spent decoding other, tougher words in that text. The reason sight words should be taught early, as and when the child is ready for this next part in grammar, is because they appear so frequently and make up a significant amount of all text. Why Kids Should Befriend Sight Words At An Early Age They are eventually able to read with more fluency, better comprehend the meaning of the text, and make it less likely for them to get tripped over by such words in their reading. What this does is that by easily recognizing these words, kids are more likely to approach their text with a lot more confidence. Given how frequently these words are encountered, children need to be able to read, recognize, and understand them on the dot, upon seeing them. How does one draw ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘of’, and ‘the’? We are not able to picture them, and as such, the method that must be followed for these words is that these should be memorized and understood. Since these words don’t have a defined dictionary meaning, using them in sentences is the best way to infer their meanings.Īnother problem that is often associated with teaching these words to young children is that they do not have a concrete image that accompanies them. These activities are also great for making the child understand the meaning of words like ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘of’, ‘this’, ‘that’, etc. They also teach the child some commonly used words in the English language and how to use them in sentences. Sight words activities answer precisely these questions. Before you teach alphabets and how to make words using them, it’s more important to help the child understand – what is the purpose of alphabets? What are words? What do reading and writing even mean? What are some examples of words? To many parents’ surprise, the first step is learning how to ‘sight’ words.
One might expect that the first step would be to begin with joining alphabets and learning phonetics. However, a child’s journey to perfection and accuracy does not begin with such ideals but actually with a very crude understanding of the language. You might ask yourself, what is it that distinguishes a meaningful sentence from a mere cluster of words that somehow communicate what needs to be said? The answer - a beautifully structured sentence that makes complete sense and features a proper arrangement of verbs, adjectives, nouns, and pronouns, along with accurate grammar. I worry that without this explicit teaching, students will lose some of the value that goes along with it.Once children have learned all their alphabets, colors, names of various household items, and their favorite cereal type, it’s about time that they learn how to form simple sentences and convey their thoughts meaningfully. I am struggling with how to move towards this system, only because when I teach my sight words each week (we do 3 per week), we practice using that word in sentences as whole class, learn a fun song to help remember it, and look for any special phonics chunks to help the children figure the word out more easily.
I am really interested in this product! I have a few questions for you.ĭo you ever explicitly teach any of these words whole group, or do students just all start with the first list and move at their own pace by practicing on their own?