Sight Words
Along with phonics and decoding skills, sight words (also called "high frequency words") are the building blocks of a young reader's reading skills.
We try to help students memorize sight words (learning them "by sight") for two reasons:
- The words come up all the time. In fact, knowing the sight words will translate into a student being able to read a high proportion of most simple stories, books, etc.
- Sight words tend to be difficult to sound out. They tend not to follow the phonics rules (at least not the ones that we teach to beginning readers), so knowing words like "the" on sight really speeds the reading process.
To see how many sight words your student knows, have them read down the lists. Students should be able to read through lists quickly and easily. If they stop to sound words out or think, they need more practice.
Once you identify which list your student needs to work on (feel free to check off the words that he/she reads well), print out the flashcards and get to work practicing!