I am known for doing a word per week at the beginning of the year and later on move to two or more per week. As most of my readers know, I teach in one of the poorest schools in my district and because of the high-mobility of our student population, we take the time to focus on one word and one letter per week during the first half of the school year. However, I know that not all opportunities are created equal for children (and adults), therefore many of you are teaching many words at once. So, I will talk about both options and other activities that can be used to help your kiddos know those sight words.
Why Sight Words?
First of all, sight words have received a lot of flack lately and it’s not because they’re stupid. It’s because so many of us are doing it wrong. To help with fluency, writing, reading, creating, and more, we need to know some of those tough words by sight. So when I first introduce a sight word, I remind my kids that it’s called a “sight word” because we have to know it by sight. If it were easy to sound out, then we wouldn’t need to call it a sight word (even though we do all the time). The ones that we call “sight words” that are easy to sound out, can be referred to as “high frequency words.” We don’t want a child to sound out “a-n-d” each time that he or she comes across the word. We see it so frequently that we need the child to know it by sight. So, call them what you want, but at the end of the day, if our students are being tested on comprehension and fluency, then we need to make it easier for them to achieve said goals. And your kiddos will do that by knowing and practicing these words throughout the school year.
Ask yourself, ‘Why am I teaching sight words?’ Is it because you always have? Is it part of your curriculum? What are the end-of-year goals for your kiddos? Some schools actually test how many sight words a child can read. Others, like mine, do not test on sight words at all, yet they are part of our learning targets. Whatever the reason, move forward with purpose. We aren’t raising robots, so make certain that you’re teaching more than memorization and make certain that you students know why they are learning sight words. . . This is the secret.
Once your children have mastered the words on your list, it will help to increase reading fluency, sentence writing, comprehension, and more! So, let’s talk about some fun ways to achieve those goals.
Setting It Up
{all links are amazon affiliate or a link to the actual product in my store}
Your kids need to do more than trace the word to know it. They need to see it, hear it/spell it, say it, read it, and write it. Repeat.
See It:
First of all, I wear it. When my kids are coming in, going to recess, getting a drink, etc. I’ll say, “read it.” As they are on their way to do any of the aforementioned, they read the word out loud. *I also wear the letter that we are working on (kids read it and say the sound or a word that begins with that letter).
I post my sight words on clouds. I laminated my words onto clouds a few years ago and now I just hang them up each year using this adhesive onto CLOUDS fadeless paper. Before I hang the word onto our wall, I have it on our Morning Meeting board for the week. We see it and say it as part of our morning routine.
The two pictures below are directly from the product, but give a a real-life visual of what I’m describing.
We also do this activity at least a couple of times per week to have an action or movement involved in our learning:
Hear It/Spell It:
It is so important that we are not only pointing out our sight words while reading, but taking time to hear it in song. I introduce the song and we listen, and then the kiddos sing it and move with it. If there isn’t a great song, we just make one up. If you follow my Youtube channel, you know that we can get very creative. 🙂
Here is one of my favorite sight word videos because the kids freak out when she says “underwear”, but anything Heidi Songs will work!
And when we just need a mega sight word review, we sing this one:
Say It:
Not only are the kids having myriad opportunities to say the word that he or she is working on, like mentioned above, but students say it while working at stations/small groups, too. Now, I work almost exclusively in small groups and the independent groups look different than my group. During my small group we try to always do something hands-on. Whether we are writing in sand, shaving cream, playing Around the World, etc., the kids are saying the word as they see it and move with it.
I could have sworn that I had a video of the kids playing Around the World, Sand Writing, and making words with cookies. I don’t, so let me explain. . .
Around the Word: One child stands behind another who is sitting at your small group. You then flash a sight word on a note card and whomever reads it the fastest moves on to the next child. If the standing child wasn’t as fast, he or she sits in the chair of the student who is faster. The other kids at the table watch until it is his or her turn. Make sense? I do this with letter sounds, dot patterns, and more!
Sand Writing: I literally grabbed large, square trays from the Dollar Tree and this sand:
I pour it onto the trays and either tell the kids what to write (as I watch and assess) or give them cards with our sight words. They then write in the sand and say the letters/words as they write. At the end, I dump the sand back into a container and reuse as needed. It’s actually not that messy. 🙂
Words With Cookies:
Yes, it’s that easy. I grab these bad boys from the Dollar Tree and literally have the kids create sight words and at the end they can eat a word. It is just so simple and the kids say, “You’re the best teacher!” when it’s over. Ha!
Read It:
I have an independent reading station. Students choose whatever books they want and read to self or read to someone. They HAVE to find their word at least once and read it to a buddy, then they can continue reading whatever they wish. This ends up being a fun challenge and at Closing Circle, I call on kids to share how many times he or she found the word of the week. Sometimes they begin lying like crazy, like, “76.” Ok. Whatever. As long as you found it. Ha ha!
Write It:
This really encompasses all of the aforementioned because the kids have to trace or write the word and then say it out loud before they do it again. It sounds a little robotic, but it’s a great habit to form. My first year, I would have kids doing word work like this and at the end of the week, they just knew how to do the worksheet and not actually read the word.
Now, as I mentioned, in my group, we are doing activities that I can assess while doing. However, my independent groups are not just independent. At the end, we have Closing Period so that I can see exactly what was going on (or not) in those groups. It is at this point that I look at the work that was done and take a picture of the best one- I swear this is a reward in itself. The kids love to be chosen and I make certain that even if it isn’t the best, quality work, if they tried super hard, I make sure to choose him or her that day.
*LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES*
I used to introduce the Word of the Week activities whole group and then send them off to complete in independent groups. I realized that the kids were not doing the assignment with purpose. They were just doing it. Therefore, I explicitly teach each of the 5-day activities in my small group for the first couple of weeks or so. I model quality work, the importance of saying the word after we trace or write it, and what to do when we are done and have extra time (sentences or writing the word on the back). This has made a huge difference not only for my sanity, but for the students’ comprehension skills.
Here are some options for getting the word work resource that I have above:
When working on other writing, we use our monthly journals. I just love the different stages of journaling!
Now, don’t feel overwhelmed. I don’t do all the things all the time. However, I need to spice things up a bit from time to time, and I will refer back to this post when I do. 🙂
I sincerely hope that you were able to grab some ideas from this post. Never hesitate to contact me with questions!
Would you like to see more SIGHT WORD / WORD WORK IDEAS? Check out these blog posts by clicking an image below:
Leave a Reply