Sight words are a fundamental part of helping our students learn to read. No matter how much we teach phonics and reading strategies, there will always be exceptions. Those exceptions make up our sight word lists; words our students can’t read using the phonics rules and reading strategies. Help your students learn to recognize these words by providing them with fun and engaging sight word activities.
Sight Words vs. High Frequency Words
As teachers we hear about sight words, but then we see a list with a word like ‘and’ on it and think – that word follows the phonetic rules. Is that really a sight word?
There are actually two types of words we want to teach our students to read by sight – those that don’t follow the rules (a.k.a. sight words) and those that appear the most often (a.k.a. high frequency words). Since both are a focus of reading instruction, the term ‘sight words’ is often used to describe both.
By teaching our students to recognize both sight words and high frequency words we are helping them with both reading comprehension and reading fluency.
Reading and Spelling Go Hand in Hand
As our students learn to read these important words, we want them to have a quick identification of the word. To help get to this point, I’ve found that working on both reading and spelling simultaneously is very effective.
Reading and spelling are opposite actions. Just like addition and subtraction, we can use one to help us learn the other. By working on both reading and spelling, we are able to help students build the connection between reading and writing. Not only does this help students master reading and increase reading fluency, but it also gives them a solid writing foundation.
Making Sight Words Fun
As with anything that needs some good old memorization, making the activities fun and engaging is so important. Gone are the days of flashcards and rote memorization. {Thank you technology!} We now have so many options for ways to make memorization and repetition fun for our students.
Neuroscience has made it clear that repeated exposure or repetition is a key part in learning or memorizing. While some things that are of high interest might take only a few repetitions, it takes on average 20-30 repetitions to memorize or learn something new. For something difficult, or struggling students, this number could be as high as 100!
As primary teachers, I feel like we do this naturally. We review the alphabet daily, we count to 100 daily, we read sight words daily. It is these practices and repetitions that help our students learn the fundamental skills.
Digital Sight Word Practice
I wanted to come up with a new sight word practice activity that included all of the things I know are important to sight word instruction. A fun and engaging activity that focused on sight words, incorporated both reading and spelling, and lots of repetition. The result is these digital sight word practice activities for Fry’s First 100 Words.
Each sight word includes 10 activities that help students focus on reading and spelling the target word. Through these 10 activities, students will have 29 opportunities to read or spell the word. That’s a lot of repetitions!
With the interactive, game-like feel, students love completing the activities. The digital component adds instant engagement. Students love working on the tablet or computer to complete the activities. And as a bonus – they get to work on important technology skills too!
You can find these fun digital sight word practice activities in the Emily Education store! The digital sight word bundle includes 100 sight words and high frequency words that are perfect for the primary classroom. This bundle will last you the entire school year. It will also make differentiating for the needs of your students quick and easy!
Need More Sight Word Practice?
We all know that repetition is am important part of our students learning their sight words. For this reason, I usually have multiple sight word center activities. Here’s some of the other resources I love to use to help my students master their sight words.
Save these Sight Word Activities
Pin this to your favorite classroom Pinterest board and save these sight word activities. Then, you can quickly and easily come back when you need these or other teaching ideas and resources.
