For some reason, over the years, we have convinced ourselves that because sight words cannot be phonetically sounded out, they should only be taught in an isolated manner. But in the same way that we wouldn’t expect our students to master a list of vocabulary words on the topic of landforms, without first showing them what the words mean and how they are used, we shouldn’t be doing this with sight words either. We know sight word recognition requires consistent, repetitive practice of the word over and over again. It’s not enough for us to just say the word and use it in a sentence, we need our students to read the word within a sentence. When we fail to teach sight words within the context of real text, we fail to show students the purpose and the importance of the very words we want them to master so badly. What went wrong in my little scenario above? I believe there was a very important piece of the puzzle missing from instruction when those five sight words were introduced. Sound familiar? We Grow From Mistakes Not From Success
We wrote it with our magic fingers in the sky. “We even wrote the word in shaving cream. The student skips the word as she whisper reads at the table. On page three, one of the words the teacher just went over is written as plain as day on the page. Those same students are reading a book at the guided reading table. On Thursday, they are reading all five words quickly! Sight Word Success! …right?įlash forward a week later. On Tuesday, maybe the students can only recognize two of the five words. Every day, the hope is that the students can read the words faster than the day before. Over the course of that week, the students will gather at the small group table, and the teacher will continue to flash the same word cards over and over again to the students. The teacher (and possibly the students) may even write it down several times. The students may read the word and echo it back to her several times. She flashes each word card to the class, reads the word, and uses it in a sentence. It’s time for the day’s reading lesson, and more specifically, it’s “time to teach sight words.” The teacher pulls out his or her pile of flashcards and gets ready to explicitly teach this week’s three to five words that the students will focus on. (I can make that bold statement, because in the past, I have made this same mistake, too.) Let me paint a picture for you of a very typical Monday in a primary classroom. Have you heard this quote before? We can apply it to students who struggle with sight words just as much as we can apply it to our daily lives. Let’s start off by discussing one of the biggest mistakes I see teachers make while introducing and teaching sight words within the primary classroom.
#Pocket flash cards sight words real objects how to
We will learn how to introduce sight words, how to play with sight words, and how to practice sight words. We’ll chat about what we currently do, why it may not be working, and solutions to move students forward.
Now, before I go on, it’s important to note that there can be many, many, many reasons why certain students struggle with sight words more than others. This post focuses on one of those possible reasons (a very important reason, in my opinion). In this blog post, I’m going to share the importance of teaching sight words within context, and why it can sometimes be the difference between a student who masters his sight words, and one who does not. So why do we still have students who stare at us blankly when they come to a sight word that we know they know while reading a book? Since I have gotten to know you, my readers, pretty well over the past six years, I can even confidently assume we are all teaching sight words on a daily basis within our classrooms. Clearly, we know sight words are a core part of our literacy instruction as teachers. In addition, the child also frees up time and energy to focus on the text’s meaning, resulting in increased comprehension and prosodic reading (intonation, phrasing, and expression). When sight words can be read automatically, students can spend more time on decodable text and phonetic patterns, therefore increasing fluency skills. Sight word recognition improves both fluency and comprehension. Since sight words make up 50%-75% of all text, we know that being able to recognize and read sight words quickly and effortlessly is a critical skill for life-long readers. In fact, most teachers can think of several students whose sight word recognition skills have taken a toll on his or her overall reading success. If you are a primary teacher, you can probably think of a student in your classroom who struggles with sight word identification.
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