9 Strategies for Teaching and Practicing Sight Words

Building a solid sight word vocabulary is essential for early reading success. Learning sight words enables young readers to focus their cognitive energy on decoding unfamiliar words and understanding the meaning of sentences rather than repeatedly stumbling over high-frequency terms.

A sight word is any word that can be recognized instantly, as if by sight.

To help students gain automaticity and fluency with sight words, provide multiple opportunities for them to practice reading and writing the words in isolation and in continuous text. After teaching a new sight word, choose books for students to read that contain the new sight word. Craft dictated sentences to allow students to practice writing their new sight word.

With consistent practice and engaging strategies, students can master sight words with confidence to build a strong foundation for lifelong literacy success.

Activities for Teaching Sight Words

These effective strategies combine multimodal activities, differentiation for diverse learners, and tools to engage students both in the classroom and at home.

TIP: Use sight word cards from the Sight Word Box Set or write sight words on index cards.

Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping

1. Choose a new sight word to teach that students will encounter in their current book.
2. Say the new sight word and have students repeat it.
3. Say the word again as you hold up your fingers and count the sounds in the word.
4. Draw a line on the whiteboard for each sound (not each letter) in the word.
5. Write the letters that spell each sound on the lines.
6. Direct students’ attention to any irregular spellings.

What’s Missing?

1. Begin by erasing one letter or letter cluster at a time from your whiteboard where you mapped the letters and sounds in the above activity. Each time, ask students, What’s missing?
2. Write in the missing letter or letter cluster.
3. Repeat the process a few times.
4. Conclude by erasing all the letters and having students identify the letters missing in the correct order to spell the word.

Mix and Fix

1. Pass out magnetic letter trays or use the digital letter tray on Digital Reader.
2. Have students remove the letters to make the new sight word.
3. Then have them mix up the letters and remake and read the word.
4. Repeat step 3 a couple of times. This activity helps reinforce orthographic mapping.

Write and Retrieve

1. Pass out a dry-erase board and a dry-erase marker to each student.
2. Have students write the new sight word.
3. Then have students erase the new sight word and write a different sight word that was previously taught. This should be a word students know well.
4. Finally, have students write the new sight word again.

 

Sight Word Smash

Spread some sight word cards out on the floor. Call out a word and have your student toss a beanbag or small stuffed toy at the correct card.

Spot the Sight Word

Tape some of the sight word cards to the wall or spread them out on the floor. Dim the light. Shine a flashlight on a word and have your student read it.

 

Sight Words Tic-Tac-Toe

This game is like traditional tic-tac-toe, but players use a sight word as their “marker” instead of X or O. 

1. Download the Sight Words Tic-Tac-Toe Board. 
2. Determine a sight word for each player to use and have them write it in their box at the top of the board. Make sure the word is written correctly. 
3. Decide who will go first. As you begin to play, have each player read the sight word after they write it in their chosen tic-tac-toe box.
4. Remind students to check their spelling each time against the correct spelling from their box at the top of the board. 
5. The first person to get three words in a row wins.

Sight Words Memory Game

1. Choose five to ten sight words.
2. Gather two of each of the chosen sight words from the Sight Words Box Set. 
3. Place all the cards facedown.
4. Have students take turns picking up two cards and reading both words to see if they match. 
5. If they match, the player gets to keep the pair and take another turn. If they don’t match, have the student turn the cards back over, and the next player takes their turn. 
6. The player with the most pairs wins.

 

Jump to Read Sight Words

This is an outdoor activity based on hopscotch, but instead of a number, each box contains a sight word. Draw a hopscotch pattern on a sidewalk or driveway and write one sight word in each box. Have your child or student jump from word to word and call out each sight word as they land on it.
 

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These teaching strategies integrate movement, memory, and phonics to make learning sight words effective and engaging. Adapt them to fit the needs of your students and encourage practice in varied settings for maximum fluency growth! For more detailed demonstrations, check out this helpful video.