Word Work Wednesday Linky

My friend Maggie over at Maggie's Kinder Corner is hosting an ongoing weekly linky party for Word Work Wednesdays! I'm joining it today to talk about sight words!

There are tons of different opinions on how many sight words to teach, in what order, when to start teaching them etc. Personally, I believe that students need to know all of their letters and sounds before starting on sight words. There just isn't enough visual dissimilarity between a lot of sight words for students to correctly memorize them without having letter recognition.

Once students are ready for sight words, I find that they learn best with their peers. A few students are motivated enough to learn sight words from a list at home, but those are not the majority. The rest need lots of playful repetition - through songs, chants and games.

YouTube has a ton of sight word videos - its just a matter of finding ones with the words you need.

HeidiSongs and Dolch Dogs are also good resources for sight word songs!

Once of my students' favorite games to play with sight words is always Hide N Seek. You can play this with practically any concept, so once they know how to play, I just change out the cards throughout the year and they practice that skill, or a new skill, without me having to spend more time teaching game play!

The basic premise is super simple - the sight word cards are arranged in a pocket chart, face up. One student hides a small picture behind a card while the other students close their eyes. Then they have to "find" the small picture by guessing which card it is hidden behind. They can't just point, they have to read the word or the Hider won't turn the card around. Since this can be played in small group, there is always someone who can reinforce a word or correct a misread word. And I make multiple picture pieces so that game play can be extended - if they have to find all 3 pictures they generally read a ton of words before they find them all!

Generally, I  group together students who are within a few Dolch Word Lists of each other. I use the Dolch Word Lists because there are so many resources for it, as compared to the sight word list my school uses. The two word lists have almost exactly the same words, except in different order, so if students master the Dolch Word Lists, they can generally read all the other sight word lists out there!

I've created many different themed sets of Sight Word Games. Each time I change out the cards, my students act like its a totally new game and enthusiasm revs up! Here are some of the different theme I have - check out my TPT store for more!

Playing games, watching videos and singing chants helps my students learn the sight words in ways that are engaging and fun! Plus, I don't have a ton of worksheets to grade or papers to copy! Just create the game and let them play!When I do my required sight word assessments, I always see growth, so I can justify letting my students play games rather than tracing worksheets!

I hope that gave you a few ideas for making learning sight words more fun for your students! Head on over to the linky to see what other bloggers are talking about for Word Work Wednesday!