What Are the Sight Words and How to Teach Kindergarten Sight Words

Building up a large base of words starts in childhood. When kids master sight words, it helps them become faster, and more fluent readers. But what are these words, why are they so important, and how to teach them in an interesting way? You can get all the answers below.

What Are The Sight Words?

The words that appear most frequently in our reading and writing are sight words. These are common words that children instinctively identify without having to sound them out. Usually, there isn't a physical image to go along with these words. They might not be able to be visualized, thus they must instead just be remembered and comprehended. 

Kids are more likely to read a text with confidence if they are able to quickly recognize these sight words. They are better able to comprehend the content and read more fluently, and they stumble over words less. Learning sight words is the beginning of child`s speech development, that`s why they are so important.

Word study is a common feature of kindergarten reading programs. Usually, their basis is to emphasize reading and writing high-frequency words. After researching, we suggest a list of these words that a child should read by the end of kindergarten.

By the end of kindergarten, most kids are familiar with 50 sight words. However, it's always beneficial to study more. Try adding extra words to your child's sight word list if they are confident with at least 50. Be careful that trying to study too many things at once may harm rather than help.

But you should recognize that this is a theory, and a theory without the right practical approach is just only 50% of success, so it`s important to understand what sight words are, as well as understand which activities, games, and videos are best to use to teach kids.

Activities That Help To Teach Kindergarten Sight Words

1. Reading every day

That's right, read aloud to your child or together with your kid as often as you can to help them practice sight words. When learning all the phrases that kids need to know, repetition is one of the keys. Those they are learning will stay fresh in their minds if they are practiced, and words they have previously learned will help them feel more confident if they are practiced!

If you are limited in time, you can pick special days for reading, and practice during calendar time so it will be a part of your routine.

While reading it`d be better to highlight sight words adding motions to create sensory meaning.

2. Make the process fun

To make the learning process interesting and fun, you should keep creativity and engagement alive and well! Don`t forget about games, videos, and flashcards, all of these create a curious atmosphere, that engages kids to learn.

Some game ideas, that your children will like:

1) building sight words with ABC cubes;

2) popsicle stick puzzles with sight words (write the full word across 2 sticks and the students match them);

3) writing words on the salt or sand;

4) practice on the dry-erase board, kids love writing with different writing tools.

5) print words and make a chain with them or even a keychain.

There are a lot of useful video materials on YouTube. Children can learn words through engaging characters, entertaining songs, and fun practice. Words are presented in context to help build reading comprehension.

And don’t forget about flashcards. They are great speech therapy materials and toys for home, kindergarten, and school learning. Flashcards’ biggest plus is they can be used across multiple occasions for hours of educational fun while improving verbal communication, expressive language skills, receptive language skills, social pragmatic skills, and proper sequencing.

Also, there are a lot of types of flashcard games, and if you play with your kids using Sequence Cards, rather than ABC Cards, they will be pleasantly surprised. Thanks to their curiosity about something new, they will plunge into the process of learning sight words.

QUOKKA`s Bestsellers In Speech Therapy Toys:

 

• ABC LEARNING FOR TODDLERS: each side of letter flashcards for toddlers has kids' logical games.
• ELABORATED SIZE & DETAILS: our flashcards for toddlers are easy to see and understand at a distance. Large fonts, and clear illustrations, help aid visual development and set the right mood for communication with our bright picture cards.
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• TODDLER FLASH CARDS: Easy to wipe clean using a damp cloth, rounded non-sharp-corners are safe to be used. This learning speech therapy toy is easy to store, carry and play with at any time.

 

• UNIQUE SPEECH THERAPY MATERIALS ARTICULATION: you get 150 social skills cards, and every 5 cards are combined logically into one common story. In total kids' speech therapy games includes 30 interesting stories and will interesting for your kids.
• SOCIAL EMOTIONAL GAMES: with toddler speech therapy your child improves the understanding of different emotions and reactions and develops logical and critical thinking. Spend fun time playing picture cards for toddlers' speech therapy.
• STORY GAMES: in the communication cards for kids all the stories are formed into 3 groups and each group has 10 stories. Our autism sensory toys are made of high-quality material. Time to play family stories, preschool stories, and friends stories.
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• AMAZING GIFT: exciting toys for children with autism are a useful gift for the New Year, Birthday, and other holidays. Sequencing cards for speech therapy help your child get rid of language barriers and develop fine motor skills.

Let your child learn through playtime! 

3. Encourage teachers and family members to stay connected

All learning requires effective communication, but it's crucial when teaching children hundreds of words. Try to keep in touch with your teachers. If a student is having trouble with sight words, contact the teachers so that you can work together to find the best solution. Provide methods and suggestions that can be used at home to assist.

Family members can all participate in learning sight words together, spreading out the learning load. Doing together homework, practicing flashcards, and playing games, like circle sight words in magazines or newspapers- all these help your kid to learn, have fun, and communicate with other people.

Conclusion

Sight words make up over 70% of the words in texts. That’s why we should teach kids to identify them! And now you know useful steps on how to learn sight words with your kid. Each step is equally important! 

Discover QUOKKA speech therapy toys. From developmental milestones to educational fun, there are toys that will help them explore and grow faster.