Creative sight word activities

There’s a lot of talk in the early elementary years about the importance of children learning their sight words.

But what exactly are sight words?

In truth, we use the term “sight words” to refer to two different types of words we want kids to learn to read.

First are words used so frequently in our language that we want kids to know them “by sight” so they will be able to read more fluently. Many of these words – like ‘and,’ ‘it,’ ‘his,’ ‘be,’ and ‘she’ – can be sounded out, but will be read more quickly if a child knows them by sight.

Second are words that are difficult to decode phonetically – words like ‘come,’ ‘have,’ ‘the,’ ‘been,’ and ‘know.’ Because these words are not easily decoded using the rules of English, children need to learn to read them by sight alone.

But how do we teach sight words?

Below I’ve compiled some creative sight word activities you can try to help your children learn their sight words.

Note: You can find more ideas for supporting children’s early reading skills on my literacy activities for kids page.

20 fun and creative ideas for teaching kids to read sight words. Learning to read has never been so much fun! #sightwords #languagearts #literacy #reading #giftofcuriosity || Gift of Curiosity

Wondering what sight words you should teach?

Many educators use the Dolch Sight Words as a reference list. The Dolch Sight Words list were developed in the 1930s and ’40s by Dr. Edward Dolch. The words on his list comprise 80% of the words you will find in a typical children’s book and about 50% of the words used in writing for adults.

The Dolch words are divided by grade level, so you can find the words appropriate for your child to learn at each age.

The Fry Sight Words is a more updated list, updated in the 1980s, to capture the 1000 most common words. These 1000 words make up about 90% of the words children will encounter in a typical book, website, or newspaper.