Teach Kids Sight Words in an Easy and Fun Way

Did you know that more than 75 percent of the average children’s book is made of sight words? It’s an actual fact shared on Readandspell, which also says sight words are sometimes referred to as Dolch words. Edward William Dolch was a man who first assembled a list of sight words in 1948 while working at the University of Illinois. To make this list, Dolch went through children’s books to find out the most common words written in them. So, it’s pretty evident that sight words, or high-frequency words, are essential for kids to learn. Therefore, teaching children sight words will undoubtedly increase their reading fluency and comprehension.

How to teach kids sight words

Tips for teaching sight words

There are many ways in which you can make learning sight words easier for kids. I will share a few excellent ideas from Sightwords for you.

Sight words practicing techniques

See and Say
Grab some flashcards and let kids speak words and say them while underlining them with their fingers.

Spell Reading
Kids should read the word and spell out the letters, then repeat the word again.

Arm Tapping
Kids look at the word, then spell the letters out while tapping them on their arms. Then, they repeat the word again.

Air Writing
Once kids speak the word, they write the letters in the air.

Table Writing
Kids write letters on a table, once looking at the flashcard and the second time without looking.

These five techniques are fantastic because they activate several parts of your kids’ brains, while repetitions work to cement words into their long-term memory.

Here is another technique o helping kids learn sight words in an easy and straightforward to do every day:

For example, you can teach kids by simply looking for sight words in books with them. As already mentioned, it’s all about exposure and repetition. Showing children words and talking about the terms works much better for their retention than giving them a mere list of words.