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Introduction:

As a first grade teacher, one of the more difficult parts of my job is teaching young children how to read.  The purpose of this study is to describe the importance of sight word recognition, learn about and apply new strategies to help teach sight word recognition, and to make the connection between sight word recognition and reading fluency so that I can help my students become better readers. “Becoming a teacher researcher means making a commitment to continually reflect on the way things are in our classrooms and schools and striving to learn what we can do to make them better” (Mills, 2000, p. 232).  This area of focus (sight word recognition) satisfies my central tenets of action research in that it involves teaching and
learning, not just for the participants, but mainly for me as the teacher researcher.  It is something that I feel passionate about and it is something I would like to change or improve.  As I was analyzing and synthesizing my articles that contribute to my action research topic, I noticed three common themes or ideas: the importance of sight word recognition (benefits of teaching sight words, effective strategies for teaching sight words, and the connection between sight word recognition and other basic reading skills (fluency, accuracy, and comprehension).

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Conclusion:

As currently planned, my study seeks to replicate the work of all these teacher researchers and determine what strategies would be the best to incorporate into my daily teaching routine.  My study will explore reasons why students are very slowly progressing in their knowledge sight word
recognition and why students struggle with such basic words. The purpose of this study is to describe the importance of sight word recognition, learn about and apply new strategies to help teach sight word recognition, and to make the between sight word recognition and reading fluency (also other basic reading skills such as accuracy and reading comprehension) so that I can help my students become better readers.

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Common Theme #3:

Being a teacher that teaches young children how to read, I have definitely noticed the connection between sight word recognition and fluency, which brings me to my third common theme.  Sight word recognition is a very important factor that affects a child’s ability to read fluently and accurately.  Timothy Rasinski defines fluency as “the ability to read quickly and accurately, with appropriate and
meaningful expression” (2003, p. 15).  If a reader struggles with sight word recognition, his or her other basic skills
are going to be impacted, like fluency, accuracy, and comprehension.  John Pikulski and David Chard discuss in
their article about how they believe that fluency is a bridge between decoding and reading comprehension (2005, p. 510). Students are going to struggle with their comprehension skills if they are not a fluent reader, because they are so focused on the words that they are not understanding the meaning of the text.  Timothy Rasinski lays out three keys to effective fluency instruction: modeling fluent reading for students, having students practice reading, and supporting students while they read by reading with students (2003, p. 16).  Teachers can use those same three keys too effectively teach sight word recognition to students.  Ultimately, we as teachers,
want to see our students increase their sight word recognition and develop greater precision to give the readers a better opportunity to concentrate on
comprehension rather than decoding (Turner, 2010, p. 112).  Sight word recognition instruction and fluency instruction should be incorporated into a regular teaching
routine.  According to Rasinski fluency instruction needs to be fun, engaging, and meaningful for all students (2003,
p. 17).

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Common Theme #2:

The next common theme that was portrayed throughout my articles was many different ways or strategies to teach sight word recognition. According to Murgurussa (2012), “fifty percent of our written material is made up of sight words” (Weblog, p. 1).  I would say that sight words are a necessary and crucial aspect of the reading curriculum.  So how do teachers teach sight word recognition?  In Murgurussa’s (2012) weblog she shares some teaching strategies that she uses in her kindergarten classroom.  Teaching sight words through the use of music has seemed to be effective way to teach sight words to young children.  Word walls are a great resource
in the classroom.  Murgurussa says that “just having a word wall is not enough – students need to be taught how to use the wall” (2012, Weblog, p. 2).  Word walls are designed to support the teaching of words and the teaching of how words “work” (Hilden and Jones, 2012, p 9). Word walls should assist students in building at-glance, on sight recognition of words (Hilden and Jones, 2012, p 9).  A teacher can also teach sight word
recognition through playing games, writing, using manipulatives, and through actually reading (Murgurussa, 2012, p. 2).  By teaching sight words through songs, games, and the use of manipulatives makes learning
them easy and fun.  Blackwell and Laman (2013) talk about the more traditional sight word recognition strategies in their article.  Memorizing sight words through the use of flashcards has been widely accepted over the years and been proved to be effective (Blackwell and Laman, 2013, p. 38).  A picture supported teaching method utilizes pictures to help children understand words. Blackwell and Laman (2013) do discuss a technology based method that I found interesting (p. 39).  I have a Smart board, which is considered a technology aid available to me.  I use my Smart board on a daily basis, but not for sight word recognition.  So Blackwell and Laman’s (2013) article provided me some different ideas on how I can implement a technology based sight word recognition method into my reading instruction (p. 39).  Franklin Dickerson Turner (2010) says in his article that “the most effective way to help someone increase automatic word recognition is through increased exposure to connected written texts (p. 112).  Turner likes to teach his students to recognize sight words by a strategy called repeated reading.  Repeated reading is a “technique developed to assist unskilled readers in the acquisition of automatic decoding during reading of connected text” (Turner, 2010, p. 113).  The process begins with a student reading a short passage and the teacher conducting a running record.  Next, the student practices reading the same passage several times independently, after which they again read the passage aloud to their instructor until the pass and move up to the next level (Turner, 2010, p. 113).  Children who learn to read high frequency words by sight will increase their confidence and fluency in their reading.

One strategy that I found really interesting is the strategy of coaching. “Coaching is a highly effective instructional technique in which teachers craft instructional cues to enable students to apply their developing reading skills and knowledge of reading strategies as they attempt to complete a task” (Clark, 2004, p. 440). When coaching a teacher will use cues to prompt a specific action, this provides the reader with more detailed information and focus’ their attention on phonemic elements, word parts, and contextual support (Clark, 2004, p. 441).  Clark’s article gives many specific examples of coaching which is very helpful.  Coaching is a powerful technique that supports young readers as they problem solve during meaningful experiences and develop reading independence.  To go along with Clark’s research on the sight word strategy of coaching, Kathleen Brown’s (2003) research is all about word-recognition prompts and why they are so important.  I think that the title o Brown’s article is very catchy “What do I say when they get stuck on a word?” (2003, p. 720).  I have asked myself that
question many times as a first grade reading teacher. Brown’s research on prompts is very interesting.  I did not consciously realize how important word-recognition prompts are to beginning readers.  I could easily apply the coaching strategy and the prompting strategy into my daily guided reading groups.  Even my most advanced readers make oral reading errors when reading at their instructional level.  I could respond to my students with assistance in the form of a prompt.

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Common Theme #1:

The purpose of reading is to construct meaning from text. This “meaning” is dependent on the rapid, automatic, and effortless recognition of words.  Sight word recognition is extremely important to development of beginning reading skills. The importance of sight word recognition is the first common theme I noticed when analyzing and synthesizing my articles.  Sight word instruction is one of the best uses of time teachers and parents can spend helping their children learn to read. According to Joelle Brummit (2012), “sight words are confidence builders” (Online Article, p.1).  The importance of building confidence in young readers is a necessary psychological condition.  What can teachers do to build confidence in reading?  Teachers can give their students any positive experience that allows their students to feel successful while reading ( Manning, 2006, p. 84). Building confidence in young readers is not about awarding points, winning prizes, or getting stickers.  According to Manning (2006), it is about having a feeling of accomplishment that is intrinsic (p. 84).  To build confidence in young readers teachers also need to create accepting classroom environments, use authentic assessments, choose interesting and appropriate texts, and use supportive
reading strategies (Manning, 2006, p. 84).

Besides being a confidence booster, sight words also free up a child’s energy to tackle more challenging words (Brummit, 2012, p.1). Reading is tough work and takes a lot of energy.  When children have to decode each word they encounter in a sentence, they not only become frustrated they begin to lose the meaning of the text (Brummit, 2012, p.1). Once children know the sight words, they only need to slow down their reading to focus on decoding, new challenging words.  Sight words provide clues to the meaning of a sentence (Brummit, 2012, p. 1).  We want our young readers to eventually get to the point where they are primarily understanding
the text by reading and understanding the words.  Sight words help children make sense of the
text by providing clues to the overall meaning of the sentence (Brummit, 2012, p. 1).  Sight word instruction builds a foundation for reading new, more complex words (Brummit, 2012, p. 1).  Sight words appear in your basic texts, but also in your more complex texts.  When children learn a sight word they are making connection between their prior knowledge of the word and its spelling.  The process of combining the two is mediated by the student’s knowledge of the alphabet (Brummit, 2012, p.1).  This process instinctively helps the student integrated new, more complex sight words into his or her knowledge base (Brummit, 2012, p.1).

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Working Title:

Improving Sight Word Recognition

In Emergent Readers

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Fluency: Bridge between Decoding and Reading Comprehension

http://search.proquest.com.library.marygrove.edu:2048/pqrl/docview/203280288/68AB1EF9124E4784PQ/15?accountid=28829

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Reading First:  Fluency is Fundamental

http://search.proquest.com.library.marygrove.edu:2048/pqrl/docview/224389546/68AB1EF9124E4784PQ/10?accountid=28829

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Building Reading Confidence

http://elibrary.bigchalk.com.library.marygrove.edu:2048/libweb/k6/do/document?set=search&groupid=1&requestid

=lib_standard&resultid=17&edition=&urn=urn%3Abigchalk%3AUS%3BBCLib%3Bdocument%3B123309770

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Benefits of Teaching Sight Words

http://www.k12reader.com/six-benefits-of-teaching-sight-words/

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Classroom Word Walls: Is Yours a Tool or Decoration

http://search.proquest.com.library.marygrove.edu:2048/pqrl/docview/926994465/A06DE603B058458CPQ/40?accountid=28829

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What do I say when they stuck on a word?  Aligning teachers' prompts with students' development

http://search.proquest.com.library.marygrove.edu:2048/pqrl/docview/203278145/A06DE603B058458CPQ/35?accountid=28829

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Strategies to Teach Sight Words in an Elementary Classroom

http://search.proquest.com.library.marygrove.edu:2048/pqrl/docview/1510497310/A06DE603B058458CPQ/27?accountid=28829

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What I can say besides "sound it out"?  Coaching word recognition in beginning reading

http://search.proquest.com.library.marygrove.edu:2048/pqrl/docview/203284436/A06DE603B058458CPQ/13?accountid=28829

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Students cannot use a lot of

their reading strategies to help

them figure out sight words.

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Evaluating the Effectiveness of Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction with Increasing Black and Latino reading Fluency, As

Compared to Asian and White Second-Grade Students' Reading Fluency

http://search.proquest.com.library.marygrove.edu:2048/pqrl/docview/884044938/987894E45EDC4413PQ/5?accountid=28829

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Teaching Sight Words - Effective Strategies For Reading Sucess

http://www.k12reader.com/sight-word-teaching-strategies/

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Tips for Teaching High Frequency and Sight Words

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2012/10/tips-teaching-high-frequency-and-sight-words

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Research Topic:

Improving sight word recognition

to help students become better

readers.  Improve basic reading skills

of accuracy and fluency.

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Do assessments count as valid

data?

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If I am just trying to improve

sight word recognition and

trying new strategies, so I need

to get consent from students and

parents?  How do I get consent?

This particular topic of action

research is part of my job of

educating.

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Is this measurable in a

realistic time frame?

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What data could I look at?

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Issues that could arise:

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Possible sources:

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Students do not often engage in

active reading practices because

they struggle with sight word

recognition.