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Sharon Dennis Wyeth Books, Author Biography, and Reading Level | Scholastic

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Visit Scholastic, the world's largest children's book publisher. Whether you need a classic kids book or classroom-proven teaching materials, discover it at Scholastic.

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The Vowel Song: Long and Short Vowel Sounds | English Songs | Scratch Garden

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2 Vowel Bat kids song by Shari Sloane  www kidscount1234 com  School is Cool album   YouTube

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a list of goals for teacher practice

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a Scholastic site that generates cards, by grade level, for the word wall

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Make Word Wall Cards and Book Basket Labels With Sight and Vocabulary Words | Scholastic.com

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Make custom word art for your word wall or book basket labels from sight words and vocabulary words using this interactive word wall generator. Save your word wall art as a PDF or print it!

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Sight words instruction is an excellent supplement to phonics instruction. Phonics is a method for learning to read in general, while sight words instruction increases a child's familiarity with the high frequency words he will encounter most often.

Use lesson time to introduce up to three new words, and use game time to practice the new words.

A sight words instruction session should be about 30 minutes long, divided into two components:

Sight Words Lesson - Use our Teaching Techniques to introduce new words and to review words from previous lessons - 10 minutes

Sight Words Games - Use our games to provide reinforcement of the lesson and some review of already mastered sight words to help your child develop speed and fluency - 20 minutes

Video: Introduction to Teaching Sight Words

2.1 Introduce New Words

When first beginning sight words, work on no more than three unfamiliar words at a time to make it manageable for your child. Introduce one word at a time, using the five teaching techniques. Hold up the flash card for the first word, and go through all five techniques, in order. Then introduce the second word, and go through all five teaching techniques, and so on.

This lesson should establish basic familiarity with the new words. This part of a sight words session should be brisk and last no more than ten minutes. As your child gets more advanced, you might increase the number of words you work on in each lesson.

2.2 Review Old Words

Begin each subsequent lesson by reviewing words from the previous lesson. Words often need to be covered a few times for the child to fully internalize them. Remember: solid knowledge of a few words is better than weak knowledge of a lot of words!

Go through the See & Say exercise for each of the review words. If your child struggles to recognize a word, cover that word again in the main lesson, going through all five teaching techniques. If he has trouble with more than two of the review words, then set aside the new words you were planning to introduce and devote that day's lesson to review.

Note: The child should have a good grasp of - but does not need to have completely mastered - a word before it gets replaced in your lesson plan. Use your game time to provide lots of repetition for these words until the child has thoroughly mastered them.

2.3 Reinforce with Games

Learning sight words takes lots of repetition. We have numerous sight words games that will make that repetition fun and entertaining for you and your child.

The games are of course the most entertaining part of the sight words program, but they need to wait until after the first part of the sight words lesson.

Games reinforce what the lesson teaches.
Do not use games to introduce new words.

NOTE: Be sure the child has a pretty good grasp of a sight word before using it in a game, especially if you are working with a group of children. You do not want one child to be regularly embarrassed in front of his classmates when he struggles with words the others have already mastered!

Introduce new sight words using this sequence of five teaching techniques:

1. See & Say - A child sees the word on the flash card and says the word while underlining it with her finger.

2. Spell Reading - The child says the word and spells out the letters, then reads the word again.

3. Arm Tapping - The child says the word and then spells out the letters while tapping them on his arm, then reads the word again.

4. Air Writing - A child says the word, then writes the letters in the air in front of the flash card.

5. Table Writing - A child writes the letters on a table, first looking at and then not looking at the flash card.

These techniques work together to activate different parts of the brain. The exercises combine many repetitions of the word (seeing, hearing, speaking, spelling, and writing) with physical movements that focus the child's attention and cement each word into the child's long-term memory.

The lessons get the child up to a baseline level of competence that is then reinforced by the games, which take them up to the level of mastery. All you need is a flash card for each of the sight words you are covering in the lesson.

Of course, every child will make mistakes in the process of learning sight words. They might get confused between similar-looking words or struggle to remember phonetically irregular words.

Use our Corrections Procedure every time your child makes a mistake in a sight words lesson or game. Simple and straightforward, it focuses on reinforcing the correct identification and pronunciation of the word. It can be done quickly without disrupting the flow of the activity.

Do not scold the child for making a mistake or even repeat the incorrect word. Just reinforce the correct word using our script, and then move on.

Q: Progress is slow. We have been on the same five words for a week!
A: It is not unusual to have to repeat the same set of words several times, especially in the first weeks of sight words instruction. The child is learning how to learn the words and is developing pattern recognition approaches that will speed his progress. Give him time to grow confident with his current set of words, and avoid overwhelming the child with new words when he hasn't yet become familiar with the old words.

Q: Do I really need to do all five techniques for every word?
A: Start out by using all five techniques with each new word. The techniques use different teaching methods and physical senses to support and reinforce the child's memorization of the word. After a few weeks of lessons, you will have a sense for how long it takes your child to learn new words and whether all five exercises are necessary. Start by eliminating the last activity, Table Writing, but be sure to review those words at the next lesson to see if the child actually retained them without that last exercise. If the child learns fine without Table Writing, then you can try leaving out the fourth technique, Air Writing. Children who learn quickly may only need to use two or three of the techniques.

Q: How long will it take to get through a whole word list? I want my child to learn ALL the words!!!
A: That depends on a number of factors, including frequency of your lessons as well as your child's ability to focus. But do not get obsessed with the idea of racing through the word lists to the finish line. It is much, much better for your child to solidly know just 50 words than to "kind of" know 300 words. We are building a foundation here, and we want that foundation to be made of rock, not sand!

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Sight words instruction is an excellent supplement to phonics instruction. Phonics is a method for learning to read in general, while sight words instruction increases a child's familiarity with the high frequency words he will encounter most often. Use lesson time to introduce up to three new words, and use game time to practice the new words.

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Fun Friday....or don't use the tray AND the desks get cleaned :)

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3rd Grade

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2nd Grade

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1st Grade

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Pre-Primer

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Primer

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"Teaching Sight Words the Fun Way"---many activity ideas

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Teacher to Teacher Ideas in the Top Teaching Blog | Scholastic

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Exciting lesson ideas, classroom strategies, teaching tips, book lists, videos, and reproducibles in a daily blog by teachers from the classrooms of extraordinary mentor

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Pre-Primer

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Primer

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Sight Word Game (to use with game board)

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Sight Word Game (to use with game board)

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Fun Friday? Home-School Connection?

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The Sight Word Song High frequency word song rap for kids

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This is "The Sight Word Song High frequency word song rap for kids" by on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

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Spelling inventory

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Dolch High-Frequency Words (alphabetized by grade)

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Dolch High-Frequency Words (alphabetized by grade)

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Correlation Chart: Guided Reading books aligned with skills

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Correlation Chart: Guided Reading books aligned with skills

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ReadyGen Leveling Guide for Leveled Text Libraries (for books you're adding to classroom library)

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ReadyGen Leveling Guide for Leveled Text Libraries (for books you're adding to classroom library)

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for use as a sight word center during guided reading

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Fun for Oral Practice

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This was a successful Fun Friday activity last year in 1st and 3rd grade. Follow this link for scripts for every grade and reading level.
User ID: jhf728
Password: AZpassword1

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An article from The Reading Teacher about the challenges we face with implementing ReadyGen

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An article from The Reading Teacher about the challenges we face with implementing ReadyGen

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Summary: As always, teachers use their professional wisdom and data about their students to use the resources of any curriculum