Sight Word Game!

I have been thinking more and more about sight words as I prepare myself for next week and my new bunch of kiddos.  As I plan and think about what I want to my students to learn, I am reminded of all the areas in reading I wanna hit hard this year.  After my 'come to Jesus' moment epiphany last year with sight words, I want to stay on that train and keep some focus there.  After all, sight words help students become better and more confident readers, so why not?!

In my wise *old* age I have also learned that direct instruction in sight words and frequent reading practice with appropriate texts promote the development of automaticity (the ability to recognize words quickly, effortlessly, and accurately).  This means, my fluent readers do not have to devote energy to decoding words, so they can focus their attention on what the text means. 
*DING DING DING DING*

Yay!  This is what we REALLY want kids to do, right?  We want our kiddos to comprehend.  Why else do we work so hard all year teaching those pre-reading/reading skills?  :)

Hmmm, I might be on to something.  Too bad I am a few years late, right?!

So I have been thinking of different, fun ways to engage my kiddos in sight word activities.  One review activity I LOVE and the kiddos find super interesting is... (drum roll) highlighting!  So simple, so smart and they love it!
I give my kiddos a highlighter, a newspaper or magazine page and pick a word or two to focus on.  Not only does it have them searching and using those identification skills, but it also illustrates how important and how frequently we use these words.  At the end of the activity, they are always surprised how much they have highlighted.
I sometimes use this activity with my whole group, in a small group or as a workstation.  So simple, right?!

I also created a sight word graphing game with dice using the Dolch words from the Pre-Primer and Primer lists. 

I made this game in the middle of last year, so I just mixed the word lists together for my kiddos and didn't really do it by skill level.  I wanted to use it this year right away, so I gave it a little face-lift and used the Dolch lists.

The words with the blue table are the words from the Pre-Primer list.  The words with the green tables are Primer words.

I think that having the colors will make it much easier to differentiate the game for my kiddos.

You can check out the Roll a Word here!

Isn't the game adorable?!   I got some of the graphics from The 3am Teacher.  You should check her out - so cute!  Something for all your classroom needs!


 

Hope you get a chance to check it out!

More Sight Words!

If your class is like mine, you realize very quickly on the first day Meet the Teacher Night, that you will be doing a TON of differentiating.  I will have kids who do not even recognize their own name, cannot sing the alphabet and who have never held a pencil in the same class with kids who wrote me a nice note and read it to me on the first day. 
~putting a lot of pressure on myself when it comes to making sure my child does not qualify under the first three descriptors~

Since I am guessing your class IS in fact like mine, I also created this sight word pack that includes all the words from the Dolch Primer list.
I am really excited to continue the progress I made last year as a teacher and help this next bunch of kiddos launch into reading!

Let me know what you think!

PS  For some reason my laptop is not letting me take a screenshot of this wonderful pack.  Make sure you check it out at my TpT store through the link above!  Thanks!

Sight Words

After an overwhelming response yesterday (errr…) I decided to start something else.  J 
In the past, I had some mixed feelings about sight words.  I was undereducated and thought they were all about drill-n-kill.  You know, how most people use a flash-card?!
Well, after some great meetings with my reading coach, I saw the light  ~insert choir music and beautiful beams of light... picture me with my hands in the air as well~
I understood how teaching my kiddos to recognize common words could help free up some space in those brains for the tricky words that need to be decoded.  Once I started putting a little more emphasis on sight word fluency, my kiddos’ reading fluency started to show improvement.  Who would have thought?!  Reading groups were actually moving and kids were feeling the success.  I was in love. 
Soooooo, I decided that this summer I was going to work on sight word activities that could be used daily – bell work, mini-lesson, small group, whole group or work stations.  I just finished making a pack of sight word activities for the Dolch Pre-Primer list.  I had a lot of fun creating it and I hope you will find a place for it in your room.



I am going to start working on the Primer list during naptime tomorrow!  Let me know what you think!