Sight words are common words that kindergarteners are expected to recognize instantly without sounding them out. Recognizing words by sight helps kids become faster, more fluent readers. Sight words are words that appear often in written text, but do not follow traditional phonetic rules. Therefore, sight words are often very tricky for students to sound out. Here are some examples of kindergarten sight words from various sources:
- blue, red, green, black, white, can, for, from, now, not, at, eat, to, say, tell, hi, up, in, so, four, one,
- the, and, a, to, said, in, he, I, of, it, was, you, they, on, she, is, for, at, his, but, that, with, all, we, my,
- I, like, to, are, do, said, he,
Many sight words are tricky to read and spell because they aren’t spelled the way they sound. Building up a large base of sight words helps kids become faster, more fluent readers. When kids master a sight word, they no longer have to pause to blend its letter-sounds together, and they don’t have to think about spelling rules. To teach sight words, repetition is key. Children should see these words on a daily basis to memorize them quickly. Some strategies to teach sight words include:
- Introduce the list of sight words to the child and read them together.
- Create flashcards of kindergarten sight words with pictures to help children remember the word.
- Look for sight words in your childs favorite book and count how many you can find.
- Draw a hopscotch board on the ground with sight words written in each square. Have the child jump on the word you call out.