Sight words!

Sight words have become a very important part of the kindergarten curriculum. Sight words are words such as the, to, are and like. These words are the ones that appear most frequently in children's literature, so learning these words will give kids a tremendous boost in their reading. These words also tend to be ones that are hard to decode (or "sound out"), so we encourage kids to memorize as many as possible. Then when they come across a word in a book, they don't need to spend time or mental energy sounding it out - they will just know it automatically and can continue on with their reading.

We do lots of work with sight words each day, but there is always more you can do at home! I suggest making flashcards of the sight words we have learned, going on a sight word hunt while you are reading a book, or mixing up the letters in sight words and trying to put them back together in the right order. Anything families can do to boost sight word practice will be a huge help when they are reading and writing!

Here are some activities we have been doing with sight words:

Each week we learn our two new sight words, sing a song about them to the tune of BINGO (ask your child to spell a sight word and chances are she/he will spell it out to the tune of B-I-N-G-O). Then we write them on this sheet to hang them on the fridge at home.

Last week we learned how to play Build a Man (aka Hangman) with sight words! This is a big favorite, and is a great way for both partners to learn the words, because they need to focus on which letters are in the word, how many there are, and what order they go in.

We also started watching these two videos from Harry Kindergarten - the sight word rap! I encourage you to watch it at home as well!