Teaching sight word recognition and understanding is key to reading success, and reading is perhaps the most important skill a child learns at school. Read on to find out more about using the 5 Rs System to teach Sight Words.
Dolch words are the words learners will find the most when reading (i.e. high frequency words), and often these words are difficult to decode using known phonics strategies. Learning to recognise these words instantly by sight (as sight words), gives learners a huge head start with their reading, and a massive confidence boost.
Dolch Sight Words are divided into five groups: Pre-Primer – Primer – First – Second – Third, with an additional common nouns list. Fluency in reading the five levels of 220 Dolch words (adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, and verbs) is essential to literacy. Quintessential to literacy is the understanding of these words. Without comprehension, reading is meaningless.
Fry sight words and others have a larger number of words, so might be more appropriate for older learners or native English speakers, but the same principles apply.
So how can we teach sight words?
“A child’s language development is, next to his character, the most important part
of his school experience.”
Edward William Dolch
A great and simple way to teach Sight Words is by using my Five Rs System:
Repetition. Recognition. Recollection. Reinforcement. Review.
Repetition
When I write repetition here, I mean orally repeating new words after the teacher. This will ensure that the learners are using the correct pronunciation and forming the sounds correctly. Of course, many words will already be familiar to learners, but many words will be new to them, and English as a second language (ESL EFL EAL) learners can struggle.
You can start the class by having the learners repeat the new sight words after you, and without showing the words to them. Then reveal the words on the board, using a PPT, or using flashcards. Identify any learners struggling to say the words and help them: ask them to repeat after you, then ask them to say the word again. Don’t forget to spell out the words too e.g. “t-h-e the, y-o-u you.” Some children love this initial way of learning the words. You could also tap the syllables together on your arms or with your feet, encourage learning through the rhythm of the words and get those kinaesthetic learners moving!
Recognition
A good next step for teaching new sight words is to help learners to recognise the words after listening to the teacher read them. The aim is to train them to recognise the shape of the words, created by the letter combinations. If the learners have some phonics knowledge, you can spend some time decoding the new words, perhaps using Elkonin Boxes, or creating acrostic poems with the letters/phonemes. For younger learners familiar with their ABCs, you can use magnetic letters or playdough mats etc. to help teach the word spellings.
Display the new sight words on the board (use a PPT/Flashcards), then ask the students to close one eye and hold out their index fingers. Show them how to carefully trace and read the letters of the word with their fingers before having them repeat the word. (A laser pointer is great for doing this.) Then, repeat the task, but ask the students to remain silent, whilst the teacher describes the tracing movement, for example “around the small d, up and down, then circle the small o, round we go, d --- o do!”
Later you can have some fun, maybe a fly swat or slap game, or you can number the words displayed on the board and ask learners to raise their hands to select words. Teacher says a sight word, and learners identify the word after repeating it. Simple and effective. After learners have recognised the word, you could also ask them to read the word, then spell it, then read it again (e.g. “new n-e-w new”).
Recollection
After spending some time on recognition and repetition, it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty of recollection. Use flashcards initially to quickly practise recalling the new words, together and then students alone. Then, and this is where the magic happens, teachers can use the Dolch PowerPoints available here to teach recognition and meaning at the same time.
Where a sight word has different meanings, the PPTs will take you through the most-used variations, each time displaying the word and the respective dictionary definition to assist the teacher. You can attempt to explain the meaning first, but perhaps better is to use the sentences to help explain the words in context.
For each meaning of a sight word, the PPTs will have several slides displaying sentences using the word. Sentences are first shown with the current sight word missing. You can have the students read the sentences together or individually, read together with them, or repeat after you. The word is revealed upon mouse click. Sometimes you can ask them for the missing word first, sometimes have them read the sentence (recalling the missing word). Vary when the word is revealed. Mix it up to keep the learners on their toes! Don’t forget to ask learners to create sentences using the new words to reinforce their meaning.
Each slide will also have pictures (revealed on mouse click) to aid with teaching understanding. You can use these pictures to help explain the meaning of the word before reading the sentences, or, if they are a distraction, you can reveal the pictures and explain the meaning after reading the sentences. The pictures are interesting and good fun, keeping learners’ attention and helping them to remember the sight words and their meanings.
My PowerPoints use the Dolch sight words, which are more focussed than the alternative Fry sight words, and perhaps therefore better for younger or ESL learners.
The Dolch words are grouped into two words per class for Pre-Primer, and four words per class thereafter. Teaching any more than this will likely create confusion.
Reinforcement
Reinforce word knowledge and understanding through games, PowerPoints, stories etc.
Sight Word games and apps are great ways to reinforce learning, whether they’re online flash games or the latest educational apps on your phone. A quick search and you’ll find all you need. You could also ditch the tech and play old fashioned board games, bingo, I have who has, scrabble etc.
Flashcard practise, read, write, spell, memory match flipped over cards, drills, make mini sentences, all good practise.
Sight word stories are excellent for reinforcing and teaching understanding. Scholastic Sight Word Readers, Scholastic Sight Word Tales, BOB Books, these are all great. Simply choose the book(s) that contain the current week’s sight words and include them in your teaching routine.
My PowerPoint quizzes are perfect for reinforcing sight words, which are located at the end of each PPT. Each quiz includes 10 sentences, each sentence is missing one of the four selected sight words. Each sentence is revealed one by one by mouse click as the teacher reads them to the learners. Answers can be written in books or on whiteboards. The slide following the quiz reveals the answers one by one. The empty gaps are filled with the sight words, so you can read the sentences in full as you wish, again reinforcing understanding. I have tried to make these sentences level-appropriate, using previously-learnt sight words, but they are fully editable for you to adjust as necessary.
More experienced writers can copy down the first four sentences of the quiz for further reinforcement, and then create four new sentences using the taught sight words.
Review
The best way to teach word recognition is to repeatedly and consistently expose learners to the same words over and over. Use a combination of the above to review words each week before teaching new ones.
Use all the words to date each week to create stories or fun sentences, poems or rhymes. Make silly phrases from the letters in a word e.g. “vet” can be “very eggy turtle.” Play games every day, jumble words up, play “give us a clue”, have quick-fire Q&As about words and their meanings, have lots of fun!
Point the sight words out everywhere, whenever you see them, in books, on walls, in posters, on TV. Ask the learners to find them too, perhaps have a word hunt for flashcards in the classroom or have them hunt for words in their favourite books. See who can find the most sight words!
Have your learners include the words in their written work as much as possible, in their creative writing, in maths classes, in phonics classes, on table mats, on mini white boards, playing roll-n-write dice games etc.
Definitely have all the words studied to date displayed in the classroom, on a word wall or hanging from wires, or perhaps on a sight word tree etc. The current week’s words will of course be given pride of place at the front of the classroom, displayed for the learners to see each day.
You can use my Quick Review PowerPoints to go through the words learnt each week. Learners can practise the words and use them in sentences alongside fun pictures to reinforce understanding.
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I hope this article inspired you and gave you some fresh ideas for your classes. Welcome to check out my other articles and my Dolch PPTs, send me a message, bookmark the website, join my mailing list and Have Fun Teaching! :O)
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