Techniques for learning sight words?

[Anonymous]

K teacher here--I would do nothing. He should be learning sight words in class as he moves up through his guided reading group level. Speeding through the reading levels serves no real purpose. Give him the time to learn them in class to get a strong foundation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Your main tool is PATIENCE.

My children frustrated me to no end at around that age, when I felt they were just at the cusp of reading but didn't quite memorize and decipher sight words and other words.

And guess what? Nothing I did helped in any visible or measurable way! I read to them as usual, asked they decipher a little bit themselves... but it's only when their brain was ready that something CLICKED, and they were off. For example my daughter read the first Harry Potter at the end of K and The Hobbit in first grade, among other things. A couple of months before reading these hefty things, she was painstakingly going through one liners! My son took a few extra months, but his trajectory had the same kind of bump. Brain development is crazy at that time.

So, yes, patience.

It's amazing that you were able to contain the obvious pain, frustration, and yes, let's be honest--pure embarrassment their subpar reading skills must have caused you. My Larlo finished off Kafka and War and Peace by the time he was 3.

You though are a pillar of patience. Waiting all the way to Kindergarten so your dear children could read Harry Potter and The Hobbit! A statue should be erected in your likeness--Our Lady of the Humble Brag, subtitled, "Suck it, PP."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Your main tool is PATIENCE.

My children frustrated me to no end at around that age, when I felt they were just at the cusp of reading but didn't quite memorize and decipher sight words and other words.

And guess what? Nothing I did helped in any visible or measurable way! I read to them as usual, asked they decipher a little bit themselves... but it's only when their brain was ready that something CLICKED, and they were off. For example my daughter read the first Harry Potter at the end of K and The Hobbit in first grade, among other things. A couple of months before reading these hefty things, she was painstakingly going through one liners! My son took a few extra months, but his trajectory had the same kind of bump. Brain development is crazy at that time.

So, yes, patience.

It's amazing that you were able to contain the obvious pain, frustration, and yes, let's be honest--pure embarrassment their subpar reading skills must have caused you. My Larlo finished off Kafka and War and Peace by the time he was 3.

You though are a pillar of patience. Waiting all the way to Kindergarten so your dear children could read Harry Potter and The Hobbit! A statue should be erected in your likeness--Our Lady of the Humble Brag, subtitled, "Suck it, PP."

PP you were roasting. You made me laugh!
And no, of course I had no goal in mind, but the kids just spent so long in one place without progressing that I was wondering what was happening - I'm sure a lot of parents can relate. And actually they were preparing for a big jump. So I should have just possessed myself in patience and waited it out, instead of agonizing stupidly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Your main tool is PATIENCE.

My children frustrated me to no end at around that age, when I felt they were just at the cusp of reading but didn't quite memorize and decipher sight words and other words.

And guess what? Nothing I did helped in any visible or measurable way! I read to them as usual, asked they decipher a little bit themselves... but it's only when their brain was ready that something CLICKED, and they were off. For example my daughter read the first Harry Potter at the end of K and The Hobbit in first grade, among other things. A couple of months before reading these hefty things, she was painstakingly going through one liners! My son took a few extra months, but his trajectory had the same kind of bump. Brain development is crazy at that time.

So, yes, patience.

It's amazing that you were able to contain the obvious pain, frustration, and yes, let's be honest--pure embarrassment their subpar reading skills must have caused you. My Larlo finished off Kafka and War and Peace by the time he was 3.

You though are a pillar of patience. Waiting all the way to Kindergarten so your dear children could read Harry Potter and The Hobbit! A statue should be erected in your likeness--Our Lady of the Humble Brag, subtitled, "Suck it, PP."

PP you were roasting. You made me laugh!
And no, of course I had no goal in mind, but the kids just spent so long in one place without progressing that I was wondering what was happening - I'm sure a lot of parents can relate. And actually they were preparing for a big jump. So I should have just possessed myself in patience and waited it out, instead of agonizing stupidly.

The new subtitle on your statue will read, "Props for having a sense of humor."

[Anonymous]

I have a few different things that have helped:

Letter magnets- every night I spell out a word or two on the fridge. Ds sees the fridge the next day and tries to figure out what I wrote. Some days he doesn't bother. Most days he does. I add a couple of sight words and a couple of Cvc words. I try to make a few easy and a couple harder.

Art Easel- same thing. I write out a word or two on the board and wait for him to discover it.

Bob Books- all of them- but the sight word set helps

Self Testing- my kid loves competition. I have a list of the first 40 dolch sight words. I quizzed him. A week later- we did it again. A week later- again. We kept note of the improvement. He loved doing this- but I am guessing it would not work for everyone.

Flash Cards- we only do flash cards for review words. Words I know he knows. This way we do it quick and no frustration.

[Anonymous]

I've made two copies of the sight word index cards. So we have a pair for each of the 33 words DS is supposed to know by the end of kindergarten.

We're playing with ten at a time. Once he learns the first ten backwards, forwards and in all sorts of contexts, we'll move on to the next ten.

The whole idea is to play games. We're not drilling just to drill. We're finding things DS actually wants to do with us.

Here's what's worked so far:

We started just by sorting the pairs of the first 10 words. Basically, DS gets to mix up the cards however he wanted, then tosses them in the air in the playroom and lets them land wherever they land. It makes a big mess, which he loves. Then we set a timer (he loves timers) and he races to match up the pairs. Just looking at the words and finding their match helps with word recognition, even if he doesn't know what it says yet.

Once he has them all matched, we read each pair together, mix them up again and read each card individually, placing it with it's match so they're back in pairs. It seems repetitive (which is the point), but he likes it!

We also play memory match. Again, using the ten pairs we're working with at a time. We read the pairs. Then we mix them up and lay out the board. EVERY time either of us flips over a card, DS reads it. If he doesn't know it, I read it to him and he repeats it. At the end of the game, we count up our pairs to see who wins. He reads his pairs to me, then he reads my pairs, too. In all, it's a TON of practice in the form of a game.

You can do the same thing with Go Fish, but only after he pretty much knows the words and is now working on speed/instant recognition.

GL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reality check. Is it really September and multiple people are taking about using flashcards with their kindergartners?

+1 to this. DS is newly 5 and in K and we just read. He did love endless alphabet for a while and I think it helped with the letters. Other than that I've just encouraged him to sound out words and figure it out in his own. A few months ago it felt like he was this close and it just wasn't clicking. He would get frustrated so I did my darnedest not to push and make him hate reading. The past couple weeks he's started recognizing more words and just figuring it out. He read almost a whole Pete the Cat book the other night. I have no visions of him reading Harry Potter within the year but it's so cool watching him get excited about the fact that he can read signs, books, cards, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reality check. Is it really September and multiple people are taking about using flashcards with their kindergartners?

We were given a list of sight words in the summer homework 'packet' -- yes, we got one from our school although i know this causes an uproar around DCUm since not all counties or even schools give them, so people think we make them up...

The teachers do work on them, but the hope was that the kids would learn as many as possible even before school. I'm not really stressed about the fact that DS doesn't know them (I admit we didn't do a lot over the summer except have fun!) but I do want to make sure I'm doing what I can to get him in the right direction. We do read together a lot. I love reading and he loves being read to, but so far hasn't shown a lot of interest or excitement over being able to read all by himself.

Anyhow, some great suggestions on this thread, thank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reality check. Is it really September and multiple people are taking about using flashcards with their kindergartners?

We were given a list of sight words in the summer homework 'packet' -- yes, we got one from our school although i know this causes an uproar around DCUm since not all counties or even schools give them, so people think we make them up...

The teachers do work on them, but the hope was that the kids would learn as many as possible even before school. I'm not really stressed about the fact that DS doesn't know them (I admit we didn't do a lot over the summer except have fun!) but I do want to make sure I'm doing what I can to get him in the right direction. We do read together a lot. I love reading and he loves being read to, but so far hasn't shown a lot of interest or excitement over being able to read all by himself.

Anyhow, some great suggestions on this thread, thank you!

Which state/county?

[Anonymous]

Writing and/or spelling them out with letter magnets. Several times each day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reality check. Is it really September and multiple people are taking about using flashcards with their kindergartners?

We were given a list of sight words in the summer homework 'packet' -- yes, we got one from our school although i know this causes an uproar around DCUm since not all counties or even schools give them, so people think we make them up...

The teachers do work on them, but the hope was that the kids would learn as many as possible even before school. I'm not really stressed about the fact that DS doesn't know them (I admit we didn't do a lot over the summer except have fun!) but I do want to make sure I'm doing what I can to get him in the right direction. We do read together a lot. I love reading and he loves being read to, but so far hasn't shown a lot of interest or excitement over being able to read all by himself.

Anyhow, some great suggestions on this thread, thank you!

Which state/county?

MD/MCPS. And now we will have posts of other people in MCPS saying they didn't have a summer packet...so how could anyone else have had a summer packet? I know it isn't just one school as I have heard from other parents in other schools, but it definitely is not a county-wide practice by any means.