Are you wondering how to teach sight words at home? Teaching sight words is an important part of teaching your child to read. Sight words are words that occur frequently in writing, especially beginning reader books. To help you get started, I put together a list of simple activities for that will help you teach sight words at home. Be sure to download the Free Printable Sight Word Egg Hunt here.
When you are just starting, it is good to introduce one sight word at a time. These Sight Word Learning Mats are the first activity I use to introduce a sight word. Each mat has the sight word in the center and a traceable sight word on writing lines. These mats are double-sided and durable, making them perfect for my little one to use over and over. When I introduce a sight word, I focus on letter formation, order, and correct pronunciation of the word. With these Sight Word Learning Mats, I can do them all. We start with 8-Color Crayola® Dough Tubs Classpack® and build the sight word. My son says the letter and the sound it makes in the word as he builds it. Then, he uses one of his Colorful Crayola® Take Note™ Dry-Erase Markers to trace the sight word and practice writing in on his own. I ask him to say the letters as he writes the word to help him remember the order. Last, he removes the dough and fills in the letters with pom-poms or beads. Anything you have on hand will work. This added step is repetitive. My son says the letter and the sound as he is filling it in. I like these sight word mats because they give my kids a few options for learning the sight word and my kids love them.
When teaching sight words at home, make it fun! A fun activity is always enticing and will yield better results than a boring one! I saw this adorable Dog Party Dartboard and knew I had to make a sight word game with it for my kids. I also grabbed some Dog Bone-Shaped Trays and Bone-Shaped Name Tags/Labels for the game. I wrote sight words on the bone-shaped labels and laminated them for durability, plus I have more games I want to use them for. I separated my kids into teams of two and set out a Dog Bone-Shaped Tray for each team. I laid out all the bone sight words on the table between the trays and displayed the Dog Party Dartboard just above them, but it can be on an opposing wall. Each child stood behind a line and threw the Velcro ball. If the ball hits the red circle center, they choose two bone sight words to read. Once they read them correctly, they put the bones into their tray. If they only hit the red or blue and not the center, they just read one bone sight word. They continued until there were no more sight word bones. Each team counted the bones to see which team read the most! My kids enjoyed this game so much, I have plans to do it again with other subjects.
Repetition is important when teaching new skills because it strengthens the connections to the brain. As your child practices a skill over and over it becomes easier for them. I like to find fun ways to include repetition in my lessons. For this repetition lesson, I am making the most out of these sight word bones I made with Bone-Shaped Name Tag/Labels. I hang a sight word bone on the whiteboard and ask my son to spell it with the Rainbow Magnetic Letters. We sound out and identify each letter together. This allows me to correct and work on mispronunciation and incorrect sounds. I also talk about letters that do not follow the rules in the sight word. Once he has identified the letters and spelled the sight word, he uses a Colorful Crayola® Take Note™ Dry-Erase Marker to write the sight word. He enjoys writing the words on a whiteboard without lines, making them as big or small as he wants. He likes that he can erase a mistake easily, too. In this lesson, he read the sight word, deconstructed, and built the sight word, and wrote the sight word. Repetition in different forms, bonus!
Sensory activities have many benefits and can easily be added to a lesson. I prefer using sand, salt, or something dry for sensory activities indoors. For this activity, I used a Dog Bone-Shaped Tray and filled it with green Craft Sand. I chose a few Bone-Shaped Labels sight words that I wanted my son to work on. I laid them out on the table and asked him to choose a sight word to write in the sand bone tray.
Movement activities exert energy that is building up while your child is sitting. These are perfect to get out wiggles and help your child stay focused afterward. I used this Ring Obstacle Course Set and Bone-Shaped Name Tag/Labels. I wrote a sight word onto each bone-shaped label and place one in each section of the obstacle course. My children took turns rolling the Jumbo Dice and hopping on one foot the number of spaces. Once they landed on their space, they read the sight word.
I use themed activities to build on my kids' curiosity while teaching sight words at home. For our barn theme, I made a quick sight word game with Crayola® Construction Paper, Sight Word Stickers, and Solid Color Paper Cups. I cut out barns and put a Sight Word Sticker on each one, then taped them to a paper cup. I only teach five sight words at a time, so there are only five barns.
We played with these barns a few ways. The first one, I hid these adorable Farm Animal Porcupine Characters under a couple of cups, leaving the rest empty. My son guessed with barn the animals were in by reading the sight word. He did this until he found them all or read all of the sight words. The second way we played, to read the sight word on the red barn. He would look for the barn and read the sight word to me. We did this for each color. The third and final way we used these barns, I turned the cups and barns right side up. My son tossed the Farm Animal Porcupine Characters into the cups. If they landed in one, he read the sight word on the barn. He did this until he read every barn.
During our rainbow-themed week, I incorporated a simple read and reveal sight word activity. All you need is a white crayon, cardstock, and a Crayola® Washable Assorted Watercolor Paint Tray. I wrote some sight words with a white crayon onto a piece of white cardstock. My son painted over each word with a different color of watercolor paint. He read each word he revealed and made a beautiful rainbow picture!
Our dog theme week was a particularly enjoyable week filled with dog-themed activities. This sight word activity was one of the favorites that made my kids giggle. I filled a Dog Bone-Shaped Tray with dry dog food and some Bone-Shaped Name Tag/Labels sight words. For this activity, my son used a Jumbo Tweezer to pick up a bone sight word and read it. Then, he wrote it on the Desktop Stand with Dry Erase Board.
Sight Word Swat! Learning Game is one of our new favorites to play. There are four swatters for up to four players. The adorable little bugs are color-coded by their level of sight words and double-sided with a different color on the opposite side. In the first round, I sorted the bugs by color and only put out the pre-primer blue bugs. When the kids were ready, I called out a sight word. The older kids waited on pins and needles watching their younger siblings scan the bugs and sound out letters. It was worth the wait because as soon as they found the sight word, SWAT!! It only took a few times of identifying a sight word before they had the location and word memorized, and they were all swatting away! The next time we played, I added a few primer sight words to increase their sight word vocabulary. We played again with the sight words for my older children too. Because these bugs have several levels of sight words, this game was perfect for each of my kids to practice their sight words!
I do an egg hunt for every holiday and sneak in an educational activity each time! This is also a fun and simple way to teach sight words at home with a twist.
The setup is easy, first, I cut out nine of the Sight Word Stickers .These Sight Word Stickers are so versatile, I used them for several activities. Next, I put one sight word sticker in each Colorful Bright Plastic Easter Egg and hid them in our yard. You can hide them inside or wherever you want to move the learning to. Then, I printed the Sight Word Egg Hunt printable for my little guy to complete.
When it was set up, my little guy burst out the door and scoured the yard for the eggs! The focused searching and full-body movement are so important for little brains and another reason I love this activity! Once he found them all, he came inside to open them. As he opened the eggs, he read and wrote the sight words he found inside onto the Sight Word Egg Hunt egg page. After he finished recording the sight words he found, he moved onto the next Sight Word Egg Hunt writing page. He drew a picture and wrote a sentence using some of the sight words he found.
You have successfully taught your child a new sight word, but to ensure they remember how to spell that sight word, they need a visual reminder. That's where a word wall comes in handy. A word wall is any place that you can record all of the words your child has learned in alphabetical order. Once your child learns a new sight word, add it to the word wall under the corresponding letter for future visual reference. This can be on a wall, poster board, or in a notebook.
Each of my children has their word wall in a Paint Chip Spiral Notebook Journal. For my son's word wall, I used the Sight Word Stickers and a Superhero Notebook. After he learns a sight word, I place the sight word sticker under the corresponding beginning letter. He uses this notebook during writing instead of asking me over and over how to spell something. It has been great for building his confidence in spelling and writing.
