All Info About Reading

This book is a fantastic resource for teachers of beginning reading and for parents.  The comprehensive list of sight words is based on frequency in the English language, and so a student who is working through the book from the beginning will learn the most useful words first.  In fact, according to the author, the first three hundred words in the series make up 65% of all of the words that adults need to read. 

Fry’s book is arranged in sections that make it a very usable resource.  The first thirty-eight pages list the Fry sight words in order.  The one thousand sight words are divided into manageable learning lists of five.  The lists are in large, clear print, and these pages can easily be used for assessment and evaluation.  Just have the student read from its pages, and keep track of his or her accuracy on a checklist.  The groups of five also make logical teaching chunks.  Most students feel quite intimidated when a teacher tells them they need to master one thousand words.  The number sounds so BIG!  But the Fry book makes the task seem far more manageable, since it is broken down into easy pieces.  Learning five words at a time seems very doable, even to the most reluctant student.

In addition to the frequency list, the book includes advice about testing the Instant Words.  A quick test is included that has the student read approximately every fifteenth word from the list, and a teacher could easily find out where to begin in the list of one thousand.  There is also a section with advice and activity ideas for teaching the sight words.  You will find specific instructions for using flashcards, playing games, and adapting existing games to teach these sight words.  A five-step spelling method follows.  These words are so common that any literate person needs to know how to spell them as well as read them.  The final section of the book is a collection of concrete picture nouns.  These are all easily-illustratable objects that have pictures that can be reproduced to form rebus-type reading material.  It’s a wonderful tool for creating your own activities to build skill with sight words. 

The book also includes an alphabetical index of the one thousand sight words.  This is a great help, because you can locate any given word within the frequency list and prioritize your teaching.  The index lists each word, and then gives its ranking in the frequency list.  It is easy to see that the word “as” should be taught before “entire,” since “as” is ranked as the sixteenth most common word in English, and “entire” is the 985th. 

Dr. Fry’s 1000 Instant Words is an invaluable tool for anyone who is trying to help a beginning reader become more proficient.  It includes several wonderful tools that make teaching early reading skills much more efficient, and it is entirely age appropriate, even for older or adult students.  You will definitely want to add this one to your library, or purchase it to help your child become a better reader. 

Sound interesting?  Check it out at Amazon!!

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