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 For some students, sight words are particularly difficult to learn.  They find themselves continually mixing up words like for and of, they and them, or this and that.  Not only is this frustrating for the student, but it also interferes with comprehension.  Many of these confusing words are common and carry a lot of the meaning of the text.  It’s important to help struggling students learn to distinguish these difficult words.

One way to help students learn to differentiate confusing sight words is to focus on word shape.  Students who have not been successful with learning the sequences of letters may be able to see differences in the shapes of the troublesome words.  The idea is simple:  letters can be classified into one of three shape categories.  Short letters are only half a space high.  Examples include a and n.  Tall letters, like d, t, and k, are one whole space high.  The rest of the letters, like y or g, have tails that hang below the baseline.  Because of this, many common words have different shapes.  The word for is a tall letter followed by two short letters.  The word of, whish students often confuse with for, is made of one short letter and one tall.  The words themselves look very similar with f’s and o’s, but the pattern of their letter shapes is quite different.

You can quickly see the shape of any word by drawing boxes around each letter.  Have your student practice doing this, too, because it will help him or her to cement the shape of the word in memory.  Try providing empty boxes to fill with letters and matching word shapes to given words.  Just be sure to include a word bank when you are working with empty letter boxes; a few pairs of words have the same shape, like man and was.  Be careful that your word list does not include pairs of words with the same shapes so that you do not add to your student’s confusion by accident.

Once your student is proficient at recognizing the sets of boxes that match troublesome words, you can eliminate the individual letter boxes and simply use the outline of the entire word.  In other words, take away the vertical lines that separate one letter from the next, and just leave the lines that show the shape of the entire word.  This step will help your reader get into the habit of checking the word’s silhouette when trying to recognize it quickly and efficiently.  You can provide these by drawing them on a paper, and you can also teach your student to create them by using a pencil to draw around the tops and tails of the letters in the word.  Color the silhouettes in and have your student match these shapes with words from a word list.  This activity helps train the eye to focus on that outline that can help them differentiate the confusing pairs of words. 

Working with word shapes is a great alternative for students who are having trouble mastering basic sight words and seem to confuse words with similar letters and spellings.  It provides a memory aid and an alternative teaching strategy that just might be perfect for your struggling or special needs student.  Give it a try!

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© 2007 Sandra Fleming

 For some students, sight words are particularly difficult to learn.  They find themselves continually mixing up words like for and of, they and them, or this and that.  Not only is this frustrating for the student, but it also interferes with comprehension.  Many of these confusing words are common and carry a lot of the meaning of the text.  It’s important to help struggling students learn to distinguish these difficult words.

One way to help students learn to differentiate confusing sight words is to focus on word shape.  Students who have not been successful with learning the sequences of letters may be able to see differences in the shapes of the troublesome words.  The idea is simple:  letters can be classified into one of three shape categories.  Short letters are only half a space high.  Examples include a and n.  Tall letters, like d, t, and k, are one whole space high.  The rest of the letters, like y or g, have tails that hang below the baseline.  Because of this, many common words have different shapes.  The word for is a tall letter followed by two short letters.  The word of, whish students often confuse with for, is made of one short letter and one tall.  The words themselves look very similar with f’s and o’s, but the pattern of their letter shapes is quite different.

You can quickly see the shape of any word by drawing boxes around each letter.  Have your student practice doing this, too, because it will help him or her to cement the shape of the word in memory.  Try providing empty boxes to fill with letters and matching word shapes to given words.  Just be sure to include a word bank when you are working with empty letter boxes; a few pairs of words have the same shape, like man and was.  Be careful that your word list does not include pairs of words with the same shapes so that you do not add to your student’s confusion by accident.

Once your student is proficient at recognizing the sets of boxes that match troublesome words, you can eliminate the individual letter boxes and simply use the outline of the entire word.  In other words, take away the vertical lines that separate one letter from the next, and just leave the lines that show the shape of the entire word.  This step will help your reader get into the habit of checking the word’s silhouette when trying to recognize it quickly and efficiently.  You can provide these by drawing them on a paper, and you can also teach your student to create them by using a pencil to draw around the tops and tails of the letters in the word.  Color the silhouettes in and have your student match these shapes with words from a word list.  This activity helps train the eye to focus on that outline that can help them differentiate the confusing pairs of words. 

Working with word shapes is a great alternative for students who are having trouble mastering basic sight words and seem to confuse words with similar letters and spellings.  It provides a memory aid and an alternative teaching strategy that just might be perfect for your struggling or special needs student.  Give it a try!

Return to the Sight Words Section

Return to All Info About Reading Home

Contact Me

© 2007 Sandra Fleming