All Info About Reading

 Dr. Fry’s 1000 Instant Words book is a fabulous resource for teaching sight words.  The words are listed in order of frequency, and mastery of even the first 300 will help improve reading dramatically, because even this short list accounts for around 60% of common text in everyday reading tasks.

Once you have the list (or any list of sight words, for that matter), you have a clear plan for what to teach your students.  All that is missing now is the method.  Choosing appropriate methods is just as important as selecting the content.  You need to match teaching vehicles to circumstances, age, personality, learning style, and other individualized needs.  In short, you need a strategy for teaching sight words.  The following strategies are grouped by learning style and are appropriate for a wide range of ages and settings to assist you with selection.

Visual Learning Style

• Flashcard games are suitable for all ages and stages.  Make two sets and you can play lots of games.  Be sure the words cannot be seen from the backs of the cards.  Try playing Memory, Old Maid, or Slap Jack games with the cards.  Nearly any game that involves matching will work.  Be sure to have your student read the cards at some point in the play.
• Make worksheets requiring the student to choose the correctly-spelled version of each word.  This activity is also excellent practice for proof-reading! 
• Spell words with letter cards, magnetic letters or letter dice.  If consonants and vowels are two different colors, your student may be able to recall the color patterns of each word.
• Word boxes, where the shape of the word is outlined, can help many students learn to distinguish similar words.  When you create word boxes, make tall boxes for the tall letters like l and k, short boxes for the short letters like e and v, and hanging boxes for hanging letters like g and p.
• Use a colored highlighter to mark troublesome words as you preview text.  You can even use a different color of mark for different words if there are only a few that are tripping the student up.
• Highlight target words in text from newspapers or magazines.

Auditory Learning Style

• Try putting tunes to the letters as you spell words out loud.  Some students can remember best if material is set to music.
• Read the words out loud in unison.  Your stronger, more confident reading will be a guide to the student and allow him or her to gain strength.
• Use Neurological Impress Method.
• Try spelling a word in rhythms to help distinguish one from another.  Instead of simply saying each letter in turn, try dragging some out and clipping some off so you get things like peeeee-you-teeeeeeeee for PUT.
• Some students can recall sequences of tones better than other sorts of sounds.  Try using a telephone keypad to dial the words and let your student listen to the tones.

Kinesthetic/Tactile Learning Style

• Arrange letter cards, tiles or dice to spell sight words.
• Use rubber stamps of letters to spell sight words.
• Try rainbow writing.  You’ll need lots of colors of fine line markers, colored pencils or crayons.  Write the sight word in large print, then trace several times, using a different color with each pass.
• Write the words on chalkboard or white board, the bigger the better!
• Scatter the letters of a word on the floor and have the student move from one to the next in order to spell the word.

Return to the Sight Words Section

Return to All Info About Reading Home

Contact Me

© 2006 Sandra Fleming