Clio has taught education courses at the college level and has a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction.
Jillian is a first-grade teacher who especially loves teaching first grade because of the tremendous gains she sees in her students' reading over the course of the year. Jillian dedicates instructional time to decoding, fluency, and comprehension, but she has seen that one of the things that really makes students take off as readers is their knowledge of sight words, or words that appear frequently in written language and often do not follow traditional rules of phonics. Jillian has learned that early level books often contain so many sight words that a child who knows these words automatically has a tremendous leg up in tackling text. Therefore, she devotes time in her class to helping her students learn sight words well, so that they do not have to think hard each time they encounter one of these words.
As with many aspects of teaching, Jillian starts sight word instruction by assessing, or evaluating strengths and weaknesses in, children's ability to read sight words. In particular, Jillian is interested in assessing children's automaticity, or their capacity to read sight words without stopping to think or attempting to sound these words out. It is the ability to read sight words quickly and effortlessly that will contribute to children's reading success. To assess students' sight word automaticity formally, Jillian has them read down leveled word lists while she marks off both their accuracy and their speed. She also informally assesses children's familiarity with sight words when she takes running records or otherwise listens to them read.
Once Jillian understands her students' awareness of sight words, she can begin instruction. Each week, she presents students in small groups with 3-6 new sight words. She chooses the number of words based on students' capacities and their openness to learning. Jillian finds that the introduction of sight words works best if she makes a game out of it. She writes sight words on flashcards and teaches children to test themselves multiple times, keeping track of their gaining speed. She creates memory games, like sight word bingo, sight word concentration, and sight word word hunts, to allow children to continue having fun even as they exercise their memory. In general, Jillian understands that repeated exposure to sight words is what helps grow children's automaticity, but she knows that few students respond well to drills that aren't made lighthearted in some way.
Jillian also knows that sight words are important for students to see in context, or on pages of real and authentic texts, as well as in isolation. While she is teaching a particular set of sight words to a group of children, even though she dedicates time for them to play games with these words, she is especially careful to make sure these children are exposed to the same sight words in the books and poems they are reading. She calls children's attention to these sight words when they appear in shared readings she does with the class, and she even focuses on them when they come up in read alouds. Jillian understands that seeing sight words in context not only helps internalize them in children's memories, but it also provides motivation to learn because children can see ways that knowing these words will make them stronger readers.
Jillian has learned over the years that there are some children who, for a variety of reasons, struggle to memorize sight words when they are taught in traditional visual and auditory ways. For these learners, Jillian tries to use a multi-sensory approach, or a teaching style that taps into different senses. She shows students how they can use their fingers to tap or clap the letters in a sight word, or how they can jump up and down with their body, or write in the sky as they learn these words. She lets them spell the words in sand or manipulate magnetic letters as yet another way to learn them well. Jillian has found that the more ways she can help students use their bodies as they learn sight words, the more learners she will reach.
Learning to read sight words is an important part of developing fluency and automaticity as a reader, because sight words appear frequently in a variety of texts. Begin by assessing your students' existing knowledge of sight words. Teach them sight words a few at a time, keeping your instruction light and fun, and giving them opportunities to see these words in context. If students are still struggling, consider incorporating a multi-sensory approach to let students use different senses as they learn to read sight words automatically.
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Foundations of Education: Help and Review53 chapters | 506 lessons
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