Saturday, November 08, 2008

Teaching Sight Words

How do you teach sight words, words that are not phonetic?

Charlotte Mason suggested having children look at the word on a card, flip it over, and then write it.

With my dyslexic children, we called sight words "red letter words." I wrote them in red marker on index cards. They would then trace them with their fingers, spelling them out loud. They would also "put the words on their shoulders." That is, they put their right hand on their left shoulder, said the word, then tapped down their arm as they spelled it out. Amazingly enough, this worked wonders in helping them remember their sight words. In fact, after my son learned to read well, he would still occasionally put his hand on his shoulder when trying to remember how to spell a sight word. It helped him pull it from his "mental filing cabinet."

However you go about it, you may be interested in these websites:
Author Jan Brett's Home Page - A Great Place for Ideas
Free Sight Word Helpers
Word Search Puzzles: Find Dolch Sight Words

Thanks to Beate, from the Literature Alive Yahoo Group, for bringing these to my attention! Beate's daughter is a late reader and uses the sight words cards to help build confidence. She writes in the air, traces on the carpet, etc.

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