How I Teach Sight Words to My Struggling Reader

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I have a struggling reader.  We have been doing a mixture of phonics and sight words, trying to find how she learns best.  It has been trial and error over the past year, but I think I have finally found a method to help my daughter with learning to read with a whole word approach with sight words.  We still learn phonics, right now working through word families to try and grasp CVC words, but right now, she is excelling in learning sight words, so I want to encourage any growth and excitement about reading that I can.


I have begun to introduce 4 sight words a week.  I write all four words on the board on Monday then each day we focus on one word.  We start by me saying all four words.  I then have her repeat the words in order.  We do this two or three times each day.  Then we focus on one word and read sentences with that word in them.  I then have her find and circle every time she sees the focus sight word in the sentences.

Here is a link to a video of how we practice sight words each day ----> SIGHT WORD VIDEO

 After we practice the word, we have two practice sheets that focus on the chosen sight word.  I have a variety of sheets I use that help her practice spelling, recognizing and reading her sight words.


Here are three examples of pages I use to help reinforce the sight word we are learning.  We have seek and find pages, art pages, unscramble the sentences, word searches, writing practice and reading passages.  I choose two out of these pages for my daughter to complete depending on the skill we are focusing on that day.

Learn more about these sight word pages in THIS BLOG POST.

Sometimes I give her a sight word flip book for words she needs to be more familiar with.  These books cover all the same skills as the pages from the above packet but also include some hands on spelling and searching activities using magazine cut outs and stamps.  She loves the variety of activities these books provide.  We are currently working though this set of Sight Word Flip Books.  

To learn more about these flip books please see THIS BLOG POST.


Sometimes I also give her the choice of some more hands on approach to learning sight words.  I originally had these in mind for her brother for when he began learning sight words, but she absolutely loves them and asks to have them to practice her sight words. She loves driving cars on these Sight Word Road Mats.

After we work on the four words, one each day, we then have one day to just review the words we have been learning. 


So the first thing we do on our review day is read the words all mixed up.  We spent the whole week reading them in a specific order, I test to see if they can be read out of that order.  


We then put together Sight Word Puzzles to spell our words and record the words on our paper as we spell them.  We then write the words in ABC order.


Finally, we play a sight word game.  This game changes with the season/holiday to keep it fun and relevant.  We call them "Where's The [Object]."  I hid the object behind a sight word.  We say a poem, pick a sight word, then see if the object is behind the sight word.

To see a video of how this game is played, please see THIS VIDEO for the summer version and THIS VIDEO for the fall version.

We have had great success with learning AND retaining sight words using this method and these activities.   




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