20 EASY Ways to Practice Sight Words

Looking for some EASY ways to practice sight words with your learners? Yes, please!

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Why Sight Words?

If you really take a look at sight words, the majority of them are words that learners can decode (and, is, well, soon, etc.). So why do we even need learners to worry with sight words?

There is ONE BIG REASON: Sight words {also called high frequency words} occur so often in reading that knowing them automatically is KEY.

While learners NEED phonics instruction, they also need to be able to recognize those frequent words without slowing down to decode them every.single.time. Relying on phonics alone for these frequent words bogs readers down, negatively affecting their fluency AND comprehension.

Feel free to read more of what I’ve written about sight words in my articles: Sight Words: When they Just Don’t “Stick,” 2 Kinds of Sight Words and Phonics or Sight Words? Teaching Kids to Read.

 

20 EASY Ways to Practice Sight Words

One thing to keep in mind: Not all sight words can be fully decoded using phonics. I find that when teaching these kinds of sight words, it helps to talk about the easy parts of the word (parts that follow the phonics rules) and the hard parts of the word (parts that are confusing or tricky).

For example, the word what has two “easy” parts – the wh and the t make the sounds they’re supposed to make. It’s the a that makes the wrong/hard sound.

With all that said, let’s get to some EASY ways to practice sight words!

1. Download our Sight Word Games App – The only set up is choosing the words your learners will need. But we’ve made that part easy. And with our update from this summer, you can now sync your device to other devices. You can read more about our Sight Word Games App.

 

2. Print our Sight Word Sentence Cards – With FIVE levels to choose from, you’ve got an EASY way to practice sight words within the context of a simple sentence!

3. Use a choice board – Learners choose which hands-on spelling activity they will use from their Tic-Tac-Do Spelling Board. Combine it with a dry erase board or notebook and you’ve got an easy routine you can use every week!

4. Use bottle caps – Collect bottle caps from friends and family to use for spelling sight words. See how you can do this with these cute Caterpillar Sight Words.

 

5. Chant them – Download our Animal Sight Word Chants and 24 Sight Word Chants. SUCH an easy and multi-sensory way to practice ANY sight words!

6. Move and spell them – Download our free Sight Word Action Cards to get kids moving their ENTIRE BODY as they spell the words.

7. Spell with magnetic letters – We LOVE Learning Resource’s Magnetic Letter Construction Kit!

Although you can spell words with letter tiles, I prefer magnetic letters because learners can FEEL the letters’ formation. These magnetic letter construction pieces take it to a whole new level as learners have to build each letter {a great way to visualize letters}.

 

8. Sight word activity pages – We have several free sight word activity pages for beginning sight words as well as entire bundles for the Dolch Words and Fry’s Words. I love how learners read, find, trace, spell, build, and then write them in sentences.

9. Focus on their shape – Learners can use manipulatives you already have, like DUPLO or LEGO bricks to build the shape of the sight word. This is such a visual way to sneak in handwriting, too!

10. Play SIMPLE card games – You’ll love our Sight Word Dice Game. {They’re editable!} Try our Thanksgiving Sight Word Card Game for free!

 

11. Go fishing! – Learners love to fish for words! These fish are editable and give a small taste of all the games you’ll find in our Printable Spelling Games and Activities pack.

12. Use editable games – Editable games allow YOU to customize the exact sight words your learners need. Try our FREE seasonal Editable Thanksgiving Sight Word Card Games, Roll a Snowman Sight Word Game as well as our Roll a Flower Sight Word Game…all editable!

13. Integrate a little math – Some learners struggle with language and thrive with math. We have LOTS of free seasonal Word Bump! Games, perfect for tying some math into reading and spelling sight words. Our simple Roll and Write Sight Words game from YEARS ago is also still a hit with my learners…and it’s SO simple to play.

14. Use a spelling folder – Having a portable word wall is a great way to help learners have access to the correct spellings of those frequently needed sight words.

I’ve made this one SUPER EASY for you by providing FREE spelling folders! Grab our Kindergarten Spelling Folder, our Spelling Folder for 1/2 grade, or our Elementary Spelling Folder (for 3rd-5th grades.) Yes, you just hit the jackpot. 🙂

15. Sort them – We typically think of word sorts for phonics words, but you can integrate phonics right into sight words, too. Check out our free Short Vowel Sight Word Sorts and our Free Long Vowel Sight Word Sort.

16. Sing sight word songs – Take a simple tune, like BINGO, and sing a song featuring a sight word. For example, “There’s a word that I can spell. And like is it’s name-on. L-I-K-E – like; L-I-K-E – like; L-I-K-E – like. And like is its name-o.”

If you don’t think you can carry a tune in a bucket, ask your learners to help you out. Because they’re set to familiar tunes, most learners will already know the songs. In my emergent reader curriculum bundle pack, Reading the Alphabet, every week features a different song to go with the new sight word.

 

17. Use over-sized letter cards – You can spell all kinds of words with your learners using our sets of over-sized letter cards. We have Oversized Uppercase Cards, Oversized Lowercase Cards, and Oversized Digraph Cards…all FREE to download!

18. Color them – I’ve created some FREE Color by Sight Word pages that go hand-in-hand with Reading the Alphabet. In the next curriculum up, Learn to Read, my Kindergartner LOVED our Color it Crazy Sight Word Pages, which takes sight word coloring pages to harder level.

19. Rainbow write them – Grab a die and some crayons. You can use our template or ask learners to do it on their own. Either way, it’s no prep and simple!

20. Read sight words in context – Last, but certainly not least, learners need to practice sight words by reading. We can practice sight words on word cards until we’re blue in the face, but reading them in the context of a book is when learners really need to use them. Learners get lots of practice just reading books on their level.

You can find our free word family books that also feature sight words. But if you really want some focused sight word practice in context, check out all the sight word books The Measured Mom has.

 

Be sure to look through all our Sight Word Printables!

 

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Enjoy teaching sight words!
~Becky