Secret Sight Word Game

I’ve had a lot of new faces joining This Reading Mama lately.  Welcome!  I’m so glad you’re here!

This is week three of the simple sight word games I’m posting each Monday for the summer.  (Click on the image above or here for weeks 1 and 2.)

As a classroom teacher and now as a homeschooling mama, I am always looking for ways to help sight words “stick”.  Learning words is developmental in nature.  Many times, words that are visually the same give beginning readers trouble.  Take for instance this, that, the, them, they, then, & than.  In context, a beginning learner may have more luck.  But out of context, telling the difference can be rather confusing.

That’s where this SECRET SIGHT WORD game comes into play.  It’s so simple; yet SO effective at getting young readers to focus their attention on these tricky words.

Materials:

• Dry erase board/marker or pencil/paper
• Sight word cards (you can download some for FREE here)

How to Play:

1. Pull out a set of visually similar words that your child has had during the school year.

We used several w words.

2. Talk about the words.  What makes them tricky?  How are they the same?  What are some ways they are different?  (ALuv noticed the number of letters in each word and sorted them.  See below.)

3. Pick one secret word and draw blanks for the word.

4.  Ask your child to guess letters to figure out the word.  (Before guessing any letters, ALuv weeded out words simply based on the number of letters.)

5.  Fill in the letter blanks as appropriate.  Once the child thinks he knows the word, have him say it and write it.

6. If the child wants to take a turn as the “teacher”-Yay!

(Secret Word: water)

Of course, this game can be played with any set of sight words.  That’s what makes it so wonderfully flexible!

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~Becky