Sight Words booklets packed with ideas

Updating archives ~ Get your FREE Sight Words sampler Ebook and purchase a complete 30-page Sight Words Ebook

Teaching sight words is a very important and helpful tool to make reading easier for young students from pre-K to Grade 3.

Sight words = often also called high frequency sight words, are commonly used words that young children are encouraged to memorize as a whole by sight, so that they can automatically recognize these words in print without having to use any strategies to decode. (Definition – Wikipedia)

Sight words often cover almost half the reading material on a page.  By memorizing sight words, a child can quickly recognise and recall these words and does not need to decode or break up or sound out every letter of each word, thus simplifying his reading process.
What sight word lists to teach?

There are 3 main sight word lists ~

1. Dolch Sight Words
2. Fry’s 1000 Sight Words list using more modern words.
3. Most frequently used words First 100-200 most commonly used words charts  or First 100 high frequency word lists

Whatever lists you choose to teach your child, you should introduce one or two words  each day, gradually adding new words while repeating and practicing the taught words until your child has learnt the entire list. Very quickly your child will build a wonderful, rich store of instantly recognized words which he can quickly read, thus building his reading ability.

How to teach sight words?

A general rule = Always say the whole word, then spell it out and then say it again, underlining the whole word with the first 2 fingers from left to right. 

There are several additional valuable techniques to teach sight words. You can view these lessons on http://www.sightwords.com/sight-words/lessons/

1. See and Say
2. Spell and read
3. Arm Tap
4. Air Writing 
5. Table Writing
6. Quick correction 

Download your FREE sampler  ~ Sight Words Sampler including the Dolche lists with words in sentences and the Dice & Spinner templates

Sight word games to play

The best way to practice is to have fun! Once the words have been taught, the child must practice those words daily.  Many of these games involve physical exercise which, in turn, strengthens core and fine motor muscles and reinforces directions and spatial awareness.  My complete 30-page Sight Words EBook has all the games, ideas, activities, templates and posters for you to have fun teaching and learning sight words with your children.

As in all teaching, you should customize your child’s lists to suit their levels of maturity and ability.  When they are ready, they will quickly learn new words and enjoy the learning process.

Click over to my Packages page to order the full 30-page Sight Words Ebook which includes ~

• How to teach sight words lessons with detailed examples.
• 18 Creative Spelling games (one or two players & physical activities
• 24 Spelling ideas with unique activities &fun ideas
• Dolch sight word lists with flashcards & words in sentences
• Fry’s 100 Sight Words
• 100 Frequently used sight word lists
• Spinner and dice templates for games and activities
• Board game and Bingo template
• Links to websites and YouTube videos

Please support me by ordering this wonderful booklet on my Packages Page.

References ~ You will find lots of other lists, flashcards, games and downloads on the web ~

• Sight word lessons – www.sightwords.com/
• Dolch flash cards – www.sightwords.com
• Dolch word lists for all the grades –www.sightwords.com
• All Dolch words alphabetical order pdf download –www.sightwords.com/
• Dolch lists – www.kidzone.ws/dolch/grade1.htm
• Fry’s First 100 Frequency words – www.kidzone.ws
• Sight word games – www.sightwords.com/
• More new sight word games – www.sightwords.com/
• Online sight words games –www.education.com/
• Interactive Printable Flash Cards – www.apples4theteacher.com
• 100 Most common words –.wikipedia.org

 Blessings, Nadene

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How fun can make your child a better student

Recently I was directed to this wonderful infographic ~

They explain,

“Fun — it’s not just for, well, fun. Playing games can help boost a person’s development throughout their childhood.

Through playing games children learn a number of important skills, like turn-taking, empathy, problem solving, and being a good sport whether they win or lose. Scientific evidence supports a theory that play stimulates the cerebral cortex which is vital to learning and memory. “

Pop over to Early Childhood Education Degrees  to view the infographic “The Play’s The Thing: How Fun Can Make Your Child A Better Student“.

Blessings,

Add Variety

Variety adds “spice” to life …

and different approaches are good tools to enhanced learning!

This is especially true when a child struggles, stresses or stagnates in learning skills.

Spelling and maths tables, bonds and drills are common problem subjects in many children’s schooling, and despite diligent effort, they may still struggle to master new and difficult skills.

When this happens, look for some new tools or methods and to try to involve as many senses as possible.

Movement is often a great method to apply in Maths.  We use these for tables and bonds or reviews:

• skip with a rope calling out the skip counting or times tables  
• jump on a mini trampoline
• jump up a flight of stairs, one step at a time, if the answer is correct, back if incorrect
• clap hands as partners to tables
  

  This is a great idea to add to ‘blank’ trampolines – excellent for directionality and spatial awareness

• bounce and catch a beach ball – on floor/ against a wall/ with mom or sibling
• hop on one leg

With spelling, try a variety of objects:

• Bananagrams
• Scrabble tiles
• magnetic letters on the fridge
• white board
• trace in flour/ rice/ small lentils on a tray
• trace letters on a sealed Ziploc bag filled with colored pudding (and enjoy eating it afterwards)
• play-dough letters
• foam letters – print out spelling
• physically forming the letter shape with their body and a rope or stick.

Review or re-wind previous lessons with a different approach.

Use arrows, directions and obstacle courses, play “Twister” to amplify Geography skills.

When your child starts school after a long break, try  a physical, musical workout and make it energetic fun.

Music, songs and rap are excellent for spelling or learning off by heart.  Add some cool moves which amplify meaning to add to the impact of the learning experience. My kids still remember their Geography Songs CD!

Do school in a different room or place or in a  new environment. Sit under the table, stand on the table, go outside, or lie on the floor.  Try to learn in a darkened room and encourage the child to print “mental visual images” in their minds.

Despite variety being fun, it activates different centers in the brain and facilitates neural links and connections.

When a child really continues to struggle, I  encourage you to take you child to an occupational or remedial therapist.  Apart from correctly assessing where the problem may lie, they have a massive repertoire of games, activities and approaches which you can use at home.  They have mastered the art of using games to teach and reinforce skills.

Lastly, although iPad and Smartphone apps and computer games promote interactive learning, research has shown that screens and flashing imagery does not necessarily enhance learning as much as real life, physical, sensory experiences do.

Teach new skills in new ways to add to the impact of the lesson. Find your child’s learning style and work that into your teaching style.

Laugh and have fun.

What novel ways have you used to teach or reinforce lessons?  Please share with other readers in the comments.

Blessings,

Maths Games With A Pack of Cards

We love to play maths games on Fridays for informal, fun mental arithmetic practice!

Did you know that an ordinary pack of playing cards is your most versatile game?

I spotted the game that is worth 1000 worksheets at Lets Play Math.net.

I made these instruction cards sized to fit in the card pack so that the kids can play maths games when they have spare time.

And here’s your free download ~ Maths Card Game Rules

There is so much more on Let’s Play Maths, but take a look at these other web sites for more maths card games:

• Maths with playing cards at Crewton Ramones House of Math.com
• Maths games using cards from k-3 Teacher Resources.com
• Card Games from brokenhilld.det.nsw.edu.au (each link is a doc download)
• Make At Home Math Games at Child Parenting.about.com
• Using Playing Cards and Dice to Teach Maths from Math Games and Activities.com

Have you seen the other fun maths downloads on my Maths Pages?

Have fun!

Blessings,

Learning Geography with “Simon Says”

We are studying the hemispheres and found this wonderful Geography Classroom Game ~

play “Geography Simon Says”

"Tropic of Cancer" = Shoulders!

But before the game we first learnt about the Equator, Tropics and Arctic and Antarctic circles and North and South Poles.

The kids found and named all the latitude lines on our globe.

Then we checked the names and positions on our maps.

Now we could play!

We named the body:

Top of head = North Pole
Ears = Arctic Circle *
Shoulders = Tropic of Cancer
Waist = Equator
Knees = Tropic of Capricorn
Shins = Antarctic Circle *
Toes = South Pole

* Once the kids had mastered the basics, I added the Arctic and Antarctic circles.

It took just a few rounds for the kids to learn all these important positions on the globe … and we had fun!

I am using Intelligo Unit Studies for our Geography course.

We used all these links for this Unit Study:

World Atlas – Hemispheres

Geography.About.com

How to Teach Latitude and Longitude

Games involve different learning styles. This physical activity is valuable  for kinesthetic learners (children who need to do/ act/ move what they are learning).  Games only need about 5 to 10 minutes, but they secure the new information in a dynamic way.

Our young children (and moms, too) must get out of our chairs and be actively involved when learning.  Hands-on activities, games, projects and fun create a happy learning environment.

Homeschool is fun!

Remedial Games for b/d, p/q or t/f Reversals

Every now and then a young reader reverses b, d, p, q, t, f .

Image by Wallula Junction via Flickr

Remedial games are a fun way to  teach basics,

reinforce concepts,

strengthen recognition and help improve  their confidence!

First, I used the letter chart.

We drew pictures over the letters to reinforce the visual picture of the shape and the sound of the letter.

 

 

visual clues to reinforce letter shapes

 

• b looks like a bat with a ball stuck to its right side, so we made a cricket bat and a red cricket ball.
• the d looks like a dog with its tail up behind him, start d by drawing a dog body then its tail going up
• a t could hold a tea-cup with tea in its base, draw the tea-cup in the base
• the f is like a sunflower with its flower head flopping over at the top to the right
• a p is a pig with a pointy foot in a puddle and then its big pig body, so draw the long pointy foot first, then its fat round body.  The foot goes down into the puddle so it goes below the writing line.
• q is for a queen so we draw a crown on her head, her train flowing behind her and the servant u always walks next to her to hold up her train and keep an umbrella (u for umbrella) over her head so she won’t get sunburnt.

I made a letter dice and flash cards for several games:

 

dice with laminated cards

 

~ throw dice and select correct letter card

~ throw dice and find word ending with that letter

~compare differences in similar words

~ play snap

~colour letter in with whiteboard marker (on laminated card)

In just a few weeks any confusion should clear up if you play these games for few minutes every day.

Download the 4 page remedial game pages here ~b,d,t,f recognition game

(There are plenty of other worksheets and ideas, so if you need any, leave a comment and I’ll try upload a few for you.)