Help with kindergarten sight words?

[eilonwy]

My kindergartener is doing very well with phonics, but she's having a VERY hard time learning her sight words. Each time she sees "the" or "is" she tries to sound them out, for example. She's only got about half a dozen of these words, but she just can't seem to get the hang of them. Is there anything out there like Starfall, only for sight words?

[Marimami]

My DD is the same age and we realized she was doing the same thing--she was decoding everything even if it was a sight word or if she just decoded the word on the previous page.

DH had a chat with her and figured out that she thought it was "cheating" to just say the word that she recognized. She thought she was supposed to decode every word, regardless. Once we convinced her that reading really was just recognizing the words and only sounding out if she needed to, she started to break through this barrier.

We don't use Starfall or any other techniques other than just reading so don't have anything like that to recommend.

Holli

[chfriend]

Here are a couple places to look at:

http://www.starfall.com/n/matching/s...rds/play.htm?f

http://www.mrcpl.org/literacy/lessons/sight/index.html

[chfriend]

Here's another one....I love the bbc games:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsan...ds/index.shtml

[skueppers]

Originally Posted by Marimami

DH had a chat with her and figured out that she thought it was "cheating" to just say the word that she recognized. She thought she was supposed to decode every word, regardless. Once we convinced her that reading really was just recognizing the words and only sounding out if she needed to, she started to break through this barrier.

My daughter thought it was cheating, too. She made a lot more progress with reading once she understood that sounding a word out is more of a fallback for when you don't recognize the word right off.

[eilonwy]

I don't think that cheating is a concern here. She's a very new reader, for one thing, and for another... well, I don't think cheating would bother her. She honestly doesn't recognize the words, even when she's presented with them several times over the course of a few minutes. I'll try the games with her, thanks.

[3*is*magic]

I was just reviewing sight words with my kindy girl! She was having trouble with said and like but knew lots of others, like red, yellow, I, mom, dad, love, to, go, etc. We have a list of the 20 words, and I was pointing to them and she was saying them out loud (at her request - she's loves "homework") so I started making sentences out of them without telling her what I was doing. When she figured out what I was doing she thought it was a hoot. For example:

My mom likes yellow.
I said go!
Dad said no.
I like red and yellow.

Each sentence used one of the words she wasn't getting - she knew them perfectly within 5 minutes and thought it was hysterical that you could make actually sentences out of sight words! Imagine that!

ETA - I didn't realize I was posting on a HSing board! I saw this in new posts and just clicked . DD does go to school outside the home, but I hope that my post helps nonetheless!

[LauraLoo]

You may want to try some of these ideas -- maybe she needs to get a "picture" of these words in her head.

From http://www.yourdictionary.com/dictio...ord-Games.html

Use modeling clay to make letters or sculpt sight words. Students can use a pencil, toothpick or another object to imprint the words into the clay. (my note: This is a technique that is often used with dyslexics so they can use kinesthetic abilities along with visual - especially for dolch sight words)

Make a game for students using alphabet stamps, big sheets of blank newsprint, and stamp pad ink. Ask students to stamp out sight words onto the big sheets of paper, then provide magazines and catalogs for them to snip out images and glue onto the paper to illustrate their creation.

Take a walk around the classroom, school, or neighborhood. Ask students to identify objects they see that are on their Dolch sight word list. After students return to the classroom, have them paint or draw what they saw, writing in the sight words on their art project to practice spelling.

For spelling with my ds, it is helpful for him to close his eyes and spell it forwards then "see" it and then spell it backwards. Anything that can be made into a visual image in his brain is forever accessible, but it's trickier with words like "was" and "the." I know that flash cards get a lot of flack, but if she made her own with words that trip her up along with any type of color pencil/crayon and decorated her own way, she may have an easier time committing those words to memory.

[spedteacher30]

google "Dolch words" and you will get tons of ideas for activities to do with kids with the 100 most common words--most of which are sight words. You can play modified bingo, you can do matching games, you can make two sets and play go fish, etc.

I personally think that there is something lost in learning to read from independent work on a computer or a workbook. reading is about language, and language is inherently social, so for most kids, I think the social context is critical to really getting a firm grounding in reading.

[zacharysmom]

we called them memory words that helped us some

[Calidris]

Originally Posted by eilonwy

My kindergartener is doing very well with phonics, but she's having a VERY hard time learning her sight words. Each time she sees "the" or "is" she tries to sound them out, for example. She's only got about half a dozen of these words, but she just can't seem to get the hang of them. Is there anything out there like Starfall, only for sight words?

Flash cards (I mean like index card and sharpie homemade ones).

I hate flash cards, and disapprove of the look and say method, but when I introduced a few basic words by flashcard (the, and, you) DD just took off with it (she had phonics principles down for ages, but just wasn't really getting reading). So I reluctantly incorporated some look and say reading books (Ladybird Peter and Jane series) and she suddenly totally got into reading (and zoomed ahead in the books cause she could apply her phonics after a bit).
I told her they were flashcard words that didn't follow the rules and just had to be learned, and she was ok with that.

[EXOLAX]

Originally Posted by eilonwy

My kindergartener is doing very well with phonics, but she's having a VERY hard time learning her sight words. Each time she sees "the" or "is" she tries to sound them out, for example. She's only got about half a dozen of these words, but she just can't seem to get the hang of them. Is there anything out there like Starfall, only for sight words?

Not really like starfall but have you looked at spellingcity.com? On their front page on the bottom right they have some pre-generated spelling lists and include the Dolch words there. Here's a matching game generated from one of the Dolch lists:
http://www.spellingcity.com/match-wo...listId=1878955

Our YDD went through this same thing. She went into phonics with some sight words down though and lost them once she started phonics. She has them back now. She used to say 'the' and then switched to "th...eee, the" having gone purely phonetic. That's when I did make use of flashcards, but as a game as another poster mentioned. I'd give her some word cards "the, is, home, dog" and have her make a sentence out of them.

For our DD it also helps her to write them. She takes rule breaker words like they are a personal affront to her. It helps her to write them down and put up a jail around them. I then add other similar words for her to toss in jail. This was something she saw some other kids at ODD's school doing one day and thought it was hysterical.

I think at this point repetition is key. You can make, or have her make some small books she can read if you don't have any on hand. Seuss books are great too, I understand some of them only contain the Dolch sight words but haven't confirmed.

[tbone]

This page has a lot of great info on sight words:

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20R...ightwords.html