“Mum, my name is a sight word,” says Mr M. My mind is foggy most days (sleep deprivation and multi-tasking does that to you apparently). I had no idea what he was on about – “Huh???”. Then I heard myself in his reply, “If you sound it out it doesn’t make sense”. Term 3 of Kindergarten Reading. Well done, son. Well done.

Sight words, or irregular words, are words that can’t be read by applying the letter-sound correspondence knowledge that kids learn in reading programs. E.g. “was” is irregular because the typical sounds for “a” and “s” do not apply. (By the way, words that are irregular at one point in the year may not be irregular later on in the year because children may be taught to associate other sounds for letters/letter combinations later on in the year).

Sight words are basically words that children need to learn to recognise on sight.

My default method for teaching sight words is to look, cover, write, check, and use the word in a sentence. Practise, practise, practise.

However, for various reasons, there may be times when children aren’t quite up to the task of writing yet. E.g. they are just learning how to write so the task of writing and learning the actual sight word is a double whammy for them.

Here are some other (more creative) ways to learn sight words that don’t involve writing.

Sight Word Alphabet Threading

I have a set of these in my classroom and at home. There are commercial sets with sight word cards, beads and pipe cleaners ready to go. However, I have seen people create their own beads by writing letters on beads.

Sight Word Pebbles

So easy and fun. All you need is a bunch of pebbles, a sharpie, some index cards and something to store it all in. Children have to find the pebble with a given sight word.

Giant Keyboard

I have just created this to use with the Kindergarten classes at my school. To make this giant keyboard, you’ll need a plastic table cloth or plastic shower curtain and a sharpie. Tape the giant keyboard down to your classroom floor and have kids spell a given sight word using their feet.

Need More Sight Word Activities?

Practise, practise, practise is the key with sight words. After more sight word activities? Check out these playful ideas from my blogging buddies.

• Fridge Sight Words via Octavia and Vicky
• Sight Word Sensory Bag via Childhood 101 
• Sight Words through Office Play via My Little Bookcase
• 25+ Multi-sensory Activities for Learning Words via Suzie’s Home Education Ideas
• Word Toss Gross Motor Game for Learning Sight Words via Learn with Play at Home
• Sight Word Pop Sticks  and Sight Word Swat via You Clever Monkey

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment; I’d love to hear from you. If you are new here, you might like to receive updates direct to your email. We have many fun ideas to share.

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Sight words are words that children can’t read by using their phonics skills at any given point in time. They are “funny” words because if kids sound out the word as it is written, using the sounds they have been taught for each letter, it sounds “funny”. Learning sight words is an important step for beginning readers because they need a new reading strategy to read this “funny” word.

To have the ability to recognise a given word on sight requires considerable exposure to a word. Ideally, a new sight word should to be seen and played around with daily by a child for 3 to 4 days. If the child is able to read it on sight correctly for two consecutive days, then new sight words can be introduced.

There are many educational games that can be played to learn sight words. This particular sight word educational game is inspired by my children’s love of paper planes.

Sight Word Paper Planes

You’ll need paper and markers.

Have children decorate the paper with sight words. Encourage them to read the sight words they write.

When the page has been filled with sight words, (or as in our case, new sight words are written out at least once), make your paper planes.

Make this educational game for sight words even more inviting with different types of paper, different coloured papers, different writing materials like markers, crayons, pencils, oil pastels, etc.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment; I’d love to hear from you. If you are new here, you might like to receive updates direct to your email. We have many fun ideas to share.

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I’m all for engaging with material and higher order thinking. That’s when we get those wonderful creative, possibility transformative moments. However, to get those moments, certain skills must be learnt and mastered. Practise can’t be avoided. Discipline and persistence is required.

I started playing the piano at the age of four. I continued learning for many years, and to this day, one of my favourite pieces to play is Debussy’s prelude Bruyeres (Heather); a beautiful piece of music in every way.

I can’t begin to tell you the hours I spent over the piano practicing scales in every key and form. To get my technical skills up so that I could play and enjoy pieces like Debussy’s prelude Bruyeres, I had to practise scale after scale after scale.

So it is with reading. There are certain skills in reading that need to be practised and practised, and can only be mastered through practise.

There is a tension, as a parent and a teacher, to persist with children in the practising of these skills. Repetition can’t be avoided. They need to keep practising to learn this certain skill. However, we don’t want them to come to a point where they hate it so much that they give up on it all together.

That’s where educational games help immensely. Rich educational games in particular. At university, we had to learn how to develop teaching resources; and rich educational games are wonderful teaching resources.

Rich educational games have the following characteristics:

• Have clear learning objectives to be met
• The game matches the learning objectives
• Materials are practical and reusable
• Can be completed in 10-20 minutes
• There’s an element of chance
• There are clear rules & structure
• Clear end or winner
• Caters for a range of abilities or has prepared variations
• Strategies can be developed to improve the likelihood of winning
• Is fun to play.

Believe it or not, the old as time game of naughts and crosses can be used as an educational rich game. Here’s how we’ve adapted it to create a rich game for sight words.

You’ll need two pieces of paper. On the first piece of paper, write out the sight words that need practising. You can duplicate the words a few times on the paper if you have space. The second piece of paper is for playing naughts and crosses.

Ask the child to point to a given sight word. If they get it right, they get to put down a naught/cross. If they get it wrong, you put down a naught/cross. Continue until there’s a naughts and crosses winner (i.e. someone completes a straight line of naughts or crosses). Once one game has finished, quickly draw up a new one and play for the next 10 minutes. Challenge them, the winner is the best of 5 or 10 games, etc.

In another version of the game, you can point to a given sight word and ask the child to read that sight word. 

(It’s helpful to note that being able to identify a word and being able to read/name a word are different skills, so make sure you practise both).

This rich educational game of naughts and crosses can be used in so many ways. We’ve used it to practise the sound of letters, the names of letters as well as identifying them, the names of numbers as well as identifying them, reading cvc words, etc.

What educational games have been most helpful for your children?

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment; I’d love to hear from you. If you are new here, you might like to receive updates direct to your email. We have many fun ideas to share.

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