More ideas for teaching Sight Words

Memory

• Make 2 copies of each sheet, preferably on card or something that you can’t see through. Cut out the words.
• Lay all the cards face down. Take turns, turning over a pair of cards, read each one, if they don’t match turn them back face down and try again. If the words match, the person who made the match takes the cards. The player with the most cards at the end of the game wins.
• Bingo
  • Cut up a set of words and give the child a base board. You will need a set of counters, coins, lollies, smarties etc
  • Give the child 1 or 2 base boards. Jumble up the word cards and call out a word. The child puts a token (coin, lolly) on the word. When they make a row – horizontal or diagonal – then they get to keep the tokens or eat the lollies. Make it competitive – only the first person to find the word gets the token. At first let them look at the word, progress to finding it only by listening and identifying
  • Word Jig-Saws.
    • Cut each of the words in half horizontally. Have the child match the tops and bottoms of the words together. For initial support use the back boards to build the words on, later move on to building them without the base board.
    • Cut each of the cards up into 4 parts like a jigsaw. Have the child reassemble the words and glue them onto a piece of paper. For added support match them and glue them on to the whole word.
    • Spelling 
    • Print out a couple of sets of letters of the alphabet. Use a font that is similar to what is being taught at school, later pick some different fonts to assist with generalisation and awareness of different letter shapes
    • Make the words out of the letter cards. Start with a small set of letters – just the letters in the word, then build up with a few extra letters, then later with a full alphabet.
    • Have the word in front of the child. Build the word out of the letters, either just above or on top of the word
    • Look at a word, remember it – build the word out of letters without the cue card, as suggested start with a few letters. When the child gets stuck allow them to look at the word again and again try to remember it and turn it face down again before continuing.

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