Sight Words for Emerging or Struggling Readers

I work with several for whom reading has not come easily.  These are the kids who spend twenty out of twenty five minutes of silent reading time "looking" for a book to read.  Or when I sit and tell them it's time to read, they come up with lots of diversionary tactics.  Sometimes they ask me if I want some water or a snack (all my kids know I love cookies and treats).  Or they'll take a really long "picture walk" of the book we are about to read, or tell me about how they will celebrate their birthday which is coming up... in like six months. I don't blame them for trying to get out of reading.  For them, it is a frustrating, challenging, laborious task.  These poor kids find themselves stumbling over every other word, and the flow and enjoyment of reading gets lost as they focus all their energy on "sounding out" every word.  


For emerging readers or struggling readers, reading every day is absolutely essential.  Having a large sight word vocabulary is another critical piece.  Sight words are words that we store in our long term memory and can be recognized immediately "on sight." These can be high frequency words (a, and, the) common words that have irregular spellings ( friend), or just words that are frequently used in a child's vocabulary.   The more sight words a reader has, the more fluent her reading will be,  and the more energy and brain power she can devote towards comprehending and enjoying a story or book.  Sight words can also help kids make generalizations about common spelling patterns in English.


There are two lists that you can use for developing sight words.  Fry's Instant Sight Words has words grouped in lists of 100 and list words in order of their frequency of use in written text.  There's also Dolch's Sight Word list that groups words by levels and all together, these words make up 50-75% of written text.  Many of the words appear on both lists.  
Here's a link to see them both: http://www.uen.org/k-2educator/word_lists.shtml

To help commit these words to memory, kids need lots of repetition and exposure.  I will take one list at a time and put words on index cards (no more than 5 new words introduced at a time).  We read each new word, write it in the air, and talk about it.  I will come up with a sentence that uses the word and ask the student to do the same.  Once you have a lot of words, you can play games with them:


Bingo: Make a 4x4 or 5x5 game board.


Swat the Word: Spread the words out on a table. The child "swats" the words as you call them out.  I write words in different colors and will sometimes have them "swat and say all the red words, blue words," etc.


Go Fish: Make pairs of each word and play as you would with a regular deck of cards.


Guess My Word: Put out several words and give clues that slowly narrow down to one word.  After each clue is given, have the students read the eliminated word and say why it doesn't match.
Sample Clues: 

• I'm thinking of a word that has three letters.
• My word starts with a /t/.
• My word has an /a/ in the middle.
• My word rhymes with man.

I like working with sight words because they give me (the tutor), the parents, and the child some real quantifiable measures of progress.  I show my students what list they are working on.  We even make piles of words they know and words they're still practicing.  They can see one pile grow and the other shrink.  We celebrate moving on from one list to the next.  I have one student who is now just about to complete his 10th list of Fry sight words, which means when we are done, he will have mastered the 1,000 most frequently used words in written text.  It's quite evident in his reading, and I can't wait to celebrate when he meets this goal!

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Inside the "Reading Zone"

Reading inspires curiosity, education, and enjoyment. I never know which new book will drop me into the "reading zone," that space where time flies and everything else around me falls away as I enter into the pages of my book.  Sometimes I love a book so much that even though my eyes like to wander ahead to the next paragraph, my heart forces me to cover the page with my hand just to slow me down and keep me from finishing too quickly.  Unfortunately, not all kids have had this experience with reading yet.  Once they do however, they're hooked.  The secret is finding the right book.  Below you'll find a short list of my favorite books.  These are books that I read and loved as a kid, or are books I love sharing with kids.

Picture BooksThe Little House by Virginia Lee Burton
The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown
Zoom by Istvan Banyai - A super cool wordless book
All the Alexander books by Judith Viorst
- Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day
- Alexander Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday
-Alexander Who is Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move
** Although great for both boys and girls, these are really good boy books, especially for those boys who despite best intentions, just can't keep themselves out of trouble!**
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
The Missing Piece by Shel Silverstein  *Every time I read this book, I get a different message.*

Early Reader BooksFrog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel.  Love those guys!  Especially Toad who worries too much and takes everything so literally!
Amelia Bedelia series by Peggy Parish
Zach's Alligator series by Shirley Mozelle

Children's Novels
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White (If you checked my "About Me" page, you'll see this is my all time favorite book. Every time I read this book with my third graders I cried and they never knew what to do).
Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary
Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate Di Camillo
Tiger Rising by Kate Di Camillo
All Roald Dahl Books, but especially George's Marvelous Medicine
Fig Pudding by Ralph Fletcher
Out of The Dust by Karen Hesse
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stuart
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Links to Some Other Book Lists:

The Top 100 Children's Novels
The Top 100 Picture Books

Newberry Medal and Honor Books

Some Math Homework Tips

Yes, I am qualified to help your child become a better reader, writer, speller, etc., but for my first blog ever, anyone who knows me will not be surprised to find that my topic of choice is math.  I LOVE math.  I love that you can approach any given problem from a number of ways, draw pictures, build models, use parentheses and fill tons of blank pages with numbers and symbols and circles, scribble stuff out, and get messy. 

Obviously, I know not everyone likes to nerd out with numbers like me.  I also know that for many families, math homework is a battle.  Here are just a couple of general tips about how to better help your child with math at home:

1. Let your child keep the pencil (pen).
Seriously, this is so simple, but it's really a big one.  Resist the urge to take it out of your child's hand, because now you're doing the math, and she's just watching.  A better approach is to either talk her through it while she works the problem, or (my choice) work the problem side by side.  This way, your child can see you model steps and thinking, but also gets to see the glory of numbers, and figure some stuff out along the way, too.

2. Wait longer than you think before stepping in to help.
One of my favorite parts of teaching is watching the wheels start to turn.  All I want to do is help, and this means I sometimes have to bite my lip, sit on my hands, or swallow my words because the struggling to make sense really is a crucial part of the process.

3. Listen more. 
Math instruction in many classrooms today is just different from when we were in school.  I get that as parents, you just want to help your children finish their homework, and get the problems done correctly.  Again, lots of math instruction today focuses on meaning and sense making.  Does your child understand what he just did?  Can he explain it with words or drawings or numbers?  So when your child comes home with a homework assignment, I suggest that you have a conversation about it.  Ask your child to show you a problem he's working on.  Have him solve it and talk it through with you.  Rely on logic and reasoning instead of procedure.