Reading Dolch Sight Words

As a parent of 4 and a teacher that is certified PreK-8, I am very skeptical of reading instruction because I have worn the reading teacher hat. I thank Aimee for making me a contributor of this blog because I now have my three smallest children in elementary in the early grades and my oldest is an avid reader in middle school. As a new mom of each of them, I made sure that I read to them in-utero as well as newborns and on up in their lives. Now when I see them come home from school, each are carrying books from their school library and are very proud of their new friends. I can't say it enough for expectant moms and new moms...Readers are made on the lap of the parents!

Now I have gone way off topic, but I felt that that introduction may serve a purpose for what I am about to explore with my readers. My 1st grader brought home sight words the other night attached with instructions for learning. Some of the words include: said, what, may, make, and number and color words, white, brown, seven and five, etc. As a reading teacher with a reading endorsement from the state of Georgia, sight words can not be sounded out. A side note, I remember my mom and dad as a child trying to sound out words and it made me even more confused as a low average reader. Sight words, also called Dolch words, have to be recognized. The beginning sound can be pronounced but it is not worthwhile to sound the whole word. For example, the word say. If you sound out this word, it sounds like ss aa yah(saya). Learning games should be used to help your child learn these words. Playing word bingo is a great way to help your child learn the words while keeping it game-like. Beans or coins can be provided to cover the word that they read by themselves. Please remember to praise your child and work on the words no more than 10 minutes. My 2nd grader's teacher gave me a PowerPoint with the words on it, one on each slide and my children love to sit at the computer for word time!

Another important idea that I just learned about last week is an awesome website called
http://www.wordle.net/ This is a website where anyone can go in and make colorful pages with words to hang anywhere. This site is perfect for bulletin boards, word walls, or anything creative that you can do with it. I made several posters for my classroom with vocabulary.
I hope to contribute from time to time. Thank you Aimee for allowing me this chance.