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teaching sight words
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I’m new to CM and I have a child who is READY to read. She can blend 3 letter words and now I would like to add in sight words. I honestly don’t know the CM way to teach reading. We have just read lots and lots of books to her and now she is starting to read them to me. It’s so exciting.. When we come to sight words I stop and tell her “this is a sight word” and I tell her what it is.. How do I teach sight words? Thanks
Angela
I don’t know if this is the CM way, either, but here’s what I’m going to try. I found a set of flashcards at specialed.about.com for both sight words and word families (ap words, etc.). I’ll spend about 5 minutes per day on each set. I’m considering putting magnetic tape on the back so I can put the “words of the week” in a prominent place for him to see.
Karen
I’ll add that I am not 100% sure if this is pure CM, but I did a combo of sight words and phonics. We went through the basic phonics teaching and threw in the sight word flash cards (the Dolch and Fry lists) with it. You can find the flash cards many places, but you can also google Dolch and Fry word lists and make your own. Since it was a big list of words, we only worked on the ones he needed at the time (the ones for the books he was reading) and once he had one down I didn’t keep drilling him on it. I am currently reading through CM’s first volume, Home Education, and from what I understand in her section on Reading, she did advocate teaching a combined approach. (and if anyone else has a better understanding of that writing, please correct me, as I am not completely confident I understood it correctly). All that to say, combining both phonics and sight words has worked well for us and my son has caught on to reading well, he can sound out words but also doesn’t seem bothered when a word doesn’t follow the rules and accepts it as a “sight word.”
I have the Dolch sight word list and I work with my 5yo (we started when she was 4) on 5 at a time for about 2 weeks or until mastery. We do activities with the words such as say-spell-say, finger tracing, tracing in rice, spelling the letter out with magnetic letters and lacing letters, and we spot them in books as we are reading together. She started asking for spelling tests since she sees her older sister take them, but I only do it when she asks. This method has worked very well–for my daughter! They may not be the answer for your child, but I thought I’d share what worked for us.
Faith 🙂
P.S. To find a sight word list, I just googled it and found several sites listing them. One that we enjoy using is Jan Brett’s site. http://www.janbrett.com
I started sight words straight out of CM’s first volume. First I printed off a poem called the Violet. Then I took the first ten words and typed them and pasted so there were about six copies of each word. I printed them and then cut them all up and placed in a ziplock baggy. I also had a complete first part of the poem typed up so I had a copy. I would show her the word on a slate then have her spell it out with her loose letters. I would then have her find all 6 copies that were scattered about on the floor. After she found all six I would have her make a sentence with the word. After doing all the words the next day would be review. I would say the word and she would spell it. I put all the completed sight words on a 3*5 card so we could continue reviewing. After we had completed the entire poem I started having her place words in a sentence and then reading it off to me. It was quite delightful! I followed CM to a T and it worked like a charm! After we had finished the entire poem we had several sight words from words like “to” to words like “modest”.
CM used Little Cock Robin for her example. I wanted to use a poem that my daughter didn’t know so that when we were making sentences she wouldn’t already know the line. I think I found my poem off a list called hymns in proes for children but then again it could have been somewhere else. You can read about the example in her first volume on page 212. I have to say that I have followed CM almost exactly when it comes to reading. The only thing I have swayed on is I started about three months before my daughter’s 6th birthday.
Another great activity to expose children to sight words is playing a board game called, Er-u-di-tion. This award winning game incorporates over 300 sight words and the letters of the alphabet and their basic phonic sounds in an enjoyable, engaging activity, providing both teachers and parents with a useful tool. Cards are categorized so children of all reading levels can play together!
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