Sight Word Practice

Research shows that most readers need between one and four exposures to a word to commit it to long-term memory. Struggling readers need even more exposure to new words because orthographic mapping can be hard. Repeated practice with sight words gives students the exposure they need to build their sight word vocabulary.

Suggested Activities for Practicing at Home

1. Make an extra set of cards and play memory.
2. Hang up two sight words and race your child across the room to read the sight word in “your lane”. 
3. Go on a Sight Word Scavenger Hunt by hiding the flashcards around the house.
4. Play Sight Word War – each player turns over a sight word and whoever reads the sight word first wins both cards.
5. Make a Bingo board with the sight words. Play Bingo.
6. Create a word search puzzle on www.puzzlemaker.com
7. Make an extra set of cards and play Go Fish.
8. Make a Tic Tac Toe board with the sight words.  Play Tic Tac Toe.
9. Flashlight words – tape the words up on the ceiling and turn off the lights. Use the flashlight to read the words.
10. Make the words using play-dough. 

K-2 Cycle Words List

Sight Word Practice Ideas

Reading Comprehension Questions to Ask Your Child

In Grades 3-5, children transition from "learning to read" to "reading to learn." Students begin to read, process, and understand the meaning of text.

Comprehension is the reason for reading. If readers can read the words but do not understand what they are reading, they are not really reading. 

As they read, good readers are both purposeful and active. Good readers have a purpose for reading. Good readers think actively as they read. To make sense of what they read, good readers engage in a complicated process. 

Using their experiences and knowledge of the world, their knowledge of vocabulary and language structure, and their knowledge of reading strategies (or plans), good readers make sense of the text and know how to get the most out of it. They know when they have problems with understanding and how to resolve these problems as they occur.

Questions for Fiction Texts - English & Spanish

Questions for Non-Fiction (Informational) Text