I am a first year teacher teaching Kindergarten and i am in need of some fun and effective ways to drill those sight words into my kiddos little brains. I have been "cheering and chanting them" but alot of my kids are low and I need way more than that for them to learn the words. Please let me knoww! Thanks
Mostly, I point them out everywhere. We read lots and lots of little books and they all contain the sight words. Sometimes I'll have them highlight a particular word in the book.
I've done other things like play sight word BINGO, written them on each other's backs, written them with sidewalk chalk, made puzzles out of them, do flashcards, etc. But, mostly, we find them in books during the course of the day. They LOVE pointing them out.
My kids LOVE password of the day. I put it by the door and we have special sight word cards that I post under the sign "Password of the Day". Our caboose is in charge of having everyone touch and read the password as they leave the room. They love to be the door "guard". Practices the words in a fun way. (From a Dr. Jean conference)
All the PP have great ideas. In addition, we rainbow write sight words. The words are printed in large font (we have dotted ABC print on our computers) and the children trace the letters with the seven rainbow colors. We make the word with play dough letters, play memory with sight words, write it is sand trays, cut and glue the letters together, and use flash cards with some wiggle worm/boom cards mixed in. The children read the flash cards with power and then when the wiggle worm card comes up we all wiggle or the boom card is shown and we clap and yell Boom! We do predictable books with the children...this week is "I can _______." Each child gave the sentence adding a verb (action words). Lots of exposure and practice.
An additional idea that I have used is to get a visor for the party store and put a sight word on it. All day long that student's name is the sight word and the kids love calling them that! Plus it gets other teachers talking and will ask another student what word is on their hat.
I want to thank everyone who posted a response to this posting. You all are such wonderful resources and it is great to get ideas and advice from you all. Thank you for taking the time to write about your experience.
I have a small chalkboard for each student. I introduce a new sight word a day and we work with it for around 5 days. From there it gets moved to our word wall. Everyday we do "fast writing". The children write the dictated word as quickly as they can in all four corners of their chalkboard. Then they pick up their chalkbrush and hold it in the air when they are finished writing. Then we chant the word and ease it. "T-H-E , the" for all four corners. I also do "Around the World" sight word drill in small groups. I have the words on flash cards. The children sit in a circle around me. To start, one child stands behind the first child sitting down, I show the card and it is a race between just those two students, whomever says the word first moves to stand behind the next person sitting down. Then the next word is flashed, and the winner moves on. We call it "Around the World" because they are trying to make it all the way around the circle. I have little tickets that I give out that say "I did great in Around the World sight word drill today" with clip art of the earth that I can give out as I see fit - say after five correct words in a row early in the year. My kids love it.
I have been teaching for several years and always love getting new ideas. I especially like the idea of using the password and the visors. I am going to have to try those. Many of my students are really struggling with the few sight words that have been introduced so far. I also love mrs jones website with the songs. Great ideas. that is why I love coming here. Thanks for sharing
Do you have dry erase boards and markers? I often use those during group time to practice writing our sight words and the kids love it. We also play musical words, where we march around the word cards and when the music stops we pick one up. We then go around the circle and take turns reading the word card we picked up. We usually only do this activity when I have a volunteer in the room so we can do it in two groups. I also made BINGO cards last year with all the words on them and we play High Frequency word BINGO from time to time, especially during the last nine weeks of school. You can write sentences and cut them into strips (I do it on the computer). Have the kids cut apart the words and glue them into a sentence, in the appropriate order. It looks like this when they get the strip (depending upon the words which have been introduced)
I can see a
After they glue on the words, they either fill in the blank with a word or illustration, or cut a picture from a magazine and glue it where the blank is. zz
My class also loves the "Around the World" game.
We spell our sight words every morning (not all we pick a few). We do it in different ways. The students pick a card and whatever the card is, that is how we spell it! I have attached the cards. If you have any questions on what to do PM me. I will explain them.
For example if you pick the basketball card for every letter t-h-e you would pretend like you are dribbling the ball. When you say the word "the" you pretend to shoot the ball. The kids love it!
My co-worker and I are on sight word number four with our kiddos. We will teach 48 this year using Biffytoons! You can access this info. free of charge. Google Whole Brain Teaching. Their website has been under a little reconstruction. It used to be called Power Teaching. Biffytoons have pictures that correspond with 48 sight words. It is awesome. We have some low functioning children who can read the words with no problem! We are pleased with success, and my kids are running around with sticky notes writing the words! It is pretty exciting! Good Luck!