By the end of the year our preppies are required to know approx. 40 sight words and we have been working steadily towards achieving this outcome through play and the manipulation of lots of concrete materials including our Sight Word Stones. We also have our sight words on Duplo bricks which the children can stack, sort and put together to make sentences and phrases.
Currently, one of our favourite activities is Sight Word Graphing using these blocks. This activity involves the children in selecting a block from the Lucky Dip box, reading the word and recording it on a graph. If the children select a block with a sight word they have already read and recorded, this block is stacked on top of the first, creating a block graph to match their paper one.
To make the blocks, I print out the words five times on labels and stick them to the side of the bricks/blocks. The random selection of the words using the Lucky Dip Box provides the children with the opportunity to explore and graph a variety of words. Some children may have 5 words on their graph and others up to 10, depending on what they draw out of the box. This creates lots of opportunities for numeracy discussions whilst the children compare and discuss their individual graphs.
Here is a sample of the Lucky Dip graph.
As well as graphing the duplo blocks the children really enjoy graphing the results of a sight word hunt. On this sheet the children circle the same words in the same colour and fill in the graph accordingly. I like to use different fonts for this to provide opportunities for recognition of the sight word in differing forms and sizes to our beginners alphabet. I wonder if their enthusiasm for these activities is because the graphing provides them with a real life opportunity to use their numeracy understandings to record what they know.
I love to be able to provide opportunities to combine literacy and numeracy learning together, especially when the children eagerly participate in the activity as well. Sight Word Graphing seems to be one of those opportunities.