The term “sight words” is often confused with “high-frequency words,” which are the most commonly occurring words in print (i.e. We need to help teachers realize that sight words are not learned in isolation, but rather, are the outcome of coordinating alphabet knowledge with beginning sounds in real text.

When teachers teach these skills (alphabet recognition, letter sound, print concepts, initial phoneme isolation) and provide children daily opportunities to finger-point read to known ditties, rhymes, songs, and/or predictable texts, they are teaching them the prerequisite skills for learning sight words. To do this, they must have automatic alphabet and letter sound recognition, the ability to isolate beginning sounds, and, of course, print concepts. Using their memory for how the rhyme goes, children coordinate their pronunciation of each word from memory with the initial sound of each word they see in print.

To finger-point accurately to words of more than one syllable in a memorized rhyme, children must have the ability to isolate the beginning sound of each word and match it to the first letter of each word in running text. When teachers spend time teaching children the skills needed to read and also provide the time children need to practice applying those skills, children will start to remember words they have seen before in context. How is it that spending instructional time on cultivating a concept of word in text results in learning sight words? Response from Marcia Invernizzi: Research has shown that until children have a firm concept of word in text, they will be unable to remember words when seen in isolation (Flanigan, 2007). A concept of word in text is the ability to finger point accurately to multiple lines of text in a memorized rhyme or highly familiar/predictable text without getting off-track on two syllable words, without lumping together the article before the noun, and without pointing to a different word than is being pronounced. In fact, it’s likely to do more harm than good.Ī better approach would be to engage children in the kinds of purposeful activities that lead to a concept of word in text, a prerequisite for learning and retaining sight words. Should we be teaching 100 sight words to kindergartners? Response from Marcia Invernizzi:ĭrilling kindergartners with high frequency words on flashcards is unlikely to support the development of their sight word vocabulary.

Sight words pre k