Sight Word Games
There are two primary ways your child or student will learn to read: either
by sounding out words according to principles of phonics, or by memorizing commonly-used words and learning to say
it when they see it.
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Normally, with the most commonly used words in the language,
we expect that a child will know them on sight, without sounding them out. Because of this, we call
them "sight words." And fortunately, to make this more exciting for them, there are many sight word
games that will help them master these oh-so-important words.
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Sight words are also commonly known as Dolch sight words. Let's take a look at some effective and
fun sight word games and activities, i.e., Dolch word games.
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Go to
http://www.netrover.com/~kingskid/sightword/dolchgames.htm to find a collection of three sight word
games, with multiple skill levels on each one (harder words on harder levels, easier words on
easier levels).
On Listen and Spell, the computer dictates words to the
student and gives him a group of letters, but scrambled. The student must click the letters in the
right order to spell it out, this is a timed game.
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In other sight word activities, such as Listen and Match,
the student flips cards to match them with the sound of the word given by the computer.
In the Jigsaw sight word games, the student is to fit a particular word into
one of the grooves given, where they then click to hear that word.
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There are many other websites with good sight word games.
Readquarium has a good collection at http://www.gamequarium.com/readquarium/sightgames.html. The
sight word games found there include Star Words, Make A Match, Color Words, Sight Word Hang-man,
Missing Letters, Gisele's Pick and Click, and Spellbound.
And one other place to check for good sight word games is
http://www.yourdictionary.com/dictionary-articles/Sight-Word-Games.html. This is actually a
collection of several other links, including the aforementioned Readquarium, The School Bell, The
EFL Playhouse, and Bingo Card Creator (where you can make a sight-word based BINGO
game).
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The video above is a Dragon story which is a fun way to learn sight
words.
The video above provides tips for teaching kids sight
words.
Obviously, you can’t always be in front of a computer, so we also
highlighted many sight word games that are not electronic, and can be brought with you
anywhere.
Whichever ones you use, sight word activities are sure to
make learning the most essential words painless, and indeed, quite exciting!
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