Hello friends! It is difficult for me to believe that another school year is halfway finished. We just wrapped up our second set of parent teacher conferences. Sharing with parents the GROWTH their child has made over the school year is by far one of my favorite things! It's amazing what is soaked up in such a short amount of time. What's even more exciting? We still have months to go before the end of the year and I know my babies will make great strides in growth again!
As I sat with parents during conferences, we talked a lot about what skills their child has currently achieved, and what the next step for their learning will be. These conversations varied throughout the evening as each child in my classroom is different - with different strengths, weaknesses and goals. As I talked with parents, I explained what I can do as their child's teacher in the classroom to help them and what they can do as family together at home - all with the same goals in mind.
If children are struggling, one of the strategies I discuss with parents is targeted interventions. These interventions range from speech/language support, Title One support from reading teachers, RTI small groups, and additional small groups within the classroom. While talking with parents about these interventions, I focus on the specific skills I want their child to practice and what that looks like. At this point in the school year, we are wrapping up the last of our letters and sounds - usually reteaching common mistakes like b, d, p, q and short /e/ and /i/ sounds. We are now moving on to bigger goals - rhyming, onset/rime, and sight words.
Oh sight words......I have a love/hate relationship with you to be quite honest. One of the hardest concepts for some students to grasp in kindergarten is the idea of sight words. Letters and sounds come relatively easy - many come to kindergarten already knowing some. But now all of a sudden we're asking them to figure out these words? And some of these words don't even look like they sound? Say what?! Trust me. I get it. However, sight words are extremely important to early reader success. High frequency words are the most commonly used words in printed text and over 50 percent of all printed text are composed of them. Since so many of these words are phonetically irregular and tend to be abstract - students must learn to memorize them to read fluently.
So what is the best way for student to grasp their list of high frequency words? Students need to see and work with a word in a variety of ways - multiple times - to be able to commit it to long term memory. Students must hear the word, see the word, take it apart/put it back together, and read it, then use it in a sentence. During our RTI time, one of our small groups is working on sight word recognition. We use data collected in our classroom to determine what specific sight word(s) each student is missing. We then target those specific sight words and provide students multiple ways and opportunities to practice them.
One of the resources we use during this time is a product I created years ago for my own daughter who was just beginning to learn sight words at the time. She was young, four at the time, but very much interested in learning to read. The 'traditional' way of learning sight words didn't seem appropriate - worksheets. Instead, I wanted to create something that gave her an opportunity to explore and manipulate words in a more hands on way - but something that was also easy to implement and didn't involve a lot of materials or prep work each time we learned a new word. These little sight word books became a huge blessing.
To begin, I gathered multiple $1 photo albums from the local Wal-Mart and got to work. I used the Dolch Pre-Primer sight word list and created a resource that asked students to interact with a word in multiple ways. I then printed my newly made sight word books onto card stock for thickness and durability, and then cut out each rectangular 'page' to put in the photo album. Each page of the sight word book is put inside one of the sleeves of the album - with the directions printed write on the page for you. Next, the album, along with the following items are placed inside of a gallon size baggie or a pencil zipper pouch.
- Photo album
- A little container of play dough
- A set of magnetic letters
- A dry/erase marker
- A dry/erase eraser
- A few games pieces (buttons, counters, teddy bears, etc.)
Each sight word book was contained inside it's on baggie with all of the necessary materials. When my group sits down to work, each student receives a baggie of a specific sight word he/she is learning. While all bags contain the same materials and students are completing the same types of tasks, the focus word is different - allowing for differentiation within my small group.
Here is a peek at each of the pages in my 'the' sight word book. Throughout all the books, the tasks required by students remain the same, however, the targeted sight word changes. These tasks give students multiple opportunities to read, write, manipulate and use the word in their reading - helping to put the word into their long term memory.
In past years, even students who are VERY RELUCTANT to sit and complete a task, are focused and engaged while using this resource. The intimidation of putting pencil to paper is eliminated (dry/erase is MUCH easier to erase if you make a mistake) and who doesn't want to draw on a photo album? Super fun! If you would like to take a deeper look at these resources and perhaps check one out for yourself, please click on either of the links below. All of my sight word books come with an additional two to a page printable book for students to do whole class with pencils, markers, and crayons if needed.
I have finished updating Set 1 which includes words:
a I
go my
can look
is it
see the
I will be updating Sets 2 & 3 by the end of the month as well. You can check those sets and each book individually out in my TPT store by clicking HERE. The best part of it all? You can grab these resources to help your students for WAY CHEAP. If purchased individually, each book is $1. When buying the set, you get 10 books for $7.50 - that's only $0.75/book!
I truly believe in the power of this resource - my own students and my own daughters have loved using them to practice words from their list. When kids are engaged, have multiple opportunities to practice a concept - especially in hands on ways, students CAN BE successful! Isn't that what we want? If you do pick up some books, please come back and drop me a line! I would love to hear how they are working out in your classroom! :)
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