Have you started Sight Words?”
“How many sight words does your child know?”
“What’s the best way to learn sight words?”
Sight words. Sight words. Sight words! That’s all parents hear about in the early years of reading. Why? What are sight words? How is anyone supposed to teach something they don’t know anything about? And why are they important anyway?
The truth is, sight words are important. Once you understand what sight words are and why they matter to you and your child, you can teach them with greater accuracy and confidence.
Who came up with sight words?
While studying reading, Dr. Edward William Dolch looked at the word lists available in the early part of the 1900’s. At that time, teachers had lists of 500-1000 words that children were encouraged to learn. Dr. Dolch discovered that many of these words rarely appeared in text that the children read. They weren’t reinforced through natural reading. He came up with a shorter list of high frequency words.
What are Dolch Sight Words?
Dr. Dolch’s list of sight words originally consisted of 220 words that children should know to read fluently. These are all words that appear frequently in books. In his early writings, Dr. Dolch did not include any nouns. He felt that they were too unique to individual books to be of any use. However, as he continued his research, he added a list of 95 common nouns. Together, this list of 315 words comprise 85% of all children’s books and 50% of all adult reading material. There are two criteria that Dr. Dolch used to choose the words for his list. The words were either high frequency words or they were words that didn’t meet standard phonetic rules or both.
High Frequency Articles and Verbs
Learning to recognize high frequency words is vital to raising a fluent reader. If a child must sound out every letter of a passage, it will take forever to read a book. Both the child and the teacher will feel frustration picking their way across the page. Dolch sight words help your child recognize these common words as a whole unit. As adults, we largely read by the entire word. This comes from years of reading these high frequency words and recognizing them instantly. Dolch sight words helps children start this process early by teaching them common words from the beginning.
High Frequency Nouns
When you look at the sight word lists for each grade level, you will notice that there are no nouns on any of the lists. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to make any but the simplest sentences. To tell a story about a character or an animal, you need nouns. In the beginning, Dr. Dolch felt that nouns were too complex and personalized for each story. However, as he looked at children’s literature, he noticed that there patterns in the nouns used in children’s literature. Some are very simple, such as “dog,” or “bed.” While others are far more complex such as “squirrel” or “Santa Claus.”
Phonetically Unique Words
Phonics are great. They break down words into specific letter sounds and make learning to read manageable.
For most words.
Unfortunately, the English language is made up of a multitude of different languages. All of them have different ways of pronouncing both vowels and consonants. Just consider the word “the.” It is everywhere. We use it all the time. But how you pronounce it depends on where it is. Try saying these two phrases:
- The dog
- The end
Did you pronounce the word “the” the same way in both phrases? Probably not. Most people would pronounce number one as /thu/ and number two as /thee/. That’s perfectly normal. We don’t even think about it.
In fact, it only causes problems when a new reader is trying to figure it out. They look at the “th” and try to pronounce it like the letters in “this” or “with.” Then they look at the single “e” and the rules say that is should be a short vowel sound. So, the emerging reader says /the/ and wonders why it doesn’t make sense. It trips up the new reader and causes frustration. It may stall progress.
Consider the three words “to,” “too,” and “two.” Only “too” follows phonetic rules, yet they are all pronounced the same. Why? There are probably good reasons that go back to ancient speech or early writings. But you don’t want to have to explain them to a four-year-old.
That’s where sight words make such a great difference. Many of the earliest words are common words that don’t follow normal phonetic rules. Here is a short list of words that don’t follow normal phonic rules that you will find in the Pre-K and First Grade sight word lists:
- All
- Are
- Be
- Come
- Do
- Find
- For
- Go
- Have
- Me
- My
- No
- Our
- Pretty
- Said
- Saw
- She
- So
- The
- There
- They
- To
- Two
- Want
- Was
- What
- Where
- Who
- You
When you work with your child to learn these words as whole units, you remove many of the stumbling blocks that stand in the way of your child’s early learning.
Are These the Only Sight Word Lists?
No. While Dolch sight words are the most popular sight word lists, there is another option. The Fry sight word lists 100 words that each grade should know. It starts with First Grade and goes through Tenth Grade. Many schools don’t use it because the words don’t start until first grade. Additionally, young children can find the list of 100 words daunting in first grade.
However, the list can be a great way to help older children continue to add to their sight word vocabulary.
How Can I Help My Child Learn Sight Words
Check out the extensive list of sight word activities here.