Sight Words can be a hot topic for pre-kindergarten teachers. In my pre-k experience, I have found that some children are really ready for sight words and for others, it will be exposure.
That being said, I teach pre-kindergarten in a public school and we are required to teach 15 predetermined sight words. So, what's a good teacher to do? I do what I always do...I introduce sight words in several ways and always try to keep it fun and engaging.
The sight words are imbedded in our morning message each day. My little detectives LOVE finding their sight words there.Then for good measure (insert wink!), we use a little gross motor and chant our sight words!
Disclaimer: Most of our children are identifying all their letters and sounds. We have been working with blending and segmenting words.
Monthly Poems with Rebus Pictures are integrated into our story time. We look for sight words in our large poems during that time andthen again in our poetry notebooks on Fridays.
The students' poetry notebooks provide review and are a terrific home connection that gives the children a time to share what they have learned.
Later in the morning, we work on reading our sight words through play based activities. Children love novelty so we try and keep our games the same while changing out seasonal or thematic pieces.
Sight word mats with play-dough or seasonal mini erasers from Target or Amazon are always a hit!
Salt trays provide tactile practice. We keep it fresh by changing out the salt or rice as well as the word cards.
Balloons provide INSTANT engagement for sight words. Note: Be sure to use a permanent marker with close supervision!
Sight word mats are color coded and include three words per page. Letter cards and bottle cap letter included and are color coded to match each page. Bottle cap letters are a great way to recycle water bottle caps as you provide a tactile letter manipulative for little hands.
Seasonal sight word cards are perfect for write the room and include matching picture icons on the recording sheets. These cards can also be used for letter matching with other letter manipulatives.
Cookie letters are fun and provide additional interest in our winter themed cards.
Magnetic letters are great for alphabet practice, name building and sight word review.
A set or two of my Super Reader in Pre-K flash cards are added to our library bins. These include our 15 sight words and 11 color words. You can download a set of these for FREE in my TpT store!
I cut them apart and add a metal ring to them for easy organization. My pre-kinders LOVE reading these words and have pride in becoming a reader.
These include our 15 sight words and 11 color words. You can download a set of these for FREE in my TpT store!
