Why is Word Work Important?

In kindergarten, students are exposed to a variety of different reading skills, such as phoneme (sound) isolation, sight words, CVC words, rhyming words, word families, blends and digraphs, CVCe words, and the list goes on. By working with words in a meaningful way each day, students gain a deeper understanding of the sound and spelling patterns in words, grow their sight word knowledge, and expand their vocabulary.

1. Scootin' for Words

This word work activity is a great way to get students out of their seats and actively learning.  To prep, grab a stack of notecards and write one word on each notecard. You can write sight words, CVC words, or CVCe words. Place a notecard on each student's desk. Students will need a whiteboard and a dry-erase marker.

Students will stand behind the desk, read the word on the notecard, and write it on their whiteboard. When the teacher says “Scoot,” all students will scoot to the desk next to them, moving clockwise. They'll repeat the process by reading and writing the next word.

After each “Scoot,” randomly call on a student to read you their word. This is a great way to spot check students and keep them on their toes. To differentiate this activity, you can scramble the letters on the notecards and have students read the word, unscramble it, and write it correctly on their whiteboard.

2. CVC Mazes

CVC mazes are a fun word work activity for practicing CVC words. To play, write CVC words on notecards or use CVC picture cards if you have them. Place the cards in a deck face down. On a whiteboard, draw twenty-six circles and write the letters of the alphabet inside.

Students will draw a card, read the word, and use a manipulative such as wiggly eyes, mini erasers, or plastic cubes to cover the letters that make up the word. If the word has the same letter as the beginning and ending sound, such as the word “bib,” students will stack their manipulatives on that letter to show that it is used twice in that word. Lastly, they'll use magnetic letters to build the word.

Check out the 120 ready-made Word Maze Activity Mats, perfect for Kindergarten and First Grade.

3. Kaboom

Kaboom is a high-energy word work game that you can use to practice any type of word. To make your own DIY Kaboom game, write words on twenty-five popsicle sticks. You can use sight words, CVC words, words with beginning blends or digraphs, etc. Place the sticks word side down in a jar or plastic cup. Write the word “KABOOM” on 5 popsicle sticks and add those to the jar.

Students will draw a stick and read the word. If they read the word correctly, they get to keep the stick. If they read it incorrectly, it goes back in the jar. When a student pulls a KABOOM stick, they must put all of their popsicle sticks back into the jar and place the KABOOM stick in a discard pile.

Play continues as students take turns drawing sticks and reading the words. When the 5th and final KABOOM stick is pulled, students count up the number of sticks they have and the player with the most is the winner!

You can make this game work for word family words by using less popsicle sticks and KABOOM sticks and making smaller sets for each word family. You may use ten word sticks and two KABOOM sticks per set.

4. Word Searches

One of the most popular word work activities is word searches! Students love putting on their detective hat and searching for hidden words. You can hide any type of word in a word search to help students practice different literacy skills such as CVC words, CVCe words, short vowel words, long vowel words, or even sight words or word family words.

To make your own word search, draw a 5 x 5 table on the whiteboard. Choose three to five words to hide in the word search, writing those in the spaces first. Then, fill in the extra spaces with random letters. You may want to do this while your students are at specials, recess, or before school so they don't see where you hide the words!

To play, have students take turns coming up to the whiteboard and using a dry-erase marker to shade in the letters for the words they find. If you have magnets, they can use these to mark the letters as well.

Make this easier by writing the words they're looking for off to the side. Students can mark them off as they find them. To make this more challenging, have the students find the words independently and then write them off to the side.

You can also grab these Word Search Activity Mats, which can be reused over and over during morning work, centers, teacher station, and more!

5. Tic-Tac-Toe Words

To play Tic-Tac-Toe Words, draw a simple Tic-Tac-Toe board on the whiteboard. Write a word in each space. Again, you can practice any type of spelling or sound pattern with this game. Split your students into two teams.

Students will take turns representing their team and choosing a word. If they get the word correct, they get to mark and X or O on that space. If they don't say the word correctly, their team's turn is over and the next team chooses a word. Play continues until one team gets three in a row. Continue playing a few rounds in order to let each student get a chance to represent their team.

This would also be a great partner game during small groups. You can draw several game boards on the whiteboard and have students spread out and play in pairs.

6. Word Work Boom Cards

Boom Cards are the perfect choice to add a digital spin to your word work activities. These virtual flashcard games allow students to practice a variety of skills, such as CVC word families, CVCe words, L blends, digraphs, and more.

There are many benefits to using Boom Cards for word work. Not only are they interactive and fun, but they include audio directions, making it clear for students to know exactly what they are supposed to do. There are also audio picture names, so students are never guessing what the picture is.

Plus, to save you grading time, Boom Cards are self-checking and give students immediate feedback on their responses. Boom Cards are an effective way to encourage independence in your classroom and allows you to spend focused time with other students during small groups, literacy centers, or morning work time.

7. Make Muffin Words

Just the sight of this word work activity will have your students excited and ready to play. To prep this activity, write words on cupcake liners and place a liner in each spot in a muffin tin. Students will toss a small ball or dot cube into the muffin tin. They'll read the word they landed on, and if correct, they get to keep the word. If they don't read it correctly, the word stays in the muffin tin.

After all of the words have been removed, the player with the most words at the end of the game is the winner. You can practice sight words, word family words, words with blends or digraphs, etc.

To practice phoneme substitution with CVC words, you could have the students change a sound to make a new word. You can also write a word family on the cupcake liners and have students say any word in that word family. The options are endless!

8. Paint Strip Puzzles

This word work activity requires nothing more than paint strips that you can snag (usually for free) from your local hardware store. Write words on the paint strip, placing one letter in each space. In one space, write the entire word. Most paint strips have 6 spaces, so this is a great way to work on larger words, such as CVCe words, words with blends or digraphs, or sight words.

You can trim the paint strips as needed if you don't use every space. Next, cut the paint strip so the letters and word are separated. Mix them up and have students build the word, putting the pieces back together like a puzzle. For easy storage, write the word of focus on the outside of a snack-size baggie and store the pieces inside.

I hope you're excited to implement these fun and simple-to-prep word work activities into your classroom. With repetition and practice, your students will be growing their skills and becoming young readers in no time!

Free CVC Activities

Reviewing Sight Words

When reviewing sight words is fun for kids, they immediately get more out of it. They're less likely to stress out about identifying a sight word or get frustrated when they're highly engaged and enjoying themselves. 

#1. Sight Word Swat.

Sight Word Swat is one of my all-time favorite sight word games. To play, write sight words on sticky notes and arrange them on the whiteboard. Give students a fly-swatter. Taking turns, have 2 students come up to the whiteboard. Call out a sight word. They'll race to see who can swat the sight word first.

This is a great whole group game. Listening to the students cheer and celebrate as they swat the sight words is fun for them AND for the teacher. It's that good kind of “buzz” you love to hear in your classroom. Pun intended. You can create your own sight word cards or use the leveled sight word cards and mini-swatters found in this Sight Word Swat educational game. 

#2. Sight Word Clues.

Another idea for reviewing sight words is playing the game, Sight Word Clues. Give students clues as to what the sight word is. You can say clues such as, “This word has 4 letters, it starts with an “l,” it has a silent e at the end, I ____ chocolate cake.”

Have students use a whiteboard to help them determine the word. For this example, they could draw 4 lines, write “l” at the beginning, “e” at the end, and then complete the word as the clues go on. When they think they have it, they'll shout out the word, LIKE! Then, you can have them spell the word aloud and say it in a sentence.

#3. Digital Sight Word Boom Cards

The next idea for reviewing sight words involves a digital Sight Word Boom Card game! You know your students will be excited to use the computer or tablet for this one. These Boom Cards focus on building simple sentences with sight words, which is a great way to practice reviewing sight words in context.

#4. Magic sight words.

Magic sight words is a fun sight word art project for kids. They'll begin by writing sight words in a white crayon. They'll use watercolor paints to paint over the top to reveal the sight words. To make this even more challenging, you can pre-write sight words or have students write sight words and swap pages with a partner, that way they don't know what words will be revealed.

#5. Sidewalk chalk sight words. 

When the weather is nice, take your students outside to practice sight words with sidewalk chalk. The change in scenery and the fresh air alone does wonders for their focus and motivation. It's also fun for them to use chalk and see their sight word skills revealed all over the sidewalk. They have a sense of pride knowing others will see their writing. 

#6. Sight word wall.

Another strategy for reviewing sight words is to use a sight word wall in your classroom. Either write or organize sight word flashcards by letter so that students can easily reference and find words during word work. This helps with beginning sounds skills as well. If a student knows the word starts with a “b,” they can look under the “b” category to find the word.

Add your favorite sight word review activities, such as Roll, Read and Cover, to a station by the word wall and your students will be set for successful independent sight word review!

#7. Building sight words. 

When students are struggling with sight words, give them more hands-on opportunities to build sight words. Some students learn best kinesthetically and by physically putting the letters together to spell the words. 

They can use letter blocks, magnetic letters, or other letter manipulatives you have in your classroom to build the words. They can even use a word building mat to help them organize their words. You can also have a station with play dough and letter stamps for them to stamp the sight words in the colorful dough. This is a great sensory activity for your little learners as well.

#8. Sight word journal.

Using sight word journals is another great strategy for reviewing sight words. You can use a basic student notebook and have your students practice writing sight words they know, one per page. They can use a different color for each line and write the sight word individually and in simple sentences. They can even have a journal of sight word sentences that they add to throughout the year. 

I hope these ideas for reviewing sight words have given you new inspiration and confidence heading into your next sight word review session. If you like any of the resources included in this blog post, check out my No Prep Sight Word Bundle where you can find even more. 

Let me know in the comments below what idea for reviewing sight words you're going to apply first!

Why Is It Important To Teach Sight Words?

Did you know that sight words make up close to 75% of all words in early children's reading materials? It's no wonder we focus on teaching sight words so diligently. You can read more about what sight words are and why they're important in this blog post.

As students are able to identify and read sight words, they are better equipped to recognize sight words in the real world, such as on a stop sign, by pressing a help button, or understanding when it is time to slow down.

Sight words are everywhere in our schools, communities, online, and in the text of books and materials. By helping students master their sight words in context, they'll be able to focus more on applying phonemic awareness skills to decode words. Therefore, they'll become more fluent readers and will in turn be able to improve their reading comprehension.

When it comes to strategies for teaching sight words in context, repetition and practicing in various ways is key. Students learn in different ways and through different senses and learning styles. It's important to understand how each of your students learn.  This will help you provide opportunities for them to master sight words in the way that works best for them. 

Teaching Sight Words in Context

It is extremely important to introduce and practice recognizing sight words in context.

Picture this…you're handed a whacky looking kitchen gadget that looks like it fell straight out of outer space. You have no clue what it's purpose is and are asked to use it correctly. You sit there, dazed and confused, wondering if you should get out the apples or the avocados. What's this thing for anyway?

It's not until you see the packaging that you realize it's actually the newest gadget for slicing potatoes. (Yay for homemade french fries!) Without the context of the packaging, all you had was a crazy gadget that looked like it fell out of a spaceship. 

It's just like this for students with sight words. You can use flash cards and isolated sight word activities all day long, but until they see the words used in context, they won't really understand the purpose of sight words. They'll be thinking to themselves, “why does my teacher flash these same words at me every single day?”

When you work on sight words in context, students will begin to understand their purpose. They'll begin to hear and see them used often. They'll soon realize how much sight words are found in reading and in the world around them. 

Use a highlighter. 

Giving young children a highlighter is like dropping a piece of bacon in front of a dog…they get so excited! Use that to your advantage (and to the advantage of your students' sight word recognition). Use highlighters to find sight words hidden in context.

Not only does this strategy for teaching sight words in context help students identify and pick out sight words in sentences and stories, but it also helps them see how much sight words really are used in day to day life. 

Fill in the blank.

Another strategy for teaching sight words in context is to have students use sight word flashcards to fill in the blank in simple sentences. Use sentence strips or write simple sentences on the whiteboard. Have students choose the sight word flashcard that makes sense and fill in the missing word. 

This strategy works in 2 ways. Students are identifying the sight word as they choose the flashcard. They are also using it in context to complete the sentence. 

Use predictable sentences.

Additionally, you can use predictable sentences to help students with sight word fluency. This time, write a predictable sentence, such as, “I like__.” Students will take turns filling in the blank with a word that completes the sentence. If you have picture cards with your ELA curriculum, students can choose picture cards to fill in the predictable sentences. 

If you don't have picture cards or you want another option for helping students improve fluency with predictable sentences, these sight word fluency pages give students multiple opportunities to practice and include pictures to help them read the CVC words in the sentences.

Sight word fluency cards. 

Another great way to practice sight word fluency is with sight word fluency task cards. You can make your own task cards by writing simple sight word sentences on notecards and attaching them to a ring. Students can easily grab the ring and practice reading the sentences fluently. You can also use leveled sight word fluency task cards along with corresponding data sheets to progress monitor all year long. 

Read sight word books.

One of the most effective strategies for teaching sight words in context is to read sight word books. These should be developmentally appropriate for your students. They'll gain more exposure to the sight word and how it is used in context with other words in stories.

You can use the leveled readers provided in your ELA curriculum or you can use printable sight word books that students can highlight, color, and practice reading at school and at home.

Sight word hunt.

Break out your magnifying glasses because your little sight word detectives are going to have a blast with this sight word activity. Give students various magazines (kid-appropriate of course) and have them search for and highlight sight words that they find. If you do have magnifying glasses, you can show them how to scan the pages from left to right and top to bottom to find sight words. 

I hope these strategies for teaching sight words in context have given you new ideas and confidence heading into sight word instruction and helping those students that struggle with sight words. If you like any of the resources included in this blog post, check out my No Prep Sight Word Bundle where you can find them all. 

Let me know in the comments below what strategy for teaching sight words in context you're going to apply first!

Benefits of Sight Word Choice Boards

These free editable sight word bingo choice boards have so many benefits. First off, they are editable! Who doesn't love that? You can easily type in your own sight words, which means they are perfect for any word list. The variety makes this something you can use weekly by putting a fresh spin on it. 

Secondly, they are perfect for kids ages Kindergarten through 2nd grade. You can tailor the difficulty to your students, making differentiation a piece of cake. No matter the age, students will love choosing their own activities and working towards a bingo. There is so much power in giving students choice!

Lastly, these free sight word choice boards are versatile and easy to use.  You can use these boards in various ways and times of day. Not only do they help your students practice sight words, but they also get fine motor practice and direction following all wrapped up into one! 

One activity to include on your bingo board is to build the sight word using pom-poms and jumbo tweezers! The students will use their little hand and finger muscles to grab the pom-poms with the tweezers and build the word. This promotes fine motor strength all while learning sight words and practicing letter formation. 

Sight Word Choice Board Tips and Tricks

With so many ways to use these free sight word choice boards, I want to share some of my best tips and tricks to save time, plan ahead, and get the most out of them! 

Teacher-Proven Tips and Tricks.

1. Type your sight word list in FIRST, that way you don't forget.
2. Include a variety of activities in those spots so they aren't only writing or only doing fine motor activities.
3. Include a list of supplies you'll need for each choice board and attach it to the front for easy planning and prep.
4. Have all of your supplies ready to go in tubs or baggies so your students can grab and go.

By implementing these four tips and tricks, you will set yourself and your students up for success. For more ideas on sight word activities to include on your choice boards, check out the post What Are Sight Words and Why Are They Important?

Having your students build the sight word with magnetic letters, using blue for consonants and red for vowels is a fun way to sneak in consonant and vowel practice. Your students can then write the word with blue and red dry-erase markers. This activity can easily be adapted for students to do at home by using a blue and red crayon, marker, or any colored writing tool they have.

Ways to Use the Sight Word Choice Boards

These free sight word choice boards are an amazing resource to have in your teacher toolkit. They can be used in so many ways in your classroom or at home with your students. 

Use them as homework.

Since when are kids excited about homework? Since now! These sight word bingo choice boards will make homework less of a chore and more of a fun activity for your students. Having the ability to CHOOSE how they practice their sight words puts the learning in their hands. Plus these boards give families the ability to choose the order they do the activities in. 

Use for distance learning.

These sight word choice boards are great to use for distance learning. Your students can complete the activities and submit proof via Google Classroom, Seesaw, or other interactive learning platforms. If you do use these for distance learning, just keep in mind the supplies your students may or may not have access to. You want to make sure everyone can be successful, so you might have families pick the activities instead of completing all of them.

Use as a word work center.

Sight word bingo choice boards are the perfect addition to your word work center. I've come up with the activities for you! Your students will be able to grab their choice board activity and supplies and work independently while you are leading a teacher group or helping other students. They will have fun challenging each other to get a bingo. 

Use as a fine motor station.

Fine motor skills are key for young learners. These bingo choice boards don't have to be used just during reading time, but can be used during fine motor stations. Use these as a soft start to your day or as an afternoon activity to keep your students engaged before dismissal. For more ideas on how to incorporate fine motor practice, check out this blog post full of ideas.

Use as an early finisher activity.

As teachers, we know that not all students finish their work at the same time. This is why having early finisher activities is a great idea! Instead of rushing to come up with something for those “I'm done!” students to do, teach them to work on their sight word choice boards when they are finished with their other work instead. They'll get sight word, fine motor, and direction following practice while you help other students or wrap up what you're doing. Everybody wins!

These sight word choice boards can also be a snack! Seriously, when food is involved, kids go crazy! Include an activity on your board where they get to build the word with food such as cereal, marshmallows, or chocolate chips. Once they are done, they can eat. Talk about a motivator! This is another at-home friendly activity to include on your board.

Incorporating these editable sight word choice boards in your classroom will help improve your students' sight word accuracy and up the fun too! Easy to use, versatile, and engaging–what's not to love?!

Fill out the form below to join our email family and have this editable freebie delivered right to your inbox!

Rubber Stamps

Rubber stamps make for some fun sight word activities. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, I am all about repurposing things to create a new activity. So, with that in mind, these stamps can be used two ways. You can grab some stamps and stamp pads and have students stamp their sight words in a notebook or on a piece of paper.

Another alternative is to have students use stamps to press the letters into play dough. Students flatten out the dough and press in the stamps to leave the letter impression in the dough. This is a great way to help strengthen fine motor skills too!

I like to have a separate set of stamps that are just for play dough. It helps keep this activity and the play dough cleaner, otherwise the ink from the stamp pad rubs off into the play dough. 

If you're looking for an easy and versatile sight word activity, check out this Know and Show Sight Word kit. Students can stamp their sight words right on the mat. 

Best of all the little word cards are editable, so you can customize the sight word cards to fit your class list.

Word Building Letter Cubes

Students love to use linking cubes for math, so why not use them for literacy activities too? Word building letter cubes are a fun way for students to have hands-on practice physically putting the letters together, in order, to spell sight words. I love that, just like magnetic letters, they have one color for vowels and a different color for consonants.

If you don't have word building cubes, you can make your own using old math cubes. Just take a sharpie and write letters on the sides. Take care to make sure all of the cubes are facing the same direction so that they link together.

Mini Eraser Words 

Easy to prep and fun sight word activities are the best. For this one you'll need sight word cards or flash cards and mini erasers. If you don't have flash cards you can create some using index cards. Students read the sight word on the card and use the mini erasers to form the word. 

Letter Beads

The letter beads pictured below came from Lakeshore. They are one of my favorites for building sight words! But if you're like me and love the convenience of Amazon, you can find a similar set lacing letters set on the ‘Zon.

Just like with the letter cubes I mentioned above, these beads provide students with a tactile way to put the letters together as students string the sight word together. The strings that came with the beads were kind long, so I just used pipe cleaners.

The activity pictured also comes from the Know and Show Sight Word kit. This picture shows the mat which prompts students to build the sight word using two types of manipulatives. Students can use magnetic letters on top and letter beads on the bottom. Or letter beads on the top and a dry erase marker on the bottom. It's pretty flexible!

Shaving Cream Activities 

I think it's a kindergarten rite of passage to use shaving cream. It's a tool I used every year in my classroom. Whether it was practicing letters, numbers, names, or sight words – seeing that can brought smiles to every little face! Plus it makes the room smell amazing. 

Shaving cream works great for a whole group activity. Give each student a small squirt and have them spread it to create a thin layer in front of them. If your students have a hard time with personal space, plastic plates from the dollar store as a work space.

Call out a sight word and have students use their finger to write the word. Quickly circulate the room to check for accuracy. For a challenge, you can mix-up a sight word and write it on the board. Have students unscramble the word and write it correctly in the shaving cream.

Magazines Sight Word Hunt

Magazines are another way to practice sight words and sneak in fine motor skills. You can have students look through magazines to find sight words. They can cut those sight words out and glue them on a paper. Or you can give students a list of sight words and have students cut out individual letters to spell the sight words.

Be sure to preview the magazines first and remove any advertisements that may not be suitable for little eyes.

Highlighters

Want to get kindergartners excited about learning sight words? Hand them over some highlighters! These magical little writing utensils are a great way to get kids looking for and recognizing sight words in text. 

Simply provide students with magazines (again preview them first!) and have students look through the text to highlight the sight words that they find. You can also rip out the pages and give students just the pages. 

If you're not wanting to use magazines, Find the Word: Sight Word Worksheets Bundle is a great alternative. Just print and use highlighters or bingo dabbers to identify the sight words on the page.  You can add some fun finger pointers for an extra special touch.

Wikki Stix or Yarn

If you're not familiar with Wikki Stix, they are these really neat yarn-like sticks that students can bend and mainpulate to form objects, letters, and numbers. They are re-usable and there is no prep required. Unlike yarn, the sticks already come pre-cut and ready to use. 

Supply students with a list of sight words and have them form each letter in the word to spell the sight words.

A great inexpensive alternative is yarn. You can cut yarn into long strips and have student form the letters in the words. 

Magnetic Letter Activities

I absolutely love these giant magnetic letters. They are much bigger than traditional magnetic letters, which means they are great for little hands. Another easy center idea is to have students use these large magnetic letters to build sight words on the board. Students think it is an extra treat when they get to work at your teacher easel.

Add in some fun pointers for students to read the sight words after they've built the words. 

Sight Word Games

Learning to interact, get along, and problem solve is an important part of the early primary classroom. Incorporating games is a great way to not only develop strategic thinking, it also help students learn to problem solve.

Memory Matching Sight Word:

Create this game by writing sight words on index cards. Be sure the words can't be seen through the index cards. You can also use foam cut-outs and a sharpie to write the words on. You'll need two cards for each sight word. Students lay the sight word cards face down and take turns selecting two cards to try and make a match. 

What's Missing?:

Students play with a partner. They will need a set of sight word cards. Player 1 will select three sight word cards, read them, and lay the cards in front of them and then close their eyes. Then player 2 will remove one of the sight word cards. Finally, player 1 will open their eyes and determine which sight word is missing. Students will switch rolls and continue to pla

Tic-Tac-Toe: 

This is a twist on the traditional Tic-Tac-Toe game using sight words. To play, instead of choosing X or O, each student choose a sight word. They use the same rules as the traditional game, but instead of writing X or O they write the sight word they selected at the beginning of the game. Each time they write the word, they have to read it too. The first person to get three words in a row is the winner!

Sight Word Trail Game:

This game is editable so you can add your own sight words. Students start on the first space in the upper left corner of the game board. They spin the spinner and identify the sight word they spun. They identify the sight words on the trail and move their game piece to the nearest sight word that corresponds to the one that they spun. The gray shaded themed spaces are free spaces.

The first player to make it all the way around to the last space on the game board is the winner. To win the game, the player must spin the final word shown in the last space on the game board.

Whiteboards

Kids love writing with different tools. Switching out writing utensils is an easy way to keep things fresh. You can begin by giving students a whiteboard and dry erase marker to write their words. Switch up the activity by adding a different color marker. You can have students write vowels in one color and consonants in another.

Students can use a dry erase marker to pyramid write their sight words on the whiteboard. If you're not sure what that looks like, scroll down just a bit on this post. On the freebie picture I've written the word “with” as a pyramid on the whiteboard. 

Pre-Made Activities

Let's face it. Sometimes we just need something pre-made. Maybe we don't have the time or energy to create our own. You can find pre-made sight word activities in my TpT shop. From cookie word building and gum word building to secret codes – you'll find a growing variety of fun sight word activities that are easy to prep and super engaging for students. 

What are sight words?

Believe it or not, at least 50% of texts are made up of the same frequently used 100 words! We call these commonly used words ‘sight words’. Most of them are small and easily recognized, (I, is, the, and, to) but some of them cannot be easily sounded out or illustrated (like, from, what, good).

Using phonics or picture-reading skills for words like these is ineffective for young readers, especially for those who are in the early stages of developing their decoding skills. Therefore we need to know these words by “sight”.

Why is it important to teach them?

It's critical to teach students to memorize sight words as a whole so that they can recognize them immediately (within 3 seconds) without having to use any strategies to decode them. Imagine how frustrating reading would be if you had to stop and sound out every little word!

Once readers master sight words they are able to understand at least half of the words in any particular text. By eliminating the need to stop and decode sight words, readers are able to focus on words that are less familiar and more difficult.

And teaching sight words not only helps students read more fluently, it helps them write more efficiently too.

What is the best way to teach sight words?

If you were to ask this question to five teachers, you would probably get five different answers. But I think that we all would agree that the best way to engage young readers is to make sight word learning fun and hands-on. 

Using sight word activities like games, centers, and hands-on manipulatives will help your students master skills without even knowing that they are learning!

Make sight word learning a regular part of your literacy block and switch out activities often. By setting aside time for focused attention on sight word learning, you'll be surprised how quickly your young readers blossom.

Here's a few of my favorite sight word activities…

Sight Word Activities

Magnetic Letters:

Using magnetic letters to spell sight words is a simple, hands-on way for kids to practice reading and building sight words. Simply write the words on flashcards and have students build the words.

To make these types of sight word activities extra fun, display the words on your white board so that students can build the words on your teacher board. Plus this make a great center activity!

Editable Sight Word Activities:

Have you ever met a kid that doesn't like bubble gum or cookies? Me either! So why not use their love of yumminess to practice building sight words? Students read the sight word on the card and use the theme letter cards to build the word.

The Editable Gumball activity and Editable Baking Up Cookies activity come with 133 pre-made cards and an editable version so you can add your own words. It includes a themed work mat to give students a space to build their words and a recording sheet to hold students accountable.

Play Swat:

For this sight word activity all you need is a fly swatter! This game is great for building speed with identifying sight words. This game works well as a small group or whole group activity. To set up the game, you'll need to write a few sight words on the board. Select one student to play. Call out a sight word and have them quickly swat the word.

To make the activity more challenging, call two students up and let them race to be the first to swat the sight word. (You could also adapt this activity to practice letters, numbers, etc)

Secret Code Sight Words:

This is one of my favorite sight word activities to spice up learning. This activity is always a hit because students have so much fun cracking the code that they don't realize they are actually learning sight words. Students identify the beginning sound of each picture to crack the code and spell a secret sight word.  They use dry erase markers, magnetic letters, or letter tiles to build the word and then read it.

The purpose of Secret Code Sight Words is not to sound the word out, but to build the word and then have students recognize the word they built.

Flip and Read Game:

I first shared this game as a fall alphabet game. But I'm sharing again because you really can practice any skill with it. The kids love it and it's perfect for small groups.

You'll need themed shapes (like the kind from a die-cut machine) and manipulatives or mini erasers. To prepare this game you'll want to write a sight word on each of the themed shapes.

To play the game, turn the shapes face down. Put 1 or 2 manipulatives/game pieces on each shape. Students select a shape, turn it over, and if they can read the sight word they keep the manipulatives. At the end of the game, whoever has the most game pieces wins!

Shaving Creme:

If you don't mind a little mess, this sight word activity works well to reach tactile (or hands-on) learners. Plus I love the way a classroom smells after a shaving creme activity. Just put a small amount of shaving creme on a cookie sheet or a plastic plate for the students to write the words in.

You'll call out a sight word and students will use their finger to write the word in the shaving creme. Walk around the room to check their work or write the word on the board so that students can check their own work.

If you're using shaving creme for the first time you'll want to have a quick class chat about how to use shaving creme. I have three basic shaving creme rules.

1. Students should avoid touching their eyes and face with shaving creme.

2. Students need to be gentle and not slap their hand down in the shaving creme.

3. Lastly, we keep our own shaving creme. We don't touch others with shaving creme and we don't take shaving creme away from our friends.

Find the Word:

This is a fun activity because students get to use highlighters, which keeps them engaged! Give students a magazine or a newspaper page and have them highlight a target sight word that you've selected. Or use pages like the ones pictured below.

Students read the target sight word at the top of the page and then use a highlighter (or bingo dabber) to highlight the corresponding words below. Find the Word includes over 130 no prep pages.

Magazine Hunt:

This is another easy peasy center activity. Simply pick a sight word that you'd like students to work on. Give them a blank piece of paper. Students will look through the magazines to find that sight word. Once they've found it, they will cut it out and paste on the blank page. (Just be sure to preview the magazines before giving them to students.)

Build a Word:

Blocks or snap cubes are also a fun way to practice building sight words. Students link the blocks together to spell a word. For step-by-step directions and a free recording sheet for this sight word activity, check out this blog post.

Sky Writing:

Some of the best sight word activities require no prep or materials – like this one. Call out a sight word and spell it or have a student spell the word. Then have students put their pointer finger up and make BIG motions to “write” the words in the air.

As with everything that we teach our little learners, it takes repeated exposure and repetition to master sight words. That's why I think it's important for us to have several different ideas up our sleeves. I hope these suggestions gave you some fun and fresh activities for helping your little readers master sight words.