Background
Sight words are an important part of reading. Sight words are those words that students recognize instantly without having to sound them out. Recognizing words by sight helps kids become faster, more fluent readers. Sight words are of two kinds. The first set of sight words are high-frequency words that occur very often in children’s books. The second set of sight words are those that do not conform to phonic spelling rules and aren’t spelt the way they sound. Such as The Blue etc. these words, therefore, have to be taught as whole words.
The Bellary Study points out that “Sight word recognition” is a challenge for children.
Teaching Sight Words Through the Story
Sight words are first introduced as part of the story. Around 30 sight words are introduced in Level 1 with around 5-6 words introduced in each milestone. Around the same number of sight words are introduced in Level 2. Sight words are also keywords and must be treated as such.
Before sight words are introduced in the reading and writing section they are introduced through the story. This is important as students should hear the sight words in context before they are introduced as words. When the teacher tells the story, she is expected to draw attention to the sight words. The first set of sight words. this the a is on and in and has is introduced in milestone 2. As you can see 'is', 'on', 'in' can also be read phonetically but these are introduced as sight words because 'I' and 'N' have not been introduced yet and also because 'is', 'on', 'in', etc are high-frequency words.
Related: Download ENK Level-2 Complete PDF Kit
The following steps are suggested in introducing and reinforcing sight words:
1. As explained in the teacher card explain the meaning of the sight words soon after explaining the meaning of the keywords. Here it may be useful to explain the word in reference to the sentence to which it is used. E.g., Papa cat had a cap Vs Toto cat put the cap on his head. here the "A" refers to just any cap whereas in the last sentence the word "the" is used to describe a specific cap – the one that papa cat had hidden.
2. As in the case of the keyword write the sight word on the board so that students can see it written.
3. Teachers may try to repeat the cloze exercise a second time by stopping at the sight words.
4. Once sight words are taught in the reading and writing class (make sure to complete all the steps listed in the R&W card) all the and most of the children have completed the section (usually towards the end of the month), sight words should be reinforced during the language game class. The class can include both the vocabulary as well as the sight word games.
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| Sight Words should be reinforced during the Language Game class. |
Credits: Samagra Shikshana Karnataka and UNICEF{alertInfo}
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