Joanna Kasda

 Author Jan Richardson Educational Consultant Taught every grade K- 12 Reading specialist, Reading Recovery teacher leader, and staff developer PhD in reading

 “As early readers build automaticity with sight words and decoding strategies, their fluency should improve.”  Allington (2009)  “There is evidence that children rely on a range of different reading processes in their develop of early sight word reading and that this enable children to become more proficient in learning to read.”  Farrington-Flint, Coyne, Stiller, & Heath (2008)

 Students should be taught at least one sight word EVERY lesson.  You need to help students build visual memory, and increase their bank of high-frequency words.  The same sight word should be taught for two days, and longer if needed.  Don’t introduce a new sight word until the original is mastered.

 Pick a sight word from the book for your lesson.  Spend one to two minutes on: › What’s Missing? › Mix & Fix › Table Writing › Whiteboards

 Whiteboards for each student  1small cup/container for each student  Magnetic letters  Dry-erase markers

 Write the word on the whiteboard, so the students can see you write it.  Point to the letters while you have the students chorally spell the word.  Turn the board towards you and erase a letter. Turn it back around and have a student tell you what’s missing. Write the letter when as the child tells you the answer.  Continue to erase different letters until the entire word is erased.

 In advance, prepare cups containing the sight word, using magnetic letters. Each child will need his/her own.  Give each child a cup and a whiteboard. They are to put the letters in the correct order. Have them check their answers by sliding their finger under it.  The student should pull each letter down from left to right to remake it, and check.  Then, the student should scramble the word, and fix it.

 Collect the magnetic letters.  Have the students “write” the word with their finger.  Encourage them to say the word as they write it, and check it with their finger.

 Once the child has traced the word correctly with his/her finger, give him/her a dry-erase marker.  The student should write the sight word, and say it as he/she does so.

 Repeat the process with the same sight word.  At the beginning of the lesson, review a sight word from a previous lesson (not this same lesson).  Spend a third day on the same sight word if necessary.

 Visit each center to practice!

 BOOM!  Sight word fishing  Bingo  I Have, Who Has?  Peer check  Funny Faces  Any other ideas?

 What procedure has students mix the letters to remake the word?  What procedure has students use their finger to write the word on the table?  What procedure has students identify the missing letter in the word?  What procedure has students write the word and say it aloud?