The Importance of Sight Words
Reading is one of the most critical skills students learn. One of the most important goals in teaching young student to read is making sure they are completely proficient with sight words.
Sight words are some of the most frequently used words in the English language. Even though they number only about 200, sight words compromise approximately 50 to 70 percent of any given general, non-technical text. Therefore, teaching sight words as early as possible is considered a crucial part of elementary education.
There are two additional reasons why it is important to give sight words an extra priority. First, phonetic analysis can’t be applied to many of the sight words. Secondly, quite a few of the sight words cannot be taught through pictures (e.g. “if,” “soon,” “but”, etc.)
Having the ability to recognize these words can dramatically increase confidence and improve reading proficiency of the beginning reader.
Because complete fluency with sight words is the foundation of literacy, a variety of techniques are used to teach them to children. Repetition and practice are very important in making sight word recognition automatic. Students should practice nightly to recognize all words by the end of Kindergarten.
**Each nine weeks your child will be assessed and required to identify and read sight words for a portion of their reading grade. The attached packet includes your child’s sight words for the entire school year. Please keep these in a safe place (laminate, put them in page protectors, play concentration). Please practice each night with your child. Thank you for your support. ~Ms. Wendt~