Sight Words and Phonics

Over the past century educators and experts have employed and analyzed various methods to teach reading. Today most teachers and reading experts recommend a suite of approaches that focus on recognition of sight words and decoding with phonics. While these skills alone will not generally result in a great reader, they are necessary building blocks. These two approaches complement each other and are usually developed on parallel tracks during the learn to read years (i.e. beginning in pre-school or kindergarten and continuing through 3rd grade).

The goal of frequent interaction with sight words, sometimes referred to as word study, is to enable beginning readers to recognize certain high frequency and common phonetically irregular words instantaneously. Instant recognition of the most common words increases reading speed and fluency, while providing the confidence to successfully develop other reading skills. As noted by the National Institute for Literacy, “having a bank of sight words releases a reader’s attention needed for comprehension and for figuring out more difficult and less frequent words.”

Phonics, also know as word analysis or decoding, is the process of using letter patterns to figure out (decode) unfamiliar words. Phonics focuses on teaching beginner readers specific letters and recurring patters and their related sounds to foster quick and accurate recognition of less familiar words. As readers progress in their phonic skills, they learn the meanings and spellings of prefixes, root words, and suffixes. While phonics instruction promotes recognition of unfamiliar words, it is also “effective in helping beginning readers learn to read with understanding.” (National Institute for Literacy).

Er-u-di-tion is a fun sight words game that exposes players to both phonics and sight words. The game cards are color coded so players with different skill levels can play together. Each of the blue cards, which are ideal for pre-school children, includes an upper and lower case letter with words emphasizing that letter’s phonetic sound. The green, yellow, and red cards contain beginner, intermediate and advanced level sight words.

Introduction to Sight Words

Many adults are not familiar with the term sight words (a.k.a. high frequency, Dolch, or wall words) until their children enter kindergarten. Beginning in kindergarten and continuing through 3rd grade, most educators, including parents that home-school, focus on sight word recognition as part of their reading curriculum.

While the exact number and precise words may vary slightly from teacher to teacher, sight words lists generally total 200 – 300 words and are categorized into kindergarten, 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade words. The words share a few common characteristics – they are:

• frequently found in English text,
• often phonetically irregular,
• mostly pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and verbs,
• generally service words which give meaning and direction, and
• difficult, or impossible, to represent with pictures.

Educators and parents work with early readers to memorize these words so that they are identifiable upon sight. This serves to jump-start the road to reading and provides children the ability to read beginner level books. Mastering common sight words also provides early readers the confidence to succeed in other reading curriculum areas (e.g. phonics). Er-u-di-tion, the sight words game, helps players master recognition and comprehension of 284 sight words in a fun setting.

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