

The vast majority of words don’t need to be taught by rote memorization. Ideally, we want reading to become as effortless and unconscious as breathing.īut what about words that aren’t as easily decoded? How should those words be taught? Some Words Need to Be Learned Through Rote Memorization We want children to develop automaticity when reading, so they don’t even have to think about decoding words-they just automatically know the words.
#SIGHT WORDS PDF#
(Download this PDF if you want to try this experiment with your family and friends!)Īs explained in the short video above, the Stroop effect 1 shows that word recognition can be even more automatic than something as basic as color recognition. Even before they’ve realized that they are looking at the word, they’ve unconsciously read it. Now that we’ve settled on the definition for sight words as “any words that can be read instantly, without conscious attention,” that may lead some people to wonder how fast is “instant”? And that’s a great question!īasically, we want kids to see a word and be unable to not read it.
#SIGHT WORDS HOW TO#
In this article, you’ll find out how to minimize the number of sight words that your child needs to memorize, while maximizing his ability to successfully master these words. So now you can see why sight words can cause so much angst! Educators have conflicting ideas about sight words and how to teach them, and in large part that stems from having different definitions for what sight words are. (Many educators believe that the words on these lists must be learned through rote memorization, but we bust that myth in this video.) Words that appear on high-frequency word lists such as the popular Dolch Sight Word and Fry’s Instant Word lists.


Should you teach sight words? What’s the best way to approach sight words? Is it bad to use a curriculum that teaches sight words? If you’ve been teaching reading for a while, you’ve undoubtedly come across the term sight words, and you probably have some questions about them.
