Wisdom Wednesday: Sight Word Practice

One thing that we have been working on lately has been sight words. These words are ones that are high frequency and children are taught to memorize them by sight, since most of the time they do not follow phonetic rules. You can find a list of the Dolch Sight Words here.

Here are two ways to help practice them.

Make a Word Wall. Usually teachers will send home flashcards to use, but if not you can use index cards. Write each word, and as they are able to read them, add them to the wall and keep practicing the others. Then, read the words on the wall. As they watch the number of words they know grow, it may encourage them to learn even more.

I did this a lot while working on my own homework. Copy a page in a text book, grab an old magazine or newspaper, and give the kid a highlighter. Tell them to find every "the" or other word on the page. Identifying the word is good practice, because they will have to do that while reading. 

What are you reading?

I planned to do this post at the beginning of the month, but I forgot in all of my posting frenzy.

I wanted to add it now because I'd love to keep track of all the books I read in a year. It may motivate me to make sure I find time to read (and may even shame me into picking better books lol).

Summer Reading Programs

School's Out for Summer for my kiddos, and even though my son takes issue with singing about "Teacher's dirty looks," they are both really excited to be home for the summer.

Sadly, for them, summer is just an extended educational field trip. We do tons of activities to help keep them ready for school in August. I plan to post a few of the best ones as I can.

One thing you can do is join summer reading programs. Check your local library and see if they are offering any summer programs. My kids read to earn prizes and are also able to participate in workshops over the summer.

Barnes & Noble is also offering a summer reading program and your child can earn free books! Check it out.