What Are Sight Words?

Hi, I'm Craig Selinger, certified speech language therapist for Brooklyn Learning, here for About.com. I'm going to show you sight words.

Definition of Sight Words

A sight word vocabulary is a store of words a student can identify and or read automatically. They know the word by sight. They do not need to sound out the word. When a child sounds out the word, that is called phonics. Sight words should include high frequency words, which are words commonly used in every day conversation and common words you see in print. High frequency words include words such as "where," "please," "ride," "one," "it," "was," "you," "is."

Resource for Sight Words

One of the best sources to find sight words is from the Dolch word list. You can actually get it online for free. It was developed in 1948. And the Dolch word list includes the most common 220 words, excluding nouns, found in children's literature, and there's an additional list of ninety five nouns that were counted in children's books.

Teaching Sight Words

In this exercise key sight words will be used to help a child learn sight words which will help build a foundation for their reading development. It's really important to find books that are leveled for the child's developmental reading level. What's really important is to use non-fiction books and fiction books.

Example of Sight Word Exercises

For example, here's a book about sharks. In this book, we're going to focus on one sight word: the sight word "shark." And, we're also going to focus on the word "sharks," which is very similar to "shark." "Many kinds of …sharks live in the ocean. Welcome to the greatest world of …sharks."

Another way to help highlight key sight words is for the child to identify or find with their pointer finger the key sight word. "Can you find the word 'shark?' That's right. And, also on this page 'shark' appears twice. Can you find the other word 'shark?' That's right."

Use Repetitive Texts to Teach Sight Words

It's really important to select books that are repetitive. Repetitive books can include books with rhymes, melodies, and also it's really important to select books that have illustrations.

In this exercise, repetitive text will be used to help children learn sight words. Encourage the child to read along with you and repeat as much as they can. And, it's also important that you point to the words as you say the text."Come Puff. Come here. Jump, little Puff. Jump. Jump."

When teaching reading to a child, it's important that you incorporate a balanced approach. Not only are sight words important to teach children, so is phonics.

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Scientists believe that from 50-75% of all words used in school books, library books, newspapers, and magazines are in the Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary of 220 words (preschool thru Grade 3). The Dolch word list is made up of "service words" (pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and verbs) which cannot be learned through the use of pictures.

The following is Dolch Sight Words, shortly called Dolch 220: