Parents often ask me "How do I teach my 5 year old sight words?", and "How can I make learning sight words fun?". These 10 sight word activities will engage kids in a multi-sensory approach to learning how to read. Both parents and teachers will see that fun sight word games are at their fingertips with many of these household items.
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10 Sight Word Activities To Do At Home or In The Classroom
• Popsicle
Sticks –
Write the sight words on Popsicle sticks.
Write “DYNAMITE” on a couple sticks.
Put them in a jar. Pull them out
one-by-one, read the word. If you pull
dynamite, you have to put them all back in the jar.
Use colored sticks to spruce it up!
• Magnetic Letters- use magnetic letters to build the words. Spelling sight words with magnetic letters is a simple hands-on approach to reading. You can build words on a file cabinet, refrigerator, on a magnetic dry-erase board, or without a magnetic surface. Simply lay the magnetic letters out on a table to spell the sight words.
• Sight Word Hunt – search for & read sight words hung around the classroom or house.
• Sight Word War – Playing with a partner, use 2 stacks of sight word cards, each player flips over a card. Whoever reads the word first keeps the cards. Person with most cards wins!
• Shaving Cream – Write the high frequency words in a dab of shaving cream on the table. Shaving cream writing is excellent for sensory based interventions.
Using shaving cream for spelling words and writing sight words are just a few of the shaving cream activities for kids who are kinesthetic learners. You can also make shaving cream playdough and have the kids make the words with that.
• Legos- Use dry erase markers to write sight
words on the side of legos, and
place them in a pile. Call out a word,
have your child find the lego with
that word, and add to the tower. There are endless sight word lego activities for kids. If your child is doing well at recognizing the sight words, but has difficulty spelling them, you can write individual letters on the legos and have them build the word.
You will want to use the large Mega Blocks if writing the whole word, such as the ones used for my pictures. The standard lego size is too small.
• Flashlight Tag with sight words on the wall
• Sight Word Tallies – Write 5 sight words on a piece of paper. Search through books and magazines, and put tally marks next to the words as you find the words.
• Playdoh - Use playdoh to form the letters and build the sight words.
• Flashcards – Print a set of sight word flashcards, or write the words on index cards, review 5-10 a night.
Teaching kids how to read requires patience and daily practice. Parents often want to help at home, but aren't sure what to do. You can get this free letter as a reminder of how to help kids with sight words at home.
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