School Time: Sight Words

Each week, I have been adding "sight words" to Lacey's school time. These are words that are used most frequently in the English Language, sometimes referred to as "High Frequency Words" or even "Red Words."  These words I'll put on our pantry door, close to where she eats.  While we are in the kitchen, making food, eating, playing, cleaning, etc. throughout the day, I'll point to one and ask her to tell me what it is.  We started out with the words I and a since she already knew those letters.  Then I added the word "see."  This way, we can start putting those words together to make a sentence and play games. This is the first step in actual reading, understanding that the sounds that come out of your mouth can be put onto paper, and those letters/words on paper can be linked to concrete things.  We played a version of "I Spy" using these words.  Once she started to get "bored" with this, I increased the level of difficulty by adding color words.  The color words I first write using the color it is.  For example, I would write the word RED using a red crayon. Once she mastered that word, I'll add another color word.   When I am certain that she knows a color word, I will then re-write that word using to match the other sight words.  This way, she is focusing on the letters to tell her what the word is and not the color of the letters.

   We still play our "I Spy" game.  The KEY to keeping her so interested is adding new words, playing the game, but most importantly....a pointer!  This is so fun to her for some reason. I just use a food skewer that I had in my kitchen...cut off the pointy end first!  She LOVES pointing to the words and pretending that she is the teacher and I am the student.  Since it is done in the kitchen, I can still clean the kitchen, make lunch/dinner, bring laundry to fold, pay bills, etc.

I love that she is even starting to correct herself when she accidentally points to a wrong word. This lets me know that she has mastered these words.  She learns from these mistakes and she can not only correct herself, but she can correct me too when I make a "mistake."  

 Oh, our learning takes on all sorts of facets.  Some days, we have music class where we focus on "pop culture" music.  This is her newest song...Timber by Pitbull and Kesha.  

  Just getting her ready to be a productive member of society....or a dance club!