It suggests that by the end of kindergarten, children should recognize some words by sight including a few very common ones (the, I, my, you, is, are). I’ve watched hundreds of Kindergarten teachers teaching words and have reviewed lots of research on the teaching of print to young children, and see no evidence that this cannot be done profitably and well.īased on its seminal research review (Prevention of Reading Difficulties) the National Research Council issued an implementation guide for schools, a marvelous little book, Starting Our Right: A Guide to Promoting Children’s Reading Success that I used when I was director of reading in Chicago. If it weren't developmentally appropriate, then young children simply would not learn the words (but they do). I have no qualms in saying that it IS developmentally appropriate to teach sight words to kindergarteners (or even preschoolers). However, the research is not terribly specific as to how many words should be taught or when so anything I say on that will have to come entirely from experience and the wisdom of others. Research and experience tell me that sight word instruction is helpful to young children who are learning to read. There are currently 60 high frequency words being measured/hopefully mastered by the end of K in our data books for that level.Ĭould you provide some insight about this? Specific research for me to back it - How many? Which ones? I just printed the executive summary of the report of the natl early literacy panel…yet as I skim through I see nothing regarding sight word acquisition.Īt this point, we have some that believe it’s NOT developmentally appropriate to teach sight words….others are very skills=based and driven to do so, especially with the 1st grade goal of mastery of 100 high frequency words by Oct 1 of first grade. I’m on the hunt for some solid research and have not been successful in finding it (I’m usually pretty good in doing so!) My K teachers are in disagreement about the teaching of sight vocabulary – and it’s a driving force for some angst right now in their team. I’m writing you out of sheer frustration in doing my own research on the topic of Kindergarten Sight words – perhaps it’s because the answer I’m looking for just isn’t there? However, in theīeginning it is useful to teach students to recognize some high frequency words-even by memory. Students eventually recognize almost all words as sight words. If decoding is taught well and effectively

Teaching sight words directly (and not just as an outcome of phonics).īasically, sight words are words students can identify immediately with noĮvident sounding or mediation. These days theĭyslexia-focused advocates would likely fry me for supporting the idea of Sight vocabulary and I was suggesting they were overdoing it). Number of words recommended (since some of the publishers and consultants were promoting large numbers of Blast from the Past: This entry was first posted on Februand was re-issued on February 2, 2019. When this blog entry first posted the only part that was controversial was the

List of sight words for kindergarteners