journeys sight word list for kindergarten

First being this in depth look at hi-frequency and sight words, and the free resources for teaching them. So I rounded up my lists, games and other teacherly wisdom and started working on a plan that would work for us. She needed something that would keep her engaged and entertained. So with my daughter, I wanted to develop an approach that encompassed all these things. If they can connect with the words orally, visually, and tactility, they can commit the words to memory. Teaching sight words truly needs to be a multifaceted approach.

They need stimulation and lots of variety. Memorizing things can be super tedious and extremely boring for children. So these words just have to be memorized. The English language is a super complex beast. Therefore, they cannot be traditionally sounded out. So…we know popcorn words are words that defy our understanding of phonics. If you’re interested, you can grab that for free here. No one really ever explained to me why, so I kind of made up my own story about why and it evolved into a short little mini-lesson introducing them to the kids. When I first started teaching kindergarten we called sight words, popcorn words. These lists are my secret weapons when it comes to teaching sight words, which in my kinder world were called popcorn words. You can grab the first 4 lists (100 words total) for free by clicking here or on the image below. I moved a few things around and was able more closely fit the needs of my students.įrom there I developed my own word lists. After reading eleventy billion leveled books, I started to notice which words were most frequently occurring in those simple, beginning, texts. Mine may vary slightly in some places as it evolved over many years of teaching. Most kindergarten teachers use the Dolch Sight Word List, and I do as well. They occur abundantly in our language, often multiple times. The differ from sight words in that they can sometimes be sounded out phonetically. High frequency words are words that occur frequently in our language. They all look completely different than they sound.

The goal is to be able to say it immediately without hesitation. Therefore, your child needs to be able to recognize them on sight. Sight words are words that don’t follow the conventional rules of our language. Sight words obviously making up a large portion of those exceptions. Even though through phoneme (letter) instruction we are explicitly teaching kids that our language has rules, they still must understand that there are a lot of exceptions in our language as well. Sight words are a crucial piece to the literacy puzzle. What’s so special about sight words anyway? I’ve got lots of freebies hidden throughout all the posts, so be sure to check them out and grab all the goodies! But first, let’s take a quick look at exactly why sight words are so important.

Lesson plan ideas for the entire list (with a free template).

games and activities to teach sight words (so they aren’t totally boring).

the importance of sight words (and share a FREE set of sight word lists).

And so, I’m unlocking the treasure chest for you!

After 10 years in the classroom, my sight word teaching technique is practically down to a science. To get you started, I’m sharing with you my 3 part series on the Ultimate Guide to Teaching Sight Words. We’ll come back to the other pieces soon. But today, we’re going to focus on one piece of that puzzle and tackle sight and high frequency words. You need to balance sight words, high frequency words, phonemic blending, and reading strategies simultaneously. Truthfully, at this point it becomes somewhat of a juggling act. We get Print Concepts, we know our letters and sounds…Now What? If so, you’re already well on your way to teaching your child to read! Hopefully you’re joining my from my letter of the week, or print concepts series.

Journeys sight word list for kindergarten