What type of things do you do to help your students practice their sight words at home. My students take home various books each night to read with their families and I want them to be able to practice their sight words at home as well. Do you keep a list of sight words and just update them and send them home each week? Do you make rings of all the sight words for the whole year and give them to the parents even before you go over them with the kids? What are some ideas you have. My weakness last year was sight words activities. I know I could of done more. This year I want to focus on more things they can do at home with their families.
We send home a list of 100 HF words and a note that gives the parents like 25 different things they can do at home to work on sight words. I believe I got it out of the Fountas and Pinnell Phonics and Word Study book.
I send the high-frequency words home once each theme (there are 6), and once each lesson (30). In my weekly newsletter, I have suggestions for fun ways to practice. In my weekly homework packet, I have a tic-tac-toe board from which the students choose activities to complete their homework. Lynn, You wouldn't have a copy of those 25 things, would you???
Can you explain what you mean by themes an lessons? I don't quite get it. That is a good idea to put them in your weekly newsletter. I will be doing a newsletter this year for the first time so that is a great idea.
Sight word practice - Rainbow Words! I found that having an organized system to keep track of the kids really helped. By using Rainbow Words, I knew who was where and what they needed to work on. The kids were motivated to move up from one color level to the next and were excited everytime they could read a new level. The packet came with a parent explanation letter in English and Spanish that had a few activities (I think giving 25 can be overwhelming to the parents I deal with). There are also some good ideas on the website here: http://www.rainbowwords.com/TeachingActivities.html
Our basal (required) is set up in 5 themes, with approximately 6 lessons per theme. The themes really don't come into play in our classrooms, but they offer a "dividing point" for the words, so our parents (low income, often uneducated themselves) aren't overwhelmed by the sheer number of words.
I have a paper copy. I copy it out of the book. It's called something like "25 ways to use magnetic letters" or something like that. Van - We send home the dolch HF words.
I have tried many ways to practice sight words. Here is what I have done the past two years that works for me. I test each student on the Dolch sight word list at the beginning of the year. I stop at the list that gives them trouble. Some don't get past the first list, some finish them all. Then when I start homework, I put 5 words a week on the homework form. Each student has there own list. (It is a lot of work, but it pays off. Parents like that it's individualized.) They have all week to practice sight words with flashcards, a "memory" type game, writing sentences with the words, etc. Then on Friday I check to see if the child knows the words. If they do, they get a sucker. The kids really like it and try very hard. They are always disappointed when they miss one. Usually within a month I have several students who know all the words on the list and I give them harder words. That helps keep them challenged. Some students I would only give 3 words a week because that's all they could do. Of course we do have sight words for the week that we practice in class that are checked through our reading series assessments too. Hope these ideas help!:thumb:
I observed in a school last year where the sight words were on clip on nametags, and whoever had the nametag for that word was called by the sight word all day. For example, if you were wearing the word "cat" then you were called "cat" all day. This was done in a kindergarten, but if you just did this with a few words a day, it might work for first grade too. Most of my student's parents do not speak English, so sending home sight word lists is not an option. We have to practice them at school. What we do send home are "books on tape/cd". We also got a grant to send home tape players or cd players. The children choose a book to take home once a week. They can practice reading along with a book at home, and the parents can pick up some English while the child is reading the book. It has really helped our students!
I would like to do something like that..where you call the students the sight word all day but I know that is something I would not keep up with. I would forget to call them that. Just would not work for me.
