Anyone teaching phonics runs into the same question. If children sound out every word, what do you do with the, was and said, which don't say what they spell? The answer is that this group never gets sounded out at all. It gets memorised by shape. These are the sight words: words so common that a child should read them the instant they see them, with no thinking in between.
Reading research puts the 100 most frequent words at roughly half of all English text. A child who knows that group by sight reads more smoothly almost overnight, and the difference is obvious to everyone.
Be clear which words get sounded out and which get memorised
Keep one simple rule in the classroom. Words that behave (cat, red, sit) always get sounded out, because that is phonics practice. Words that don't (the, one, two, said) get named out loud as memory words and taught separately. Don't leave children struggling to sound these out, because they will land on the wrong sound and lose their confidence along with it.
- First set, ten words: the, a, I, is, it, in, and, to, you, we
- Second set: was, said, are, they, one, two, come, some, have, of
- Teach three to five at a time. Don't tip all 20 out at once.
Three sight word activities you can run every day
Memory runs on frequency, not on length. Two minutes every day beats one 30 minute session a week.
- Flashcards at the bell. Before you dismiss the line, hold up one card at a time. First to read it is first out of the door. It takes under two minutes.
- A word hunt. Stick word cards up around the walls, say a word, and let children run and touch it. They get to move as well.
- Circle the word. Every time a memory word turns up in a reading worksheet, have children circle it. Before long they notice for themselves that these words are everywhere.
Signs it is working
Once a child has the first set, a short sentence like The cat is red. comes out almost fluently, because only one word is left to sound out. That is the moment to start pairing real sentences with your vocabulary worksheets. The child feels like a reader for the first time, and at this age nothing motivates more than that.