Spelling & Sight Words

Date:  Jan 25, 2013

When I received Jay's spelling list, I was asking the questions, "Why the school needs the P1 kids to learn how to spell animal sounds??"  Is this a way how the school build up students vocabulary?

Then, his form teacher pass him a piece of paper that has this in the following week.  Sight Words.

I totally have no idea what does it mean by Sight Words.

But then, when I read the list, there are more than 200+ words that Jay Jay will need to learn.  Most of them, Jay already learned it from Kindergarden.

So, I have no idea what to do?  Do I give him spelling on this?

Do I make flash cards out of this?

What does it mean by Sight Word?????

So, I look up Wikipedia.  And after reading the definitions… I still don't understand what is it for.

All I learned from Google so far is Sight word == Dolch list.  A list of frequent words.

The, I finally found from Google a "Introduction to Sight Words" that is explained in an English that I could understand.  I quote here...

"Reading is one of the most critical skills taught at school.  It is virtually impossible for a person to live a productive life in our society without being functionally literate.  Children with reading difficulties will undoubtedly have trouble mastering nearly all school subjects even if they are motivated to study. Conversely, children who learn to read in the early grades acquire one of the most basic skills need to continue their education and be fully functional as adults.

In many schools students are expected to be able to read simple material by the end of the second grade.  One of the most important goals in teaching young students to read is making sure they are completely proficient with Sight Words.

Sight Words (sometimes called the Dolch Word List) are some of the most frequently used words in the English language.  Even though they number only about 200, Sight Words make up approximately 50 to 70 percent of any given general, non-technical text.  Therefore, teaching Sight Words as early as possible is considered a crucial part of elementary educations."

OK.  Now I know what is a Sight Words.  OK.  Will teach Jay Jay all the words in the list.  Ask him to spell.  Ask him to make sentences out of each words.  To see if he understands how to use it.  

This can be a game that you can install on iPad or iPhone and let the amazing education tools teach your kids those words with spelling games.  Remember, these are healthy games.