Today I am doing something new for the Kindergarten Smorgasboard! I’m going to do a week of posts on sight word 60 to show how easy and effective teaching sight words can be!
It’s our first ever week long blog series! Starting today and each day this week, I’m going to do a blog post showing how we do sight words in our classroom! Each post will show you exactly what we do on that day. It’s like a real time glimpse into the chaos of our classroom!
So, you see, what had happened was, I stunk at teaching sight words. We did all kinds of random things and we never had a direction and plan for teaching sight words. And by we, I mean me. The kids were just along for the ride! My students always did ok and learned some words but they didn’t retain the words well and I just knew there was a better way. I knew I was failing my students and wanted to fix it.
And thus was born Sight Word 60. Our literacy coaches came to us with this idea so I took it and modified it and tweaked it and made it my own.
The premise of Sight Word 60 is that in the course of a school week, 5 days, students get over 60 exposures to each sight word. Brain research says we need 21 exposures to learn something and move it into long term storage. So, why not triple that and get 60 or more exposures?!
Sight Word 60 works with any sight word list. Dolch. Fry. And if your district is like mine, we have our own list that changes frequently (and by frequently it depends on who you ask because when you ask different people you get a different list…but that’s beside the point…). My district requires our kindergarten students master 100 words.
We are on a 4 week schedule. 3 weeks of new words (4 words each week). Week 4 is review of the 12 words (and all of the words we’ve learned).
It’s a quick routine that take just a few minutes each day.
Day 1 is introducing the words.
We read the words.
Next, we spell the words.
Then, if possible, we say the sounds in the word and blend the word.
Finally, Mr. Greg uses the word in a sentence and the students repeat.
We do that routine for each word. So Monday is 4 words and we go through that process for each of the 4 words on Monday.
That’s it. Simple. Quick. Effective.
When showing my ‘staches the sight words each day, I use a free app called BIG WORDS!
So here is what Monday or Day 1 or Sight Word 60 looks and sounds like!
Sight Word Freebies:
Here are some Sight Word Creations to support Sight Word 60!
http://static.inlinkz.com/ppr.js
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14 comments
Love your video!! I got the Big Word app that you recommended. Did you just take a picture of the word and use the words in your camera roll so that you could flip through them?
Do you always capitalize the first letter? I was just wondering. Thanks for sharing! Becky
We do the same review but I make a video of the words they decorated. We then say the word, spell the word, and say the word. They love it.
Check it out
I just started sight word 60 this week and I am loving it. My students are too! Thanks for always having such amazing ideas!
Amanda 🙂
Mrs. Pauley’s Kindergarten
That is just the way the app works….sometimes I forget to make them lower case!
Yes!
I have read about how you do sight words before but the video makes it so much better! Thanks for this series of posts!!
GENIUS!
I absolutely loved your monster shape activity. It is very educational and engaging. Thanks for sharing.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU… for sharing your Sight Word 60 program. I started implementing it as soon as you shared it in March and I have seen amazing results. Cannot wait to start off next school year with this!
Hi!
I have tried to download Big Words to my Ipad, but I do not seem to find it. Can you show me the icon of the app? Thank you for sharing all this with all of us!!
Eeekk….I don’t the ability to show a picture here in the comments. Wish I could. I just know it is called Big Words
Where do I find days 2-5 for the sight word 60?
Hi Jessi!
Just search for Sight Word 60 in the search bar and they will all come up!