4 Engaging Ways to Teach Sight Words

This post has been co-written with Ben Wolfson, a full-time educator and assistant principal in the USA. 

For some reason, many kindergarten teachers find teaching sight words problematic and challenging in their classroom. In part this may be because they don’t explain why are sight words important to their students, and in part it’s because they don’t have engaging ways to teach sight words yet. These sight word activities for kindergarten will help your students master the Dolch sight word list in next to no time!

Way #1 – Gamify it with Sight Words BINGO

One of the best ways to teach sight words (and indeed anything on the kindergarten curriculum!) is to make it into a game. Bingo is a great game as it’s versatile across all subjects. Students have their own bingo board and take it in turn to draw out and read words from their Dolch sight word list. This means that they have to know how to read the word and how it sounds making bingo a great way to double dip your sight word skills!

Way #2 – Get Hands On with Q Tip Painting

Kindergarten students live through all five senses, so any sight word activities for kindergarten that allow them to get their hands dirty will be an instant win. Painting with Q-tips is one of the great ways to teach sight words as students have to slow down as they form each letter. The skill required to create words with the end of a Q-tip will also build their fine motor control – another double dip activity.

Way #3 – Repeated Practice

All of the research into kindergarten learning shows that repeated practice is essential for true mastery and consolidation of any skill. This means that there is always a time and a place for a sight words printable set of flash cards. Focus on a small group of sight words at a time until students can read this as soon as the flash cards are turned over before giving them more words on the Dolch sight words list. They can work with a partner or even take the flash cards home for extra practice!

Way #4 – Write The Room To Get Moving

Kindergarten bodies are designed for moving so you’ll tap into that whole body learning experience by finding sight word activities for kindergarten that involve getting up and moving. A “write the room” activity is a perfect blend of movement and practice. You put the current list of sight words that students are working on around the room (try hiding them in unusual spots for an extra challenge!) and they have to move around the room, writing down the sight words they find on a list. 

The final piece of the puzzle when you’re finding different ways to teach sight words is to give students opportunities to practice reading the words in context. This means finding a selection of reading materials that have the sight words as their primary focus and giving students time with an adult or a partner to read the words out loud. They’ll be so excited to find the words that they’ve been practicing as well as realizing that they can read books to themselves that you’ll never worry about teaching sight words again. 

Books with Stories Focused On Sight Words:

Browse My Most Popular Literacy Activites:

1) Valentines Alphabet Clip Strips – Kids will choose among 5 different letters on the strip to identify the matching ones.

2) Alphabet Beginning Sound Coloring Pages – Watch your child become more familiar with each letter of the alphabet as they practice coloring in the objects with that beginning sound.

3) Tommy Turkey’s Alphabet Pie – This turkey-themed letter recognition activity is so simple to prep and makes a great file folder game!

4) Pirate Alphabet Playdough Mats – Just print out the playing mats and ask your child to form the letters out using the playdough provided.

5) Farm Alphabet Find and Cover Letters – Work on letter recognition any time of the year!

6) Werewolf Spin and Cover – Kids will race to find all the letters on their mat this Halloween.

7) Bunny Burrows Game – Fun game for small groups or circle time where students will catch a bunny and say out the sound.

8) Letter-saurus Fossil Digging – Dinosaur lovers will enjoy being a pretend paleontologist and finding all the letters.

9) Alphabet Handwriting Worksheets – Practice lowercase and capital letters with these print-and-go pages.

10) Rainy Day Alphabet – 1 printable, many ways to use.