Sight Word EPHIPHANY and a giveaway!

Sight words and I have a love/hate relationship. I know they are important for reading success, but following my county's prescribed method of teaching 5 words per week just wasn't jiving for me. Some kids already knew those words, and some kids still hadn't learned the words from last week.

This year, I have had a sight word epiphany. EPHIPHANY I tell you! I'm going to use the FABULOUS sight word pack made by The Teeny Tiny Teacher. This pack has 30 lists of 10 sight words each. 300 words should keep my students busy all year, but for those Super-Smarties who can learn to read 300 sight words, they can then start learning to spell the words. This pack correlates well to the Dolch sight word list and the Fountas and Pinnell list, which should make administrators happy.

So here is my plan...

1. I'm going to pre-assess students (my other love/hate relationship) so that I can determine with what list each child needs to start. Every child will work on their own list at their own pace. Assessment? Differentiation? Go ahead and put a check mark on my teacher evaluation that says "Uses assessments to inform instruction" and "Differentiates instruction to fit the needs of all learners" please and thank you!

2.I'm going to send sight word lists home so that parents can help students practice. I'll probably start this after Curriculum Night so that I can explain what in the world a sight word is and talk about ways to practice sight words at home. I really like this list of ideas.

3. The sight word lists come 2 to a page. I'll send one home to parents, and keep one at school for students to practice during stations.

I've just finished a sight word activity pack that introduces sight words in the same general order as The Teeny Tiny Teacher's lists. I've totally re-done my Sight Word Unscramble. It's a lot cuter now and also includes pictures to help students read unknown words. Students have to read the sentence on each card and unscramble the sight word that correctly completes the sentence. There's a recording sheet where students can record their answers. I think I'm going to print these cards and write the sight word list number on the back to make cards easy to sort.

I like using mixed-up sentences because I think it really makes the kids think about what they are reading. It also reminds them to start sentences with capital letters and end with punctuation. I've made 5 different colored sets of mixed-up sentences (each set has 5 sentences) plus a recording sheet so students can record their work.

I'm also putting together some general sight word ideas with recording sheets that students can do with any sight word list. As we start our sight word station, I'll slowly introduce these activities. From then on, students can complete them independently and repeat activities when they get a new list. And I won't have to re-explain the activity, which will hopefully make this station run very smoooooooooothly!

Some of the activities I'm using are:

• Blue Vowels and Red Consonants
• Rainbow Writing
• Building Words
• Roll-a-Word
• Fancy Letters
• Triangle Words
• Magic Words
• Scrabble Letters
• Word Searches

I'm hoping to add more ideas and recording sheets throughout the year so that my students will have lots of fun ways to practice their sight words.

4. Wasn't I numbering something? Oh yeah! Number 4 is testing. Each Friday, my para-pro is going to test students on their sight word lists. If they know all of the words, they get to move on to the next list, and if not, they will work on the same list the next week. I wouldn't expect students to learn 10 words in 1 week, but I hope they will get a new list every 2-3 weeks.

So there's my sight word plan for the 2014-2015 school year. I'm going to be using my new pack to help me, and I hope you'll check it out at my TPT store. It's half-price through the 4th (only $2.50)!

I'm also doing my very first Rafflecopter GIVEAWAY! You can win my new sight word pack for FREE! Hopefully I've done this right, but please bear with me if there are any...um...hiccups  =)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Happy 4th!!