The Connett Connection: Sight Word Flip Book and

Sunday, September 11, 2022

Sight Word Flip Book and

Why Teach Sight Words?

I know there has recently been a huge shift in moving away from sight words in the early elementary classroom. Many now only teach heart words along side phonics, which for many children, is a perfectly fine, and valid way of teaching. Many words on the lists commonly used in the kindergarten and first grade classrooms have many words that are decodable, and heart words are the words that do not follow normal phonics patterns.

I do, however, think we should not neglect sight words altogether, even the decodable ones. My main reason for belief is my experience with my own daughter. She struggles SO much with picking up phonics and still has a lot of trouble phonetically pronouncing words (She is currently 10 years old), so even phonetically spelled sight words that she hasn't been explicitly taught, still mess her up. These flip books have been a good, repetitive activity that has helped my daughter pick up new words. I started with the most common words and worked my way to the less common words, and this allowed her to be successful when she so badly wanted to read like her peers, and before the phonics skills began to click with her.

What is the purpose of sight words?

Sight words are used specifically to increase early fluency in reading. If a child must sound out every single word every time they read, it will be heard for them to gain mastery or understanding of the text. By teaching the most common words they will see in a text, they are able to use those words by memory and then only have to sound out a few words in a given sentence.

Each sight word flip book has a cover page that students can simply color. There are 6 different activity pages included and the last two pages have variants that allow you to differentiate for students on different levels.

The first page in the flip book is a find and color page. Students will look for the target sight word and then color the circle with the word. Students can also use dot markers to cover the word or stickers for a fine motor activity.

The next page is a trace and write page. Students gain handwriting practice by tracing the target sight word, then writing it on their own.

Then, there is a spelling page. At the bottom of this printable page are letter tiles students can use to spell the word. You can also use alphabet stamps or magazine letters to spell each word.

The next page is a cut and paste page. At the bottom of this page are the sight word in a variety of different fonts. Students can also look through printed materials like newspapers or magazines for examples of the word to cut and paste.

On the read, write, and draw page, students will read the sentence, copy the sentence then draw a picture of what the sentence said. Students get handwriting practice as well as reading comprehension practice with this page. An alternative to this page is available for students to come up with their own sentence with the sight word.

This page allowed students to write the missing sight word on the page and then read a passage that targets the sight word.

This page is an alternative to the write and read page. This page simple has students read a passage containing the sight word. You may choose to have the students identify the sight word in the passage by having then underline or circle the word they are learning.

For a full list of words available for these sight word flip books, please check out this page: Sight Word Flip Book Page