Should Your Smart Child Really Be Memorizing Sight Words?

You may think that memorization the best way to teach a sight word, like the word what.

After all, not only is what a very common word, has a funny spelling.

It is spelled W-H-A-T, yet pronounced "wut."

Sight words can be defined as words that are not spelled the way they are pronounced.

Some other sight words are to, do, says, and friend. The spellings of these words appear not to make sense.

To get around this problem, many have children learn sight words by memorization, such as through flashcards, so that they are able to recognize the word.

However, one problem with this approach is that the child may still miss the sight word when they come across it.

For example, although the child knows the word what during the flashcard drill, the child misses the word in a real-life reading situation. The child may confuse it with a similar word.

Another issue is that in real-life, sight words are non-sight words are all mixed up together. The child may not know which words to sound out and which words to read by recognizion.

As such the child may try to sound out what phonetically even though they were taught that this was a word to recognize.

As such, it is best to have ONE main strategy for reading words:

Teach children to sound out all words, including sight words.

With this strategy, children learn to sound out sight words, such as the word what, in two steps:

1) The child sounds out the word they way it is spelled, even if they say the word wrong. Here the child says what as "wat."

2) Next, the child learns the correct pronunciation of the written word. We tell the child to read what by saying "wut."

In the future, when the child mispronounces the word what by sounding it out phonetically, the child will remember their error. They will remember that instead of saying "wat" they they need to say "wut."

The process is demonstrated in the video above.

This technique enables the child to consistently rely on the strategy of sounding out words, while keeping in mind that some words are non-phonetic (like what) and need their pronunciations adjusted.

Another great thing about this method is that it allows children's natural mispronunciations to be an effective strategy for learning sight words!

In this program, children read all words by sounding them out phonetically, and are signaled when a mispronunciation needs adjusting.

If you would like your smart child to read sight words with this child-friendly strategy, please check out the Unique Teach Reading Program App.

Also, if you are a homeschooling parent, check out the homeschooling course link in the menu. You may find its methods to be helpful if your child is struggling in any subject.