When our children start school we begin to hear education jargon that can sometimes be confusing. One of the most common of these is sight words. What are they and why are they so important?

Sight words, also referred to as high frequency words, are words that appear frequently in most of the text kids read. But, these words cannot be easily sounded out or visually represented.  Using phonics or picture reading to figure out sight words is useless and can become frustrating for a beginning reader who is in the early stages of developing decoding skills. All beginning readers are encouraged to memorize these words but this is even more important for visual learners. When visual kids learn to read they can be overwhelmed, struggle with phonics and grow discouraged. Memorizing whole words is the way visual kids learn best, so memorizing sight words is a perfect way to help them build skill, boost confidence and become more fluent readers.

We have comprised a list of sight words for kindergarten and first grade from the two most popular lists, Dolch and Fry. Download them now and begin practicing them at home, and get your visual learner reading with confidence.

Check out my video about visual techniques to practice sight words to get you started.