Wondering how to teach sight words? You’ve come to the right place! There are so many fun, hands-on sight word games perfect for teaching children sight words, and today, I’m going to share my favorites with you!

What are “sight words”?

But first, we should chat about what sight words truly are.

Sight words are words that we want our children to be able to read by sight, as in, not needing to sound them out. Some of these words are not able to be sounded out phonetically, whereas others are simply high-frequency words that are going to come up again and again as our children read.

In fact, if your child can read the first 100 sight words, they will be able to read about 50% of all written material. Wild!

How do you teach sight words?

Helping our children learn sight words requires two things:

First of all, it is important to introduce sight words in a manageable and sequential order, just like we do in both our Grade One and Grade Two Literacy Curriculum. Each week, we focus on 3-5 new sight words, learning and playing with those sight words throughout the week. By the end of the Grade One Curriculum, your child will have learned the first 100 sight words, and Grade Two builds from there.

The second thing we need to do is make that learning meaningful and fun! As you work through the Grade One and Two Literacy Curriculum, you will see how we use those words in simple, playful ways, building sight word knowledge day by day. Some of the sight word games that I’m going to share with you below are directly from the Grade One or Two Literacy Curriculum, and others are wonderful complements to add in some extra practice.

As your child is learning their sight words, I highly recommend creating either a Word Wall (which I talk about in this blog post) or using a Word and Sound Dictionary. As your child learns new sight words, they can add them to their word wall or dictionary, building a wonderful reference for when they are writing! You can grab my Free Printable Word & Sound Dictionary right here:

Now, let’s get into it! Here are some of my favorite sight word games for kids.

Fun Sight Word Games for Grades One and Two

A Sight Word Dice Game – This activity not only practices sight words, but it also practices word families! And not only does it practice word families (there is more? YES, more!), but it also practices spatial skills too! Grab your free printable nets right here and get playing!

Chalk Tracing – Write a sight word on a chalkboard. Take care to form each letter properly, as this is a wonderful opportunity to help our children practice letter formation. Once you have written the sight word in chalk, have your child trace over the sight word using a paintbrush dipped in water. Once it has been traced over, you will see it reappears slightly. Have your child continue to trace that sight word with water until it disappears completely. 

Sight Word Go Fish – Grab some pieces of construction paper and cut them into squares about the size of playing cards. Write some sight words on the cards, ensuring you have two of each sight word. Shuffle your deck, and play “Go Fish!” Ask your child, “Do you have the word ‘here’?” If they do, they need to identify the card and give it to you; if not, you grab a new card from the deck, and it’s their turn. 

Whiteboard Sight Words – If you have a whiteboard on hand, it makes an excellent tool for practicing sight words! If not, a plastic plate or a piece of paper in a page protector works just as well. Write a sight word in a dry-erase marker and have your child trace each letter with their finger, erasing it away! They can then try to rewrite it themselves from memory.

Color by Sight Word – Add sight words to any coloring page and make it a color-by-sight-word activity! Write your sight words down the side of the page and assign each a color. Perhaps the word ‘here’ will be yellow, ‘the’ will be red, and so on. Next, write the sight words in the various parts of the picture. Your child will need to identify each word and color it the appropriate color, becoming more and more familiar with those words as they go. Coloring is also a great way to strengthen those fine motor skills. 

Sensory Sight Words – Lots of children love to explore sensory bins, including older children! There is something very soothing about it. Put magnetic letters, bead letters, block letters, or simply letters written on paper in a sensory bin filled with your favorite filler (rice or beans work well). Have your child pull out the letters and spell their sight words. 

Memory – You can use the same cards you used for “Go Fish” for this activity. Make sure you have each sight word written on two cards. Place all of your cards face down and mix them up. Then, take turns flipping over two cards at a time. If they match, you keep them, if they do not match, it is the next player’s turn. Whoever has the most sight word matches at the end wins!

Storybook Sight Word Search – I wrote a blog post all about this fun game! Very simply, choose a favorite storybook and have your child hunt through that book, finding the sight words from the week as many times as they can. 

Sight Word Scavenger Hunt – Write sight words on strips of paper, cut them into individual letters, and hide those letters around a room. Have your child find all of the letters and recreate the sight words. This can be made easier by having a different color of paper for each sight word. 

Rainbow Writing – Write out the sight word on a piece of paper. Have your child trace that word again and again in various colors of marker, creating a rainbow effect. 

Popsicle Stick Sight Word Puzzles – Grab some popsicle sticks, line them up about 4 tall, and write your sight words on it. Take those popsicles apart, and you have your very own popsicle stick sight word puzzles!

Sight Words on the Stairs – If you’ve been around me for a while, you probably know that I love ‘learning on the stairs’ games! This photo was from when my Sammy was learning rhyming sounds and blends, but we have also used the same idea for sight words. Simply write the sight words your child is practicing on pieces of paper and tape them to the back of your stair risers. As your child goes up the stairs, they call out the sight word! It’s a wonderful way to reinforce that learning throughout the day. If you don’t have a staircase, you could also tape them to the wall in a hallway.

Ready to get playing!? These activities are the perfect complement to our complete Grade One Math & Literacy Curriculum and Grade Two Math & Literacy Curriculum, so be sure to check them out!

xo
Sarah