The entire reason why I made this star chart was because I wanted to motivate my 8 year old to learn his multiplication tables. If he got to be bribed for learning, my 6 year old didn’t understand why SHE shouldn’t get a few benefits as well.

For the past several months, she’s been loving the Elephant and Piggie series. I think she’s learning a lot of sight words just from reading this series with me. (I’m the elephant, she’s Piggie.) However, while she can usually read the sight words in context, she still sometimes has trouble when she sees just a single word on a page, even if it’s something as simple as “of.”

This sight word star chart has really gotten her thinking about how words are spelled. It has cemented in her mind certain common words so that she doesn’t have to spend extra brain cycles trying to decipher them.

I still don’t love the idea of forcing kids to learn sight words if it ever starts to kill their love of learning. It’s still more important for reading to be thought of as a fun activity than for kids to be able to read words off index cards. However, if your child thinks memorizing sight words using this reward system is fun, I don’t think it does any harm.

The way the chart works is that every time my daughter completes a row of sight words, she earns the reward at the end of the row. Before she can redeem her reward, though, she needs to show that she STILL remembers all the words from the previous rows. If she forgets any of those, I write them on a little post-it note and put them in the “probation area.” Then we wait at least 15 mintues and I have her show me that she can remember those words in order to take them off probation.

My daughter just finished her first page today. We made oatmeal raison cookies for her reward. She’s already trying to see which of the sight words she knows how to read on page 2. I know she’ll be through them in no time!

Recommended Age Range: Elementary
Time Required: ~5 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Free printable. Optional: A couple dollars for foil stars (with a bunch left over)

Materials:

• Paper for printing sight word star charts.
• Foil Stars (optional: could also just put checks or draw happy faces)

Instructions:

1. First, print the sight word star charts.



2. Next fill out the rewards. You could use the same reward for each row or choose something different. For mine, I used a combination of food treats (such as candy and ice cream), media usage (like watching tv and playing on my tablet), and activities with a parent (like playing a board game or cooking). When my daughter completes the entire chart, I plan to give her $5 to spend on a toy. Do whatever you feel comfortable with!

In case you’re interested, I also made multiplication star charts for my older child and alphabet star charts for my younger kids.

Enjoy!

Click here for more Sight Word activities and printables for kids.

Related Links

Letters and Letter Sound Activities
Best Books for Early Elementary
Learning Activities for Kids

The post Sight Word Star Charts appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Sight words are boring. This sight word matching game is my attempt to make them a little bit fun. To give them context instead of just showing the child words written on blank cards. Basically, the game uses a modified version of these illustrated sight word flashcards with the sight word removed from the descriptive sentence. By writing those words on blank cards, your child can match which sight word goes in which sentence. You can play this by just letting the child match the words on his or her own or (after the child has gotten pretty good at this), as an actual 2 player matching game with all the cards flipped over, taking turns to make pairs.

Recommended Age Range: Kindergarten
Time Required: ~1 hour
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Around $5 in used supplies, primarily because I used this thermal laminator (Affiliate Link) to laminate the cards 4 at a time. You could save money by laminating the cards with contact paper, which isn’t quite as sturdy and takes longer, but still works well, or by not laminating them at all.

Materials:

• paper or card stock (22 sheets for picture cards and word cards or 11 sheets for picture cards + 42 blank index cards for written words)
• sight word matching game document

Supplies & Tools:

• printer
• scissors
• ruler or paper trimmer
• laminator (Affiliate Link) and laminating sheets (or contact paper)

Instructions:

1. Print out the sight word matching game document on card stock.
2. Cut each sheet of paper into 4 cards using either a paper trimmer or a ruler and scissors.
3. Write each of the 42 sight words listed below on a blank card (either an index card or more card stock cut in 4’s).
4. Laminate the cards using a laminator or contact paper.
5. Trim the laminated cards.

As mentioned above, typically I just use these cards by having the child match the sight words to the sentence in groups, as shown on the illustrated sight word flash card page. However, once the child starts to get a hang of the sight words and which one goes in which sentence, you could play this as an old-fashioned matching games, which all the cards flipped over in a grid and taking turns trying to make matches.

Sight Word List:

a
all
and
are
as
at
but
for
from
had
have
he
her
his
I
in
is
it
like
mby
my
not
of
on
one
or
see
she
that
the
they
this
to
up
was
were
what
when
will
with
you
your

Click here for more Sight Word activities for kids.

Related Links

Best Books for Kindergarten
Reading and Writing Activities
Best Gifts for 5-Year-Olds

The post DIY Sight Word Matching Game appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

I really don’t like the idea of making kids memorize sight words. Sure, grown-ups don’t take the time to sound out and decipher words like “the” or “as”, but we remember them because it’s convenient and necessary, not because someone told us we needed to. I wanted a way to help a child remember sight words with the help of contextual clues, which are always present in real life, so I made these flash cards which can be used in a homemade sight word matching game. However, if your child does not need to learn sight words for school or is not having any difficulty remembering them in context, I don’t think it’s really necessary to pressure the learning of sight words.

Recommended Age Range: Kindergarten
Time Required: ~1 hour
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Around $5 in used supplies. (Could save money by using contact paper instead of laminating sheets (Affiliate Link) to laminate cards, or not laminate them at all.)

Materials:

• card stock
• sight word cards document

Supplies & Tools:

• printer
• scissors
• ruler or paper trimmer
• laminator (Affiliate Link) and laminating sheets (or contact paper)

Instructions:

1. Print out the sight word cards document on card stock.
2. Cut each sheet of paper into 4 cards using either a paper trimmer or a ruler and scissors.
3. Write the sight word on the back of each card.
4. Laminate the cards using a laminator or contact paper.
5. Trim the laminated cards.

If desired, the cards can be grouped into common themes when teaching the child what each sentence says. If you want to help the child learn a certain set of sight words, you can start by trying to show them just the side with the written word. If they don’t know what it says, you can flip the card over and see if the picture is enough of a clue. If the child is still unsure, you can read the sentence leaving out the underlined sight word and have the child try to fill in the blank. Of course, this is assuming your child is willing to go along with trying to learn sight words. If your child is not at all enthusiastic about this endeavor (and who can blame them?) then try playing this sight word matching game instead using the print out with the sight words missing.

Here is a list of all 41 sight words currently included. Maybe later I’ll add some other ones to the document, but these are the ones kindergarteners are expected to learn at my local public school.

a
all
and
are
as
at
but
for
from
had
have
he
her
his
I
in
is
it
like
my
not
of
on
one
or
see
she
that
the
they
this
to
up
was
were
what
when
will
with
you
your

Related Links

Best Independent Games for Kindergarten
Best Books for Kindergarten
Sight Word Activities

The post Illustrated Sight Word Cards appeared first on ResearchParent.com.