I’m excited to start doing sight words with Nicholas, although I’m not really focusing on sight words so much as I am using the sight words to help him learn phonics better. He can read, when he wants to, but sometimes doesn’t like to work on reading. He’d rather cuddle up with me and have me read than read himself – I can’t blame him. So we are working with some flashcards.
I printed off the sight words in fun colors and laminated them individually. The great thing about the sight words is that they are easy and familiar. Some of the harder ones (because) still need to be learned. So we pull out the flash
Laminating our flashcards for various word games.
cards and play various games. The current favorite is “Teacher.”
Teacher works like this: Nicholas gets to be the teacher. He deals out 6 of the flash cards. He then calls out a word on one of the flash cards and I have to pick it up before he does. Then he gets to deal out another flash card. Every card is a point – and each point is a jelly bean. He loses points – and jelly beans – when he calls out a word that isn’t on the card, or when he chooses a card that’s not the right word. I think he really likes this because he gets to direct the words and be in charge. I’m just playing with him.
We do more traditional things too – I point to a card and he has to tell me what it is. Or I get to be the teacher in the “Teacher” game. He also has to make sentences out of the flash cards. I make sure we spend 15 minutes a day doing work with words. Normally it is with our flash cards because he likes them. But sometimes we read – and I make him read. I have a selection of special books on my Nook that he can read for reading time with me. I haven’t taught him how to use the “read to me” function on my Nook, so he has to read it out loud.
He also has a Tag reader system. He really likes that system because it has games built into the books. Not only does the Tag reader read to him, it has him play games based on the books. We recently got the Solar System set of books to go with the Tag reader. Now he reads those non-stop.
I think the new flashcard system is working out well to help him practice reading. I hope it continues to work too.
Wunderful Homeschool 