Sight Word Games

This Summer (is not very far away! yikes) is going to be all about reading. We love to read, and I’m currently putting together a nice Summer reading list. I figure we’ll go to the library and check out books, and maybe the ones we love the most we’ll buy to have around.

However… part of what I’d really like to support her in this Summer is learning her sight words. Apparently, there are certain words her teachers will expect her to know just by looking at them, without sounding them out. Fair enough… as long as they’re going to teach her how to sound the rest of them out. 🙂

To that end I’ve been trying to find some fun sight words games to play with her. We’ve found some sight words word searches ~ which Hanna is VERY good at (and amazes me at how good she is at them).

Since Memory is one of her VERY favorite games I took one of the lists and created a spreadsheet of the words. I printed out the spreadsheet twice (on heavy card stock. Laminating it would have been even better) and then cut out the squares with the words in them. (so now there is 2 sets of the words) There are flashcards that are much bigger if you want a bigger version of this game.

We spread all the words out on the ground (face down) and then played memory. We would sound out each word we turned over, and then if there was a match we’d keep them, if not, turn them back over.

The list I did had 40 words on it. This was a LITTLE long… but she stuck with it and we had a blast. By the end of the game she was no longer sounding out Red ~ but was just saying “red” every time she turned it over. This wasn’t like learning at all… this was us playing her favorite game, and she is learning her sight words.

There are also tons of sight words bingo games out there. This is really fun. You could use the list and pull one word at a time out of a bowl ~ to play the bingo game.

I just found an online  sight words matching game. This is very cool. Hanna loves these kind of computer games. (thankfully she’s getting a new monitor for her birthday so she can get back to it!) Starfall also has an online version of this sight words game.

There are tons of fun ways to help kids learn their sight words. I have seen plenty of “flash cards” but really… who wants to sit there and go through flash cards? I remember when I was younger, my mom used to chase me around the house with multiplication table flash cards. I hated it then, and still remember how much… creating that kind of feeling around words, and reading is no way to create a love of reading in your kiddo.

There’s always a way to make a game out of learning, and make it fun.

If you’ve got other sight word games you like to play please feel free to share in the comments. I’m always looking for more resources!