100+ Best Sight Word Activities: Games, Printables & Hands-On Fun

Inside: A big list of engaging sight word activities – includes games, printables and plenty of hands-on fun.

Some children take to reading like fish to water, for others it is a slower process with many moving parts to master. One of these important moving parts is learning to identify sight words at a glance, or on ‘first sight.’

sight words activities

How important are sight words?
You may be wondering, what are sight words and how important are they? Sight words are words that fluent readers can identify ‘on sight.’ They are words that appear frequently in written text and are often irregularly spelled and therefore difficult for early or beginning readers to sound out phonetically. For example, consider the word ‘was.’ An attempt to sound it out – w-a-s – would more likely sound like a word that rhymes with gas.

Sight words are important as being able to automatically recall a word assist children to read more fluently, and fluency assists children to understand, or comprehend, the text they are reading. Children who have to stop frequently as they struggle to recall, or to phonetically decode, a word are more likely to lose track of the meaning of what they have already read as they focus on the individual word that they are struggling with.

How do I teach my child sight words?
Typically, when children begin to learn to identify sight words they start with small subsets or lists of 5-10 new words at a time, moving on to a new set of words once each previous set is mastered. In order for these words to be recalled automatically, children need to be exposed to them frequently and have multiple opportunities to read and write the words. The trick to getting your child to want to practice their sight words is by making it fun and appealing.

How do you learn sight words in a fun way?
Game playing and hands-on sight word learning activities, like those listed below, are super engaging for children, making sight word learning much more fun than learning by simply reciting the word from flashcards or a paper based list – simply use the words that a child is currently learning with the activity. These activities are suitable for children who are learning sight words in kindergarten and first through to third grades.

Fun Ways to Learn Sight Words

100+ Sight Word Activities

Hands-On Playful Sight Word Revision Ideas

50 Playful Sight Words Activity Ideas «« Hands-on ways to play and learn sight words

50 Fun Sight Word Activities for Kindergarten «« 50 more hands-on learning ideas

Get Reading on a Sight Word Reading Treasure Hunt

Sight Word Chatterboxes for Fun Word Play «« Printable

Sight Word Secret Spy Find & Write «« Printable

Sight Words Sensory Bag

Sight Word Hunt

Make Sight Words with Alphabet Rocks

Stamp & Spell Playdough Sight Words

Games to Play With Sight Words

Sight Word Games «« Printable sight word games pack

Speed Racer Sight Word Game

How to Play Bam! Sight Word Learning Game

Silly Sentences Reading Game

4 Comments

  1. I am so thrilled to be writing over on the amazing Childhood 101! Thanks so much for having me Christie and have a lovely break!

  2. When I taught I used to do a chart a day with the children. I would write what we were going to do that day and use the same words over and over again. I had a couple of children who actually were reading the charts themselves by the end of the year.

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