I love teaching letters and words to my little kids. It gives me immense joy when they start reading. It starts with letters , then words and finally sentences. It is a wonderful process and a great high for a teacher when she sees her students actually reading books. In fact in school, my English teachers were always my favorite teachers. They really inspired me to read and do well in the subject. Another person who is responsible for inculcating in me a love for the language , is my dad. He used to take me to a book store every Sunday to buy story books. I used to love the Famous Five and Goosebumps series. He has a stupendous vocabulary and reads at least one book in a week. Well i haven't been able to match up to him, but reading forms a significant part of my life. Books make me happy and i love collecting books for my little ones. Story time is my favorite time in the class. It is the only time in the class when there is utmost silence and no wiggles :), the stories do their magic!
In Kindergarten, we start the year by reading letters and their sounds and then move on to CVC words.
My school follows the whole reading and phonetic approach to teach language , therefore, i introduce sight words right from the beginning. Since sight words have to be memorized as a whole word by sight it can be a bit daunting for the little ones. I introduce the concept by bringing in a magic hen who lays magic eggs( High frequency words). Children say a chant so the magic hen can give a word. We search inside the plastic eggs and find the word.
Then children sing a song to the tune of Bingo:
There was a sight word for the day and 'the' was the sight word
T-H-E, T-H-E, T-H-E
and The was the sight word.
Each child gets the egg with the sight word printed on it. They then color it and take it home to create their own word wall.
Some of our favorite games to recapitulate sight words are the 'snow ball' game and 'hit the bug' game.
In the snow ball game , words are written on white paper. Children crumble them up and have a snow fight. Whenever i say freeze, they stop and read the word closest to them.
In 'hit the bug' game, words are written on a chart and children use a swatter to hit the word that is called out.
In Kindergarten, we start the year by reading letters and their sounds and then move on to CVC words.
My school follows the whole reading and phonetic approach to teach language , therefore, i introduce sight words right from the beginning. Since sight words have to be memorized as a whole word by sight it can be a bit daunting for the little ones. I introduce the concept by bringing in a magic hen who lays magic eggs( High frequency words). Children say a chant so the magic hen can give a word. We search inside the plastic eggs and find the word.
Then children sing a song to the tune of Bingo:
There was a sight word for the day and 'the' was the sight word
T-H-E, T-H-E, T-H-E
and The was the sight word.
Each child gets the egg with the sight word printed on it. They then color it and take it home to create their own word wall.
I found a fantastic idea on Pinterest to have a password for the day. It is printed near my class door and i change the word everyday. Whenever children go out for a special, they have to tell the password before exiting.
We also use sight word wands while reading books.
Some of our favorite games to recapitulate sight words are the 'snow ball' game and 'hit the bug' game.
In the snow ball game , words are written on white paper. Children crumble them up and have a snow fight. Whenever i say freeze, they stop and read the word closest to them.
In 'hit the bug' game, words are written on a chart and children use a swatter to hit the word that is called out.
I printed sight word charts from Pinterest. I am unable to find its original source.Once i do i will definitely update. Children read the words during center time.
I also took an idea from Dr jean's sight to make a sight word album . Children use the sight word wands to read words from the album.
This is my sight word wall. The words are from www.mrsburgen.blogspot.com
My kids enjoy all these activities and learning happens without any stress.
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