Today I want to share one of my favorite classroom resources with you. Sight Word Fluency Readers are so much fun and so helpful in teaching sight words in context.

I’m sure we’ve all had the experience where we teach our students a couple of words in isolation and we even assess them and everything seems great. We are convinced they know the words. The following week, you begin to read these same words  and you notice they are not recalling the sight words. These Sight Word Fluency Readers allow  students to see a single word repeated over and over in the same poem or story, helping them to recall and retain the target word. In addition,  these short little stories help them to acquire new vocabulary.

Using these short passages filled with cvc words, previous sight words taught along with the new focus words will transform your sight word reading game. Many of the stories also include rhyming patterns and are so easy to use with ELL students. I have had so many teachers comment on how helpful these stories have been with their English Language Learners.

Initially I used  chart paper  to create short sight word stories. I was happy  to have this set that I could pull a story from really quickly. This way I could project them on the smart board for our shared reading and also have the printable forms for small group reading. Even post them on our reading wall.

Students were able to highlight, read again as much as they needed and I could really see that they were getting the hang of it all. It made sense to have something I could send home for them to continue reading in context and also some help during center time.

Each sight word passage targets one word.  Even though these passages are for focused reading, students still get to highlight, circle, cover or  underline the target word. I was able to place four stories per sheet,  making the readers smaller and easier to store in these small little cases. During our 15 minutes of silent reading, it is easy to pop out their little case, pick a sight word story  to read, review and color. You can quickly have them read the story and mark any errors, mark speed and accuracy, put your star and send home. So many ways to use Sight Word Fluency Readers.

These are absolutely amazing to send home for nightly reading homework.

A fun idea for intentionally learning sight words in context is to have students  make a sight word scrapbook where they can collect the poems they fluently read . This will take some effort to put together but can be so much fun and will be well worth the effort.

1. Print the sight word readers 4 to a page. 2. Store the first 5,  10 or 20 somewhere until you are ready for them. When a student has mastered  a word and can fluently read the small poem, they can place it in their journal pocket or paste it in their scrapbook…

or place on their reading ring.

We’ve even used our little readers at our writing station. This writing center just focused on penmanship and having students construct their own sentences  with the target word.

A lot of erasing went on at this station for our perfectionists. For our kids in first grade, we encourage them to write in two line spaces but  for some kids it easier to write the way they prefer so we continue to practice at our station.  After,  I would have them read back to me and check off their writing journals. We did this mainly at the end of the day right before our GoNoodle and dismissal .

 

I’ve gotten so much positive response from teachers who have used Sight Word Fluency Readers and I’m happy to have something so simple for targeted sight word practice.Please note that the Fry 100 readers are ink friendly. The set only includes black and white readers.

The Dolch set  includes black and white as well as colorful master copies.

DOLCH SET

If you have used Sight Word Fluency Readers in your classroom, feel free to jot me a note or send me a pic on how you have used them. Don’t forget to pick up the free sight word tracker to use with these words. Read Easy Sight Word Activities to see more of how these trackers are used.