The learning has been continuing at the Village within our Remedial Teaching Project and here is a clip of three of the children, Lee, Zinhle and Kwazi playing a game to practise their sight words.
Sight words or high frequency words, are critical for emergent and beginning readers as ‘50% of all reading texts are made up of the same 100 words’ www.K12reader.com. If a reader is familiar with these words and can recognise them quickly, fluency in reading can occur more readily. Learning these and becoming familiar with these words is crucial and can subsequently assist with identifying other words in a text. Knowing sight words can also promote confidence, comprehension and context for the reader; skills necessary for creating great readers.
On top of this, many sight words do not follow the basic phonics principles and are difficult to sound out. Pictures also do not give clues to help identify these words. Repetition is the key to learning these and there are many ways to do so. Flashcards, memory, find-a-words and many other games can be used. There are many resources and ideas available on the net. Constant reviewing (daily) of these words is vital for optimal retention to occur.
Here the children aged from five to seven years old, are playing a game to help remember these words easily. They are assisted by Charlotte a volunteer at the Village.