How To Teach Sight Words To Struggling Readers

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Regular vs Irregular Words

One common question we get from parents is how to teach sight words to struggling readers. Sight words can be a struggle for students because many of them do not follow the rules. The English language follows a set of phonics rules that apply to 87% of the words we read. They make reading predictable and allow children to apply rules to decode words in an expected way. The other 13% of words are irregular and do not follow these rules. 

Sight words are often part of the irregular percentage and require frequent exposure to embed them into orthographic memory. Every child is different and benefits from personalized teaching methods. Below are two different methods to try and are easy to execute at home.

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How To Teach Sight Words To Struggling Learners

Words Origins

Sight words are typically taught by rote memorization. Children are given a list of sight words and asked to practice them repeatedly in hopes that they’ll learn them. Students with learning differences like dyslexia struggle with rote memory. It is difficult for them to memorize information simply by repeating it. They need to understand the why behind the information and that it’s not just arbitrary. 

Consider looking up the word origin together if your child needs a new way to learn sight words. The English language is layered and can be complex. The way we say some words has changed from the Middle Ages when people spoke Old English. Unfortunately, their spellings did not always change when the pronunciation did. We have also borrowed words from other languages along with their spellings. 

Looking up word origin can help your child understand why certain words are spelled or pronounced in unexpected ways. It gives the brain a “why” and becomes more than just letters to remember.

Some examples of word origins are below:

  1. According to Etymonlione.com, the word “laughter” is an Old English word. The gh used to be pronounced but eventually, it changed to being pronounced as an f sound. Although the pronunciation changed, the spelling never did.
  2. Words that include the letters ph pronounced as (f) or ch pronounced as (k) are borrowed from the Greeks. For instance, the words phobia, graph, chemical, and chronic are all words that have Greek origins. 
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Analyzing Word Parts

In this method, students get a better understanding of words by analyzing letter patterns. The goal is to break down words into parts and find the irregularities. This method contributes to orthographic memory and enforces the letter patterns that do follow the rules. 

Analyzing Procedure:

  1. Pick an irregular word to analyze. For this example, we will use the word said.
  2. Write the word on a piece of paper or board.
  3. Analyze the word. Identify the letter combinations that you already know. In this example, you would underline the letters ai and enforce that they make long a sound. 
  4. Read the word according to the regular reading pronunciation. For instance, the word said should actually be read as sade. Students discover it does not follow the rules.
  5. Write the word again in another column then, write the word the way it’s pronounced in parentheses. For instance, the word said is pronounced sed.
  6. The students compare the pronunciations and identify which letters are irregular.
  7. Make a flash card. Write the sight word on an index card the way it is spelled on the front. Write the way it is pronounced (sed) on the back of the card.
  8. Ask your child to read the word 5 times. They can look at the word and then flip it over to read the pronunciation.
  9. Add this card to a deck of irregular words that you keep to review.

It is important to become a word detective when thinking about how to teach sight words to struggling readers. Will you be trying these methods at home? Let us know in the comments or reach out via our connect page!