Today I want to share with you the way that I have been teaching Sight Words in Kindergarten for the past few years.
So far in my teaching career I have worked with two different reading programs - Open Court and Journey's Common Core. Both of these programs only require Kindergartners to learn about 40 words by the end of the year which I quickly realized is not enough to help them become fluent readers! So, I took the Journey's word list and combined it with some of the star words that our First Grade teacher uses and created my own sight word curriculum for the year.
By the end of the year I expect students to be able to read 95 words by sight (no sounding out, no guessing, they just have to have them memorized). You may be thinking that this is too much for such little learners, but trust me it is not! My kids get so excited each time they pass a color set that they beg their parents to practice with them and they speed right through the words. This year more than half of my class had the entire word list memorized by February and they have all started working on the first few sets of words that our First Grade teacher uses. (Three of my boys had them done by Christmas and are reading at a second grade level now!!!!)
Of course, there are a few students who still have a set or two to work on and I tell them and their parents that that is OK - everyone learns at a different pace, and as long as they have the rainbow done by the end of the year they will have mastered all of the Kindergarten words and the first few sets of First Grade words. Plus they have all summer to review :)
At back to school night I explain this whole thing to parents and give them the first set of words to start working on and a letter that explains how to get started.
A few weeks later I start the first round of testing and anyone who passes takes home their orange set of words and gets to color in the red line of their rainbow that I display in the classroom.
From then on I do scheduled testing once a month and they don't just test on their new set - they have to be able to read all of the sets that they already passed and the new one. I keep track on a progress monitoring sheet that I keep in my reading binder, and if they miss any old words I send home a note that looks like this:
When they pass all of their rainbow words I make a huge deal out of it because, well, it is a big deal! (And it doesn't hurt that the other kids get jealous and want to do the same!) I got permission from my principal to give them a free dress day, they get their face on a rainbow up on my sight word superstar board, and I give them the first page of First Grade words to get started on.
If you like what you see and want to try out my Rainbow Sight Words in your classroom then head on over to my TPT store and pick up your own copy by clicking on the picture below!
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