Basic sight words for preschoolers

Examples of Sight Words for Preschool

Do you want your preschool child to become a fluent reader by just looking at words? Yes, kids can learn to read without reading each letter or phenomes. Instead, children can recognize and memorize some words by sight. These words are called sight words. In this article, you will learn what these are, some examples of sight words for preschool children, and how to teach them to your preschooler.

What are sight words?

When children start learning to read and write, they are taught by reading out each sound. However, not all words follow the six types of syllables or spelling rules. These words are called sight words. 

Sight words are composed of “service” words or adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, and verbs. They are hard to decode using phonetics. So children are taught to recognize the letters and memorize them as a whole word by sight quickly, about three seconds, instead of reading every phoneme.

Sight words account for 75% of children’s reading materials. But don’t confuse these words as high-frequency words, as not all high-frequency words are sight words. 

Knowing more sight words makes children read faster since they are not read but rather memorized. 

Examples of Sight Words for Pre-K

You can find many examples of sight words for preschool children in many sources. However, the most popular sources are the Dolch Sight Words list. This list is named after Dr. Edward William Dolch. He first developed his list of sight words after studying the words that mainly occur in children’s books in the 1930s to 1940s. Below you can find 40 examples of sight words for pre k from Dolch list:

a, and, away, big, blue, can, come, down, find, for, funny, go, help, here, I, in, is, it, jump, little, look, make, me, my, not, one, play, red, run, said, see, the, three, to, two, up, we, where, yellow, you

5 Tricks to Teach Sight Words to Preschoolers

Teaching preschoolers to recognize and memorize a sight word can be challenging at first. After all, they don’t know much about letters and phonetics yet. However, these tricks below make learning sight words easier for preschoolers. 

The word I, which only comes with one letter, is the easiest sight word a preschooler will learn. Build up from this word and then move on to sight words with more letters. It’s easier to teach these sight words because only a few letters will complicate the sound of the words. 

Dr. Edward Dolch came up with the idea of listing down sight words after finding out that the majority of words found in children’s books are repetitive. Using your kid’s favorite children’s book will encourage them to learn. You will expose them to many different sight words they can memorize. Since it is their favorite, they might have remembered the words from this book, even without looking at the letters that make up the words. Therefore, they only need to recognize the words instead of learning the sounds.  

Children learn well when they are having fun. For example, you can teach sight words through a game or attractive visual aids such as our language learning flashcards. Here are some games you can try to make learning sight words fun for preschoolers:

This game is not just great for learning sight words but also for sensory play. To do this game:

1. Spread shaving cream onto a tray. 
2. Write a sight word in the saving cream and teach the preschooler this word. 
3. Let the child erase the word with his hands and then spread more shaving cream and write the same word again until he can recognize the word by a glance.

Another fun activity for learning sight words is Sight Word Bingo. To do this:

1. Prepare bingo cards with sight words introduced to preschoolers and a box with the exact sight words written on paper.  
2. Give each child a bingo card and a pen.
3. Take out one sight word from the box and read it out loud. When the children find the same sight word from their bingo card, have them mark it using their pen. When they have covered sight words in a diagonal, vertical, or horizontal row, they should shout Sight Word Bingo.

Reading and language learning can accelerate when preschoolers have lots of sight words in their arsenal. This can help them focus more on comprehending each word instead of how it sounds. 

References:

Dolch Sight Words List | Sight Words: Teach Your Child to Read

What Are Sight Words? Get the Definition Plus Teaching Resources (weareteachers.com)

A New Model for Teaching High-Frequency Words | Reading Rockets

Dolch Word List

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© Contributed by Leanne Guenther

From 50-75% of all words used in school books, library books, newspapers, and magazines are in the Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary of 220 words (preschool thru Grade 3).   The Dolch word list is made up of "service words" (pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and verbs) which cannot be learned through the use of pictures.

In this section I've included a series of flashcards that can be printed and used to reinforce learning, the complete list of preschool words (see table) and some activity ideas for using the flashcards.

Set 1

Set 2

Set 3

Set 3 in color

Nouns 1

Nouns 2

Nouns 1 in color

Nouns 2 in color

Bingo Cards

Complete Preschool List

Ideas for Using the Flashcards:

The flashcards can simply be held up, giving the child the opportunity to read each one.   But if you're looking for a more engaging activity, try combining the Dolch flashcards with the noun picture flashcards for a variety of activities (I've listed some suggestions here from simplest to hardest)

• ACTIVITY ONE:

     

  • have an adult arrange the flashcards to form a sentence. 
  • Read the sentence with/to the child
  • Remove one of the dolch words from the sentence and put it back in the pile (you may want to make the pile smaller in the beginning to make the activity easier). 
  • Give the pile to the child and have them find the correct card to place back in the sentence.
  • Re-read the sentence.
• ACTIVITY TWO:

        

  • have an adult arrange the flashcards to form a sentence, leaving one card out.
  • read the incomplete sentence with/to the child.
  • present between 2 and 5 cards to the child (one of them should make the sentence complete)
  • have the child chose which is the correct card
  • re-read the sentence with the card chosen.   Talk about whether it makes sense or not.
• ACTIVITY THREE:
  • provide the child with all or part of the pile of flashcards
  • allow them to create their own sentences using the cards
  • read the sentences with them and talk about what they've created.
  • OPTIONAL:  Have them glue their completed sentence to the bottom of a piece of construction paper and draw a picture of their sentence on the top.  (author/illustrator of their own story).

My first words: English words for children

How to raise a polyglot child? The answer is simple: start learning languages ​​with him as early as possible. Basic English will be an excellent foundation for the future knowledge of the baby and will help develop learning skills, because the brain of children at an early age absorbs an almost endless amount of information like a sponge. The main thing is to present it correctly.

In this article you will find not only simple first English words for children, but also recommendations for learning them. Open to your kid the fascinating world of English!

Opinions of experts and parents themselves about the age at which it is worth starting to learn English with a child differ. Of course, you can start singing lullabies to your baby in English even from infancy, but your strength will be almost wasted.

Most agree that the most optimal age from which the average child begins to adequately learn English as a foreign language is 2.5-3 years. It is believed that at this age the process of formation of native speech is already ending. That is, the child must be able to clearly pronounce Russian sounds and words, as well as build sentences and have a coherent speech.

The exceptions here are when the child grows up in a multicultural environment. For example, if the mother is Russian and the father is English, then it is possible to communicate with the child in two languages ​​from the very beginning. True, then your child will be funny to form sentences, and questions like: “Mom, can I have an apple” will constantly sound in the house.

This approach is good when the family lives abroad, where the main language is a foreign one. As the child gets older and starts attending kindergarten, the child will understand the difference between the languages ​​of his parents and begin to use the words in the correct context. This applies, by the way, not only to English, but also to any foreign language.

If you want your child to speak only English from the very beginning, you can create an artificial multicultural environment. For example, at home talking with the baby only in a foreign language.

Is it possible to send a child to a language nursery or kindergarten with an English focus? Then do it without any hesitation. So the multicultural environment will be natural for the child: in the nursery they will communicate with him mainly in English, and at home you will be able to talk with the baby in Russian. In specialized language kindergartens, teachers will help your child learn English in a natural environment, and at home you can consolidate knowledge with him through various games and riddles.

If it is not possible to send your child to a language kindergarten, start learning English at home using the same methods that you used to learn your native language with him.

At a young age, of course, we are not talking about grammar or writing English words. To begin with, the child needs to learn how to pronounce sounds correctly, remember letters and form a basic vocabulary. By the way, it will be much easier for a kid than for an adult to remember the correct pronunciation of English sounds, which are so different from Russian ones. They will not have to rebuild their articulation apparatus as much as we, adults, who have been speaking their native language for many years.

Here is a list of skills to develop in a preschooler first:

- listening to speech
- speaking
- reading

To make learning English not a burden for a child, add an element of play to the learning process.

Get a colorful glove doll and make it a kind of "teacher" for your child. Introduce your baby to a new toy and say that it only understands English, which means that in order to play with it, the child needs to learn an interesting new language. So this toy will become the main intermediary between you and your child in learning English.

First of all, learn the alphabet and the correct pronunciation of letters and basic sounds with your child. Make it better with the help of the popular ABC Song. This is how the English alphabet is taught all over the world, not only by foreigners, but also by native speakers themselves.

Next - form basic English for children: words and simple phrases. For example, make cards for basic words that the child already knows in their native language. These can be household items, animals, body parts, etc. It is better that the cards are bright, with the spelling of a word and a picture symbolizing a particular subject. You can stick these cards on household items so that the child constantly sees the names of objects in English and memorizes them automatically.

Incorporate English words into your regular vocabulary when communicating with your child. In the context of what is happening around the baby, it will be much easier to understand and learn the language. Playing at home or being outside, use the phrases and words you have already learned. If a child tells you: “Mom, look, a kitty!” Then answer: “Yes, it’s true, it’s a cat. How would it be in English? A cat. This is a cat.

By the way, it's better to start learning not just individual words, but whole phrases at once, as in the example above. That is, to acquaint with the very, very basic grammar. After all, if you tell your child only words, he will only know the translation, and if you start using whole sentences, then he will memorize in sentences.

Visualization and variety are important for learning English with a child. Children may enjoy books in English with colorful pictures that can be read together at bedtime instead of the usual Russian fairy tales. Also, do not forget about special educational cartoons in English, where bright characters tell the child about the basics of the language or teach him the alphabet.

Play fun, educational games with your little one so they don't get bored while learning English. It can be cards, pantomimes, drawings and much more.

The first English words for children to start learning the language with are those that surround the child every day. Below you will find a list of such words by topic.

Family [ˈfæmɪli] - family

Mother [ˈmʌðə] - mother
Father [ˈfɑːðə] - father
Brother [ˈbrʌðə] - brother
Sister [ˈsɪstə] - sister
Grandmother [ˈgrænˌmʌðə] - grandmother
Grandfather [ˈgrændˌfɑːðə] - grandfather

Body [ ˈbɒdi ]