Sight word learning occurs in most early elementary classrooms. Some kindergarten students face the prospect of learning up to 100 sight words, and many teachers feel pressure to ensure that students know lists of words by the year's end. The authors offer five assertions about sight word learning to direct teachers and administrators toward the…

The purpose of this article is to rethink how sight words are categorized in early childhood classrooms. Three categories of words (regularly spelled, temporarily irregularly spelled, and permanently irregularly spelled) are presented as a way to think about the orthographic representations of words and how these representations interact with…

The quick adoption of iPads into the classroom, coupled with the many apps targeting early literacy skills, offers a new way to build early literacy skills with emergent and beginning readers. However, young children may be more proficient with the technology than with the literacy concepts, and may not be maximizing learning, or even learning at…

Research suggests that parent involvement improves academic achievement, but in the busy world in which we live it is often difficult to promote. Many researchers suggest that successful programs value parents' limited time constraints, diversity of literacy skills, and availability of materials. The Great Poetry Race provides an easy vehicle to…

Several decades of research have established the critical role of phonemic awareness in the development of beginning reading. In particular, phonemic awareness makes early phonics instruction useful for children and facilitates their ability to blend letter sounds while decoding words, to learn sight words reliably, and to spell phonetically. A…

Contains definitions, approaches, and guidelines for using sight vocabulary. (Author/RB)

Reviews the literature in the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) on whole word lists. (RB)

Over three quarters of the Dolch basic words may be taught by a word family approach. (MKM)

Surveys how children develop their powers of word identification, and questions common assumptions about the utility of sight words. (TO)

Demonstrates that intensive direct instruction followed by practice can help slower students learn sight vocabulary. (FL)

Describes how, by systematically creating new words from known ones, remedial readers can improve their word attack skills. (DD)