During the past few months, I added Dolch sight words flashcards on the lists from pre-primer (preschool) through third grade. If your child is already comfortable with all of those words, there is no doubt that he is comfortably and confidently reading many “beginning reader” books. This is an exciting milestone - I know first-hand how satisfying it is to see the look of pride and accomplishment on a child’s face as he learns to read and gains confidence in his abilities.
The only remaining Dolch sight words are on a list of 95 nouns which children come across frequently as they read increasingly challenging material. To continue to nurture your child’s reading ability and confidence, I am (of course!) adding Dolch noun sight words flashcards to the website. This week I will add the first half of the list and next week I will add the remaining half of the list.
I can hear you wondering how you will help your child learn 95 new words - it seems like a lot. But if your child has already mastered the 220 words on the pre-primer through third grade lists, then he is familiar with the process of learning new sight words and should be able to learn these new words relatively quickly.
Also, when you look through the entire list of nouns you will notice that some of the words are actually not very challenging at all and may be words your child already knows. For example, words like bed, bell, cat, dog, egg, hill, man, men, leg, pig, sun, and top can be easily decoded or sounded out by many beginning readers. And some words, while more challenging, (such as cake, coat, corn, day, farm, feet, fire, fish, game, hand, home, name, nest, rain, ring, seed, snow, song, stick, street, thing, time, tree, and way) still follow basic phonics rules and can also be sounded out.
I suggest that you begin introducing the words on the Dolch noun list by identifying the words that your child can already read with ease. Cut the flashcards apart and in small doses (or until he seems to be getting tired), show your child the flashcards. Those that he reads easily can be put in the “Words I Know” pile. Be sure to let your child count the cards to see how many words he knows on sight. Then begin introducing the unknown sight words words as you did with the other sight words.
Activities to reinforce the Dolch Nouns Sight Words
Show your child some sight words that name objects in your home, such as ball, bed, chair or table, to name a few. Give him the flashcards and some tape and ask him to label the items.
Direct your child to write 5 - 10 sight words on a piece of construction paper, or write the words he chooses for him in bold, clear letters. Then ask him to search through magazines to find the corresponding pictures and cut and paste those pictures next to the appropriate word.
Carefully select a group of sight words that relate to each other, such as mother, father, boy, girl, baby (family members) or chair, table, house, home, window (things relating to a house), for example. Then add a few additional words that do not belong. Ask your child to read the flashcards and group together those that have something in common.
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