Sight Word Lists Activities

Last week I wrote about some beginner phonic activities that I have been playing with our 5 year old. As I mentioned there, the school that Possum attends uses a combination of phonic and whole of language approach to approach to literacy. (If you are not familiar with these terms Succeed To Read gives a succinct explanation of both.)

A key part of the whole of language approach is the use of sight words a list of the most frequently used words in the English language. This is not a new concept and similar lists are known as Dolch Word List. K – 3 Teacher Resources has two PDFs for free down load:

  • Fry’s list of 300 ‘instant sight words’
  • Dolch Sight Word List – 220 words – there are 5 levels ranging from approximately kindergarten to Grade 3.

The idea is that children learn these words by sight which helps them to maintain speed and fluency, so as to have greater comprehension of what they read.

Learning Sight Words

Magic 100  Words or Sight Words Activities


I have never been a massive fan of rote learning and with these style of sheets it is very easy for the kids to memorise the words as they are located on the sheets. The problem then being that they have no relevance beyond that A4 piece of paper.

To make this exercise more meaningful I have stuck the words onto cardboard and cut out individual cards for each word. I actually made these up a number of these for each colour word sheet when my 10 year old needed to learn them. They are now being used by our third child – hope they make through the next two as well 🙂 .

We use these cards in a variety of ways to help Possum learn the words by sight:

  • Bingo – Select a word from the bag, say it and then match it up to the sheet, until all the words are covered.
  • Memory – Have two of each word, turn them face down on the floor and each player has to find a matching pair of words.
  • Writing Practice – Select a card, say it and write her own list.
  • Sentences – As illustrated above, use the word cards, combined with toys and household objects to make sentences to read.

If you have used these types of word lists before, I would be interested to hear what activities you also did with your children.

Do you want some free tools to help you organise the chaos of family life?

The Planning With Kids Newsletter is called NOW with Nicole Avery. It is an upbeat weekly newsletter that aims to help you organise the chaos of family life and find simple ways to enjoy it more.

My philosophy is to organise the known and repetitive tasks of family life so you create a solid foundation that allows you to manage the more unpredictable and challenging elements.

You can sign up for the free newsletter in the sign-up box below! To say thank you for signing up for the newsletter I have created a simple but super useful guide for you to help you organise the chaos of family life. The free download helps simplify some of the repetitive and time-consuming tasks that occur as part of daily family life. Guide ✼ Plan ✼ Check ✓ contains 10 separate printable tools that you will be able to use over and over again.

Sign up and organise the chaos of family life!