Kindergarten sight words are words that a child learns to recognize in their whole forms rather than sounding them out. These words appear frequently in texts or are difficult to decode. Some reading programs emphasize sight words more than others.
The Good and the Beautiful kindergarten sight words are taught throughout our Level K Language Arts Reading Booster A program, which can be used separately from the course.
This post shares common kindergarten sight word lists, as well as flashcards and posters, and weighs the pros and cons of focusing on sight-word memorization versus teaching phonics.
The Good and the Beautiful Kindergarten Sight Word List
The Good and the Beautiful Kindergarten Sight Words list is a select number of targeted words for early readers most helpful to children in kindergarten level.
Download a free The Good and the Beautiful Kindergarten Sight Words poster and flashcards plus activities!
Learn more about our award-winning kindergarten language arts homeschool curriculum!
Other Helpful Sight Word Lists
Dolch Sight Words List
Perhaps the most common lists of words contain Dolch sight words, which are a set of 220 sight words first developed in the 1930s and grouped by grade level.
Fry Sight Words List
First created by Dr. Edward Fry in the 1950s and updated in 1980, this list includes the most frequently used words in reading materials for children.
*Both the Dolch and Fry lists of sight words are commonly used and contain many words that can be spelled phonetically. The Good and the Beautiful does not recommend using these lists as sight words lists because many of the words should be decoded at this age rather than memorized.
Should Children Memorize Sight Words?
| Pros of Memorizing Sight Words | If the child memorizes the most frequently used words in texts and doesn’t have to take time to stop and decode the words, then he or she can read more quickly and pleasantly. |
| Cons of Memorizing Sight Words | Most of the Dolch and Fry kindergarten sight words can be decoded easily. Children have only a certain amount of time to learn each day. Memorizing words can be just as hard and take just as long as learning to decode the words. Time spent memorizing high-frequency words can instead be applied to a good phonics program that teaches children how to decode and read those words, as well as many others. |
| The Good and the Beautiful Philosophy on Kindergarten Sight Words | The Good and the Beautiful, one of the most widely used homeschool curriculum programs, focuses on phonics while also having kindergarteners memorize a short list of the highest-frequency words and words that can’t be decoded easily. This method has proven successful with tens of thousands of children using The Good and The Beautiful Language Arts Courses. |
A little bit of practice each day goes a long way—consistency is the key. Practice sight words daily if possible, but don’t introduce too many at once. Younger children do best with four to eight sight words at a time.
Teaching sight words can be easy and fun with the simple practice ideas found in our free activity download.
Find these games and more in this free sight-words activity packet. Click the button below to download.
Check out these fun kindergarten resources!
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