How to Teach Sight Words

The topic of “sight words” comes up frequently, and many programs define sight words in different ways. A frequent question we hear is, “Does All About Spelling teach sight words, and how does it handle them?”

 All About Spelling does teach some sight words; however, the program does not teach unnecessary sight words. For example, some early reading programs will teach words like go or me as sight words. These words both follow predictable patterns—in this case they are “open syllables”—that students can easily learn to sound out. When a student understands a pattern like an open syllable, he can read and spell many words.

In reality, there are very few words that don’t follow any phonics rules and that must be learned by sight. The word said is one example. Normally, ai stands for the long a sound as in rain. All About Spelling calls words like said “Rule Breakers,” and they get put in “jail,” a part of the program that most children enjoy! To help students remember unusual patterns found in Rule Breakers, they circle the letter or letters that don’t do what’s expected and then highlight the letters in yellow. The words are then practiced with tiles, in writing, in dictation, and in the daily spelling review to further cement the spelling in the student's mind.

All About Spelling includes all of the words from the Dolch Sight Words list. Most of these are actually NOT sight words because they follow standard patterns in our language. All About Spelling teaches the spelling patterns incrementally.

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