10 Words Your Child Should Know To Start Reading

Does your child bring home a list of words to learn each week? They have many names: sight words, spelling words, jail words, and high-frequency words. They all mean the same thing: words that often appear in books. Practicing these bad boys may feel unnecessary, but mastering sight words will greatly impact your child’s early reading. They are called high-frequency for a reason, they show up often. If your beginning reader can master these words by sight, they will be able to read emergent books more successfully.

If you're like me and love some statistics, then I have them for your right here. Some words are used more frequently than others in writting, so if your child is just starting, let's focus on the 10 words that will have the highest impact on their learning.

Here are the top 10 most frequently used words in the English language:

the

of

and

a

to

in

is

you

that

it

If your child knows these 10 words, they will have a head start when they walk into the classroom. The focus here is confidence and building background knowledge.

Need ideas for how to practice? Make learning into a game using this list of ways to spice things up.

Ransom words – Cut the words out of old magazines and spell them

Playdoh words – Write words out of playdoh

Delicious (and messy!) Words – Write your words in pudding, or using letter pretzels

Racing Write – Put 1 minute on a timer and have your child write one sight word as many times as they can in 1 minute.

Cheer Words – Pretend you are a cheerleader and cheer each letter to spell a word (or karate chop, chicken wings, whisper cheer, deep voice cheer, baseball swing, etc.)

Other Handed – if you are right handed, write the words with your left hand or vice-versa

Silly String – Using a piece of string or yarn, write the words in cursive using the string

Back Writing – Spell the words on your partner’s back and have them guess what letters you write

Flashlight Writing – Turn off the lights and write the words in the air with a flashlight

The number one thing is for your child to know these words by sight. If they need to look at the word to copy it while they are starting to learn, let them. Once the word is committed to long term memory, your child should have an easier time remembering how to spell these words as well.

Note: If you are writing flashcards, it is recommended that the words are written all in lowercase letters. It is the way the words will show up most frequently in books. If you have other fun ways to learn sight words at home, add them to the comments below!