First Sight Words

Sight words are the ones you cannot sound out — the, said, was, one — and these forty make up roughly half the words on a page of early reading. Four words to a page: the word to trace on real guidelines, a find-it row where it sits beside the words it actually gets confused with (come / some / came), and a line to write it on your own. Then forty cards to cut out for memory games and ten-second tests, and a progress chart with a circle to colour for every word your child reads without stopping to think. Then play the flashlight word hunt: a grown-up hides five word cards in a dim room, your child finds each one with a flashlight and reads it out loud, and writes the words found on a star list. Draw an open book and a flashlight in four easy steps, join the dots to find the letter A, finish the other half of a lamp, spot the difference, sort animals from not-animals and find the way through three mazes.