Captain Word Whiz {Sight Words}

Hi there…Whitney here from The Crazy Schoolteacher.  Lets talk about sight words.  Lets face it, sight word instruction can be very boring but is crucial for our kiddos. I’ve tried a million ways to “spice up” sight word instruction and there hasn’t been anything that I felt truly motivated my students, until Captain Word Whiz.

Here is how it works...Each one of my kiddos starts with the first list.  I have all of the lists organized in my filing cabinet next to my desk.  Keeping everything organized is the key to success!

When your students practice their sight words all depends on what works best in your classroom.  I give my kiddos the opportunity to practice their list during the daily 5 rotation word work.  They also take the list home each night in their binder to practice as homework.  

Each morning, I orally quiz each student on one page of their list.  Once they have mastered a page of five words, I whole punch next to the words.  When they have mastered the entire list, the whole class sings a superhero tune and they become “Captain Word Whiz” for the day! I ordered capes from Amazon that they can wear, give them a certificate and they get their new list. They even have the chance to design their own superhero on their certificate.

Each student who becomes a "Word Whiz" gets their picture taken with their cape on.  I post their word whiz pictures on our classroom instagram and website, the parents and students go bananas over it!  Not to mention it is a fun and easy way to track each child's mastery level.

As we all know, there is not a one-stop-shop for sight word instruction.  There are many aspects to sight word instruction and one thing my kids love to do is play on the computer.  Have you heard of the website abcya.com?  If you haven't  discovered it yet, go there NOW.  It has a great selection of games for your kiddos to play at computer lab.  Here are two games my kiddos who struggle with sight word recognition frequently play...

http://www.abcya.com/dolch_sight_word_bingo.htm

http://www.abcya.com/sight_words_recognition.htm

Another piece of my sight word instruction is simply practice...practice, practice, PRACTICE!  My kiddos love using magnetic letters, wikki sticks, play-doh and sand to practice their sight words.  This hands-on approach to learning sight words is much more effective than boring memorization.   Motivation, it sure does wonders for our little ones!

To read more about my Captain Word Whiz pack, visit my tpt store here!