Kindergarten Sight Word Games
One of my most favorite topics to teach in kindergarten is sight words! My students are always eager to learn more words and are so excited when they can begin reading simple patterned books! Watching a child learn to read and be excited about it is absolutely priceless! Kindergarten sight word games are a fun, amazing tool that I use in my classroom to help my students learn sight words and grow exponentially as readers.
Sight words are so SUPER important in the early primary grades because sight words are used most often in children’s text and literature. Actually, approximately 75% of the words in children’s books are sight words! Children learn these words “by sight” because most sight words do not follow the basic phonics rules, making them extremely difficult to decode. For example, take the word “said”. “/s/ /a/ /i/ /d/.”
Wait, what? Trying to decode and read this word over and over will lead to frustration for a child. By knowing this word “in a snap”, the child can quickly say “said” and then move onto the next word.
Knowing Sight Words Increases Reading Fluency and Comprehension
Knowing sight words “in a snap” helps children to direct more of their brainpower to decode other areas of the text and focusing more on comprehension, INSTEAD of decoding a word that may not be decodable! In addition, learning sight words in kindergarten can also help children develop confidence and thrive as readers.
Kindergarten Sight Word Games
What I love MOST about all of the following kindergarten sight word games, is that students have the opportunity to learn from each other. Kids learning from other kids is a POWERFUL tool to be used in the classroom. In some sight word games, the students may be working parallel to one another, but they are still interacting and working together. On many occasions, I have heard students ask one another for help with a word, or a sentence they just thought of with a particular sight word in it or making connections between words. This learning and interacting is so incredibly important in all stages of learning.
Below I will show you my top eight kindergarten sight word games I LOVE to use in my classroom. These games help students learn to read sight words with automaticity and confidence.
1. Sight Word Memory Games
Most children already know how to play memory when they come to school. That makes sight word memory for kindergarten a fun, easy activity to implement in your classroom!
Sight word memory match can be used for any theme, any time of the year! Furthermore, while playing sight word memory, students also need to use cooperative and social skills.
2. Write the Room Sight Words
I LOVE Write the Room activities! My students could “Write the Room” during centers every single week, and love it, even more, each time! Write the room activities get students up and moving, which we all know they need a lot of at this age!
This activity comes with a variety of write the room worksheets so I can easily differentiate within my center groups. Also, the write the room template allows me to edit which sight words I use. Planning and prep are so easy!
3. Roll and Write Sight Words
Using a jumbo cube to roll sight words can so so much fun! This is a great activity to practice working cooperatively. I give one jumbo cube per group of about 4 students. They need to take turns rolling the cube and passing the cube in a circle to the next person.
I use the roll and write editable template to edit which sight words I want to use for my kiddos.
4. Spin and Write Sight Words
“We can use a paperclip?!” Who knew a paperclip could be so motivating! Students spin a sight word, read the word, then write the word. I can choose which recording sheet and sight words I want my students to use.
5. Sight Word Board Games
Who doesn’t love a board game? With easy rules, sight word board games are a great, easy manageable center activity. These sight word board games for kindergarten that I use come with printable worksheets to reinforce and extend learning.
6. Sight Word Search in Stories
I love that this game incorporates reading and finding sight words in context. Students search their books for sight words and either record, trace, or paste them on the recording sheet. There are several recording sheet options so you can easily differentiate this activity for your students. I either have students use their own book bins for this activity or I use a leveled class book bin. Switching it up keeps the activity fun!
7. Sight Word Sentences
Add a pocket chart into your centers, and your kiddos will feel like the teacher! In this center, the students work together to construct sentences composed of sight words and vocabulary words. Children work cooperatively to arrange sight word sentence cards in a meaningful way. After completing the activity, students can complete the sight word sentence worksheets to extend learning and practice writing. Sight word sentences for kindergarten are a fantastic way to practice sight words within context.
8. Sight Word Sticker Books
A sight word sticker book is a simple, exciting kindergarten sight word activity that is easy to implement! This is a task I save for parent volunteers. Classroom parent volunteers work with children to read their sight word sticker books, and the children place a sticker next the sight word if they can read it “in a snap”. All materials are kept in a basket and when the parent volunteer arrives, they grab the basket and get to work!
Easy to manage and beneficial in so many ways!
I hope this post is helpful in planning your own sight words and lessons! Be sure to PIN IT to your sight word boards to reference later.
More Sight Word Resources
In this back to school post, I list some of the supplies that I use for sight word centers. You will find links to the jumbo cubes and colored container box.
My friend, Sarah, over at the Little Learning Corner, has some fantastic sight word activities that can be used both at school and at home! Perfect for the kindergarten teacher or homeschool teacher! The flashlight sight word activity is my absolute favorite! Check out all ten of Sarah’s fabulous and unique ideas here!
Samantha from Sunsets and School Supplies also had an exciting Sight Word Challenge Game for Kindergarten! My kiddos LOVE challenges and knowing that an activity is a “challenge” just inspires them to try harder! Samantha even provides a FREEBIE download to help implement the sight word challenge! You can read about Samantha’s sight word challenge here!
Anna, from Anna Kelly Creations, blogs about blends, digraphs, and silent “e” activities in her post-Blending Sounds Activities with Blends and Silent E! There are fantastic ideas for practicing these skills with nonsense words!
Get the FREE Guide & Planner
I have also included my sight word center guide and planning workbook. In this guide, I explain my 5 steps to creating successful, year-long sight word centers. My centers are run with very little management and direction from me, which means my “teacher-time” is freed up so I can work with intervention, extension, and guided reading groups. The included workbook planner is an editable PDF, so you can record your thoughts and ideas as you read through the guide. Be sure you have Adobe Reader or higher if you want to fill out the workbook electronically. Adobe Reader is free and can be downloaded here if you need it. Click to click the image below to get your own copy in your inbox!
Blog Posts You May Like:
Top Editable Sight Word Games For Your Classroom
What You Need To Know About Play-Based Learning
The Sensory Bin Kit For Kindergarten And Preschool!
As always, keep it amazing in the classroom! Tag me on Instagram with your success photos! @sparkling.in.primary
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Below are some of the resources pictured in this post! Simple and printable sight word games.
Rachael says
I would have never thought about using the millions of stickers that I have for a sight word sticker book! That’s a great idea! (I see a literacy station forming….) Thanks for the ideas!
Alexis Porter says
That is perfect! Great way to use all the random stickers 🙂
Tina says
I love these ideas. My students love any kind of roll the dice game, so I will be adding the roll and write for sure!