Sight words are very important in reading ability development. According to Patricia Cunningham in Phonics They Use, “In order to read and write fluently with comprehension and meaning, children must be able to automatically read and spell the most frequent words. As the store of words they can automatically read and spell increases, so will their speed and comprehension.” We want our children be able to “read to learn”, but they have to pass the “learn to read” stage first.
Sight words are those that are used frequently, and often cannot be illustrated via simple pictures or sounded out according to regular phonetic decoding rules, thus they need to be learned and recognized “on sight”. Flash cards become a great tool for children to learn sight words. I have not used flash cards much, because I knew we will end up losing many of the cards. But now with apps, this is not an issue anymore. I just tested out the Smiley Sight Words app. I wish I had it when my son was younger.
The app covers 1,600+ sight words that frequently appear in child’s early reading materials. Users can choose from many word lists, such as Dolch, Fry, UK 1000, AU Rainbow. There is also flexibility to create your own list.
Features from the App Store:
• Optimized for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.
• Over 1,600 common sight words comprehensively compiled from Dolch, Fry, Pinnell-Fountas, UK, and many other high-frequency word lists.
• Beautifully recorded American-English pronunciations for all words
• Top 1000 – 40 levels sorted by frequency
• Dolch 300 – 7 levels (pre-primer, primer, grade 1-3, nouns 1-2)
• Dolch 300 – 11 levels sorted by frequency
• Fry 1000 – 10 levels sorted by frequency
• UK 1000 – 10 levels sorted by frequency
• AU Rainbow – 12 levels sorted by color-code.
• More Words – Upper and lower-case alphabet, numbers 0-100, colors, shapes, animals, months, days of week, family words, common nouns
• Words organized by number of letters
• 10 Customizable Flash Card sets
• 10 Shared Customizable Flash Card sets common to all 5 players
• Copy and Paste words from sets or emails
• Email export of word lists
• Show and Hide individual words
• Mark flash cards with smileys – try to earn 3 thumbs-up smileys for each word.
• Flash cards respond to swipes, shakes, and taps
• Customizable settings for up to 40 players
• Player names and photos can be customized
• Progress Report can be saved to Photo Library
• In-app Help documentation
• Chalkboard font for iOS 4.2 and later
If you would like to check it out or purchase it, please use the App Store link provided below. The cost is the same to you, but iGameMom gets a small percentage. Thanks for your support! Note: The link works for all countries.
Looking for more sight words resources and tools? Check out our pick of Best Sight Words Learning Tools for Kids.
Simply great. Definitely another app that I can share with my grandson. Thanks!
Hope your grandson will like it.