Sight Words: the transfer skill helps your child read

  

Teachers use the word transfer to mean your child has learned a lesson and knows that lesson can be used in several places.  New readers do not have enough experience of the world to realize, for example, that the word the - is used forty times in his favorite story. 

It is important to help your child; let's get started:

The first ten sight words are:

the,   of,   and,   a,   to,   in,   is,   you,   that,   it.

Begin with the word the. Put your child's finger under the the first time it appears in the well known story. Hold your child's finger under the.

Tell him that when we talk our words run together like water coming out of the faucet but when we read, each word is separate. When we read, words are like cars on the street. There is space between each car - there is space on the page between each word. (A tiny space but a space.)

Tell you child that each word has its own letters.  Ask if your child knows the word he is pointing to?  Tell him it is the word the. (Fabulous if he knew the word.)

Take a minute to see if he can name each letter in the >  t   h  e. 
Tell him the is a word we use when we talk. We say things like: close the door, where is the phone, who has the answer. Help your child make up a sentence using the.

Now ask your child if he sees any other the words on the page?   Ask him to point, help him find the throughout the story.   Read the story, asking him to point to the each time it is used in the story.  

After reading the story, find a piece of paper for keeping track of your child's growing word list.
Title the paper with your child's name: Adam's word list
Below the title write his first word the, or allow your child to write the word the.

As you read other stories ask your child to point to the.  When you child recognizes the in several stories, then, and only then, he actually knows the word the. This is called transfer.

The second sight word is of . Proceed with these same steps with the word of. And, add of to his word list. Remember that review is a critical part of keeping these words well anchored.

I have created a few books to help your child learn all of the tricky lessons plus a special comprehension method. My books are full of color pictures and special tools to help your child be a reading star. I use ebay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you.  

Thank you for visiting my blog. Please feel welcome to leave a comment or question.
Have a great day, Mary Maisner