Literacy Center Activities: Sight Word Activities

color letter alphabet
Photo Source: Erin Cadigan

Helping your kindergartners learn and master sight words is important to their future success as readers. In fact, continued exposure to these common words through classroom activities, games, and literacy center activities works to improve student fluency when learning to read. Educator and creator of the website KinderPlans, Elaine Engerdahl, suggests using the following activities to help your students practice.

Sight Word Spin Game

Supplies You'll Need

  • Sight word game board. Create this using an aluminum pie tin. Fit and glue a construction paper circle into the bottom of the pan, use a marker to create sections, and pen the sight words your students are reviewing.
  • Sight word game cards. Pen the same sight words on to a piece of card stock and slide into a document sleeve. Create a game card for each student.
  • Dry erase markers or crayons
  • Spinning top.

Students will take turns spinning the top in the pie pan game board. Whatever word the spinner lands on, students must pronounce it correctly then use their dry erase marker or crayon to mark it off their game card. The student continues his or her turn until the top lands on a word they've already crossed off. Whoever crosses off all their sight words first wins the game!

Word Family Wheel

Engerdahl uses the following word family as an example, but there are certainly many others you could create: bug, hug, tug, mug, jug, dug, rug, slug. Create a card stock circle and divide it into eight sections (like you would a pie). At the end of each section, pen the beginning letter(s) of each word (e.g. b, h, t, m, j, d, r, sl). Mount the circle onto the left side of a full sheet of card stock with a brass fastener. The circle or wheel should be fully moveable. On the right side of the card stock, pen the word family "ug" next to the wheel. As the circle is turned, new words are created. Invite students to say each new word and identify the letters in it.

These activities are simple, but they'll certainly help your students as they attempt to commit to memory common sight words for future reading success!

Be sure to visit Engerdahl's full post for more literacy center ideas as well as this complimentary sight word activity!