refreshing your knowledge to help kids with homework

Now that your child is beginning to learn their phonics, how do you begin teaching them to read? Reading is part sounding out words, and part recognizing sight words. After your child knows their phonics, they can sound out some words, but there are some words that are a little more difficult to sound out such as the word "the" or "you". These words are sight words and you can teach these words to your child in a way that makes learning fun. See below for a handful of fun ways to teach sight words.

Cookie Sheet

Take a cookie sheet and a piece of paper with a short list of sight words. Then use some magnetic letters and have your child spell out those sight words using the magnetic letters next to the word. Next, have your child tell you the word. This not only helps your child recognize the sight word, it helps them say and spell it as well. You can take this a step further and have your child also write the word as well to help them work on their writing skills.

Word Walk

Place sight words on the ground to form a path. Have your child say the word and then move to the next word "step" to see how far they can get without any help from you.

Word Add On

Take a small sight word such as "at", then add letters to the beginning of it to create new words, such as a "c" to make the word "cat". Build on smaller words to make new words that your child can easily recognize. Other add-on words you can use include: "it", "in" and "an".

Play Dough Build

Take a sight word and have your child make the word out of play dough. Then have them write the word out themselves on a piece of paper. Don't have play dough? You can have them write the word with their finger using other things such as flour, sand or even shaving cream. 

Turning learning into a game isn't just fun for your child, it makes teaching fun and easier for you as well. Your child won't even realize that they are learning. They will think of it as a game and actually want to play. Be creative with your games, and add more words as things become easier for your child. Talk with a provider like Triple R Child Care for more tips.