Most Frequently Used Words in Books -- "Sight Words"

  Many parents ask me what they can do to help their children on a Kindergarten, 1st, or 2nd grade

reading level to increase their reading vocabulary. One basic and easy thing to do is to help them learn sight words. The Fry's sight word list of the first 100 to 1,000 words most often found in books is a helpful tool. These words are listed in order of how frequently they are found in books. Here is a link to these lists:
http://www.uen.org/k-2educator/word_lists.shtml

Here are links to free printable flash cards of this list. I glue them to card stock or print them on card stock to play the games mentioned later in this post:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Frys-First-Grade-Sight-Word-Flashcards-231889

http://www.studenthandouts.com/01-Web-Pages/001-Pages/fry-300-instant-sight-words-printable-flashcards.htm

Some ideas for working with these lists include printing up flash cards twice and then playing a game of Memory. Ask your child to first read the Fry's word list to you starting at the top. I let them color with a coloring crayon the words they read correctly immediately. Once they have a good number of words that they didn't recognize by sight immediately, find these words as flash cards and use them to practice with your student. Go over the flash card words with them before you play the game. These cards can also be used to play Go Fish. They actually love this and it is fun for adults too.
Alisa