Sight Words for Four Year Olds
Four-year olds are at an ideal age to start learning sight words as they are no longer toddlers and beginning their preschool journey. They have also made significant strides in their learning and development which we will discuss a little bit further in this article.
In addition to providing you with a great list of sight words to start teaching your four-year-old, we want to also examine what sight words are, and why it is crucial in helping kids read better.
We will begin with looking at what sight words are.
What are sight words?
Sight words are words that must be memorized as they cannot be decoded phonetically due to their irregular sound. One common quality of sight words is that they are high-frequency words (words appearing frequently in our everyday reading and writing), that are not easily depicted in an image.
Know that we have a basic explanation of what sight words are, let us discuss why they are so important.
Why are they important?
Learning sight words is a crucial part of a child’s reading development. Although it is in no way a substitute for phonics, it does indeed play an important supplementary role.
When a child learns these sight words, they can almost instantly recognize them. This makes reading easier as they do not have to slow down and try and decode the word.
Which means they will be reading more confidently and fluently.
What are the developmental milestones of 4 year olds?
Here are some of the developmental milestones that relate to language and reading a typical 4-year-old will have achieved.
4-year old’s:
- can hold books and turn pages correctly
- know words and sentences are read from left to right
- can recognize their name
- can listen to details in a story and retell the story
- are able to determine whether 2 words start with the same sound
- can tell if 2 words rhyme
- know roughly 1400 – 1600 words
- shows a keen interest in learning and using new words
- are starting to use longer and more varied sentences in their speech
What are the sight words for 4-year old’s?
Sight word list
a, and, away, big, blue, can, come, down, find, for, funny, go, help, here, I, in, is, it, jump, little, look, make, me, my, not, one, play, red, run, said, see, the, three, to, two, up, we, where, yellow, you
This is by no means an extensive list. However, it is a great place to start as the sight words mentioned here are some of the most frequent words used and seen by children.
How do u teach sight words?
There are of course a variety of ways to teach sight words.
Including:
- Games
- Flash Cards
- Word Walls
- Manipulatives
No matter which method you choose, it is vitally important to make it fun and engaging for kids. If you cannot hold their attention, the lesson is not going to sink in.
How many sight words should you teach per lesson?
There is no set number to stick to when teaching a child sight words. It is completely dependent on how well a child can recognize, remember, and recollect the words being taught.
With that being said, try limiting the words to around 3 – 5 sight words per lesson. You do not want to overwhelm kids with too many.
On the following day, do a review of the newly taught sight words. If the child can instantly recognize, remember, and recollect the sight words, it is time to move on to the next set.
You now have a great little list of sight words you can teach your 4-year old’s.
These sight words also happen to be some of the most frequent words seen and heard by children.
Choosing a fun way to teach these sight words will help your kids retain the information being taught in the lessons and will go a long way in their reading development.