We sent home words lists for students to study and memorize, and drilled them with flashcards. For many years we held the belief that if a student simply saw a word enough times they’d eventually learn it.
They are considered sight words because, well, you recognize them by sight! But how did they get there?Īs a teacher, how do you help your students learn their sight words? The answer is likely, through rote memorization! This is because our intuition (not science!) tells us that words are stored in visual memory. Did you know that as a literate adult you have between 30,000 to 70,000 sight words in your memory? These are words you can read automatically, accurately, and effortlessly.