Teaching sight words can be frustrating. Traditional flashcards make it boring and kids do not respond to them well. With a little creativity, working on sight words can be more fun than you ever imagined. Learning in a fun playful way makes it easier for kids to remember what they are learning and get it to stick. Here are a few fun and creative ideas for teaching sight words.
Ideas for teaching sight words
Decorate Some Cookies
Grab some icing and decorate some cookies with sight words. Having your child read the sight words to get a treat is a great way to add a multi-sensory connection to the sight words so they are more likely to stick in your child’s mind. For an added bonus make the cookies yourself and have your child help to enjoy a fun home economics and math lesson while you were at it.
Sight Word Swat
Put old sight word flashcards to use by taping them to the wall and having your child use a fly swatter to swat at the sight words as you call them out for an activity that gets them up and moving indoors. Activities like this are easy to put together and can help your child have fun and use physical activity to help them learn and memorise their sight words.
Fishing for Sight Words
Check out this fun Fishing for Sight Words Game. Build a simple fishing rod and attach a magnet to the end. Add a paperclip to sight word flashcards and have children fish for a card, then say the sight word.
Writing Sight Words
Write sight words in the sand and have your child trace them to practice writing or jump from sight word to sight word after reading them to see how many they can erase in the sand by jumping.
Or, make some coloured rice, and write the sight words in the rice with a stick or they could use their finger.
Hopping Sight Words
Replace the numbers on a hopscotch board and have your child jump between the words reading them as they jump. Another option is to pull sight words out of a hat and skip the word like you would skip the spot a rock lands on when you toss it.
Card Games
Make extra copies of flashcards for a double set and use them to play go fish instead of for reading out. This is a great low stress way to get your child to read the words repetitively without realising they are working on their reading skills.
For a fun treasure chest themed activity, check out this Treasure Chest Sight Word Activity, or maybe your kids prefer insects. In this case, check out this Snail Sight Word Activity.
Building Sight Words
Write sight words on small toys like plastic chips or building blocks. Bury these sight words inside a fun sensory bin base like coloured rice or coloured pasta for a fun sensory word search. Have your child hunt down particular words from a list of words. Swap to the next list after they finish the first for a creative way to get them to pay close attention to each word.
Have your child build sight words with letter blocks, magnets, or alphabet beads for a fun way to work on reading and spelling sight words. This simple yet fun way to work with sight words is a great way to keep kids busy and learning without running all over the house when you need them to sit still.
Pull out the board games. You can use free printable sight word games off like or opt to upcycle an everyday board games like candy land to add sight words. Place a little clear packing tape over the squares for a dry erase option to swap out the sight words each time you play.
Sight Word Printables
If you are looking for some fun sight word printables, then check out these fun worksheets with multiple activities on each page for children to learn and practice sight words.
Noun Sight Word Printables