72 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei 21 Mar \ on: Stacker Saloon
Left school today without doing that one thing I was supposed to: inform my fellow teachers about the inclusion of the Dolch Sight Word List in the student workbook. Gonna do it while sipping my evening coffee 😅
—- Dear colleagues,
Sensei figured out something that baffled him when he was teaching at a primary school.
My student could read words like promised and excited without hesitation, but took two weeks to remember how to pronounce take. I’m extremely baffled, but it is what it is.
Here’s my take: some multisyllabic words are ironically easier to pronounce than single-syllabic words because they contain less sounds per syllable.
This is why words from the Dolch Sight Vocabulary - from Pre-Primer to Third Grade - have been included in the Unit 2 workbook (pg 60-64)
Some ℹ️:
  • 220 words in all
  • Between 50% and 75% of words in printed materials use words from Dolch list
  • Some of these words are phonentically irregular. They can’t be sounded out & must be memorised
  • Some of these words are “service words” (I.e. pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions). So, children can’t use pictures to remember them
  • Fun fact: All words from “The Cat in the Hat” are from the Dolch List
What You Could Do
We would like you to use your discretion and determine if your students would benefit from targetted exposure to the Dolch List. Perhaps you could spend 1 period a week to get students up to speed with it.
Some suggestions for implementation:
  • Pair students up. Have them compete to see who can say the most number of words aloud within 1 min
  • Select homonyms & get students to understand the difference (e.g. “when” & “went”)
  • Get students to categorise words into present tense or past tense
  • Revise spelling of sight words deemed difficult for your class
I hope these suggestions are useful & feasible. I believe that students attaining a firmer grasp of sight words will be able to read and write better.
Cheers, KL Sensei
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