Sight Words for Kindergarten? Yes, But Not Too Many
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26 February, 2010
16 Comments
Blast from the Past: This entry was first posted on February 26, 2010 and was re-issued on February 2, 2019. When this blog entry first posted the only part that was controversial was the number of words recommended (since some of the publishers and consultants were promoting large numbers of sight vocabulary and I was suggesting they were overdoing it). These days the dyslexia-focused advocates would likely fry me for supporting the idea of teaching sight words directly (and not just as an outcome of phonics). Basically, sight words are words students can identify immediately with no evident sounding or mediation. If decoding is taught well and effectively students eventually recognize almost all words as sight words. However, in the beginning it is useful to teach students to recognize some high frequency words--even by memory.
Teacher letter:
Dr. Shanahan,
I’m writing you out of sheer frustration in doing my own research on the topic of Kindergarten Sight words – perhaps it’s because the answer I’m looking for just isn’t there??
I’m on the hunt for some solid research and have not been successful in finding it (I’m usually pretty good in doing so!) My K teachers are in disagreement about the teaching of sight vocabulary – and it’s a driving force for some angst right now in their team. I just printed the executive summary of the report of the natl early literacy panel…yet as I skim through I see nothing regarding sight word acquisition.
At this point, we have some that believe it’s NOT developmentally appropriate to teach sight words…..others are very skills=based and driven to do so, especially with the 1st grade goal of mastery of 100 high frequency words by Oct 1 of first grade. There are currently 60 high frequency words being measured/hopefully mastered by the end of K in our data books for that level.
Could you provide some insight about this? Specific research for me to back it - - How many? Which ones?
Shanahan's response:
Dear Coach:
Thanks for your letter. Research and experience tell me that sight word instruction is helpful to young children who are learning to read. However, the research is not terribly specific as to how many words should be taught or when so anything I say on that will have to come entirely from experience and the wisdom of others.
I have no qualms in saying that it IS developmentally appropriate to teach sight words to kindergarteners (or even preschoolers). If it weren't developmentally appropriate, then young children simply would not learn the words (but they do). I’ve watched hundreds of Kindergarten teachers teaching words and have reviewed lots of research on the teaching of print to young children, and see no evidence that this cannot be done profitably and well.
Based on its seminal research review (Prevention of Reading Difficulties) the National Research Council issued an implementation guide for schools, a marvelous little book, Starting Our Right: A Guide to Promoting Children’s Reading Success that I used when I was director of reading in Chicago. It suggests that by the end of kindergarten, children should recognize some words by sight including a few very common ones (the, I, my, you, is, are). Unfortunately, it isn't specific as to how many, but this authoritative guide makes it absolutely clear that sight word teaching is appropriate in kindergarten.
However, 60 words sounds high to me (as does the idea that everyone will know the most frequent 100 words by Oct 1 of grade 1). That sounds ambitious (which is good), but I suspect that there will be a lot of failure with it. I’ve always told my teachers that by the end of grade 1 the students should know all of the 100 most frequent words — and a 300-500 other easy-to-decode words as well. Typically, the first 100 high frequency aren’t mastered by most kids until Thanksgiving or so (and that is with considerable effort).
I would suggest a much more modest goal for the end of kindergarten (perhaps 20 words or so, with at least 10 of those being high frequency words). I think your teachers are frustrated not because they are teaching the wrong stuff, but because the standard is set too high to be practical.
They also may be struggling with this teaching if they aren’t well-versed in how to do that. Too often sight word teaching becomes a drill-sequence that is unnecessarily tedious. Try things like having the children dictate language experience stories, and do lots of reading and rereading (including choral reading) with these. Then start pulling words out of these stories and help the children to examine these outside of the context of the story. That kind of teaching goes much faster and will be less stressful for everybody.
Thanks.
If a Kindergarten kids knows 20 words at the end of the year, and remembers those 20 words the following September, they would have to learn an about 3 words per week to meet the end of first grade goal of 100 words. Is that possible?
I am fustrated with the expectations for kindergarten and early 1st grade. The expectations for the end of 1st grade and 2nd grade are reasonable, but our kindergartners are expected to read, write, and spell correctly " the first 100 kindergarten sight words" (which to me implies there is a second 100). They expect them to read at a level E or DRA 8, which contains words with ing, ed, long vowel sounds. They are also expected to write 3 sentences with neat printing without supports. As such, large numbers of 1st graders are label in the first 6 weeks of school as endanger of being held over and given student contracts. Some of these expectation are our district others are our 1st grade teachers. As the Kindergarten teachers don't hold children to all these standards at the end of the year parents become upset after the transition to 1st.
We were called out early this year because we didn't feel children should be labeled below expectations if they did not know all their letter names by the first 6 weeks of Kindergarten. We find most know them by Thankgiving and we think that fine. I don't get scaring parents. I see no research to support the early push, but rather the opposite. What do you think?
Chris and Perry--
Chris, indeed, kids can learn the 100 most frequent words in the language during first grade (even if they enter knowing no words). You do need to teach phonics with a tiny amount of attention to sight words as part of that. I would argue for getting moms and dads involved, too (they can be a big help). I've seen many average schools accomplish that goal during the first semester.
Perry, yes, the first hundred suggests that will be a second hundred--and a third. In my schools, I promoted teaching the 100 most frequent words by the end of grade 1 and the first 300 (including the first grade words), by the end of grade 2. These children are also expected to recognize hundreds of other words because of their decodability. An average reading first-grader should be able to read 500-600 words by the end of the year (including those most frequent words).
The research, in fact, is very clear that one of the best and most consistent predictors of kids' reading success is their early progress with letter names. I don't know that all kindergartners need to know all the letter names in the first six weeks, but it is going in the right direction (back in the old days, in my first-grade classrooms, the kids often didn't know their letters when they came in). However, if this is a challenge for you and your colleagues I would argue for you to try to engage parents in helping with this (particularly during the summer prior to entering kindergarten). That way the climb might not be so steep.
5/27/2011
Dr. Shanahan - Thanks so much for posting this. I was just told today by a preschool teacher that she had been given the pre-primer list of 40 Dolch sight words and told that the preschool children in her Head Start should know all 40 before they come to school - absurd!
I also agree very much with your references to Dr. Snow, et al work which supports the idea of integrated experiences with reading, plesaure and enjoyment of stories and lots of experience understanding that print has meaning. Keep up the good work!
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