Sight Word Soldiers

I have implemented the Sight Word Soldier Program at two different school sites in grades K through 2nd with a lot of success. This program gets students excited for learning and provides them with challenging, yet attainable goals. The success is also demonstrated in their reading abilities.

The Sight Word Soldiers program is used to increase fluency and comprehension for all students. The goal is to increase literacy success by helping students build a strong sight word vocabulary.

Did you know that the first 300 sight words on the Fry word list make up 65% of all written material? Students must recognize these words instantly for reading fluency. The goal is for students to learn not only the first 300 sight words, but to also master an additional 700 words in order to support reading excellence.

With this program, parent volunteers or the classroom teacher test students individually to determine his or her beginning level. Students will earn "Dog Tags" as they progress through the achievement levels. Each dog tag has the phrase, "I know my first 100/200/300 sight words!" Dog tags may be awarded to the child at predetermined intervals (mastery of every 25, 100, or 300 words), depending on the grade level. Dog tags may be awarded all the way up to "I know my first 1,000 sight words!"

At my school sites, we decided to award students with tags after mastering each set of 100 words. At one school site, kindergarten provided dog tags at mastery of 5, 10, 25, 50, 75, and 100 words. It obviously depends on your school site and the literacy level of the students. It is important that the predetermined intervals are challenging, yet attainable. Sight Word Phrases are also available to challenge high achieving students. Dog tags may or may not be awarded at this level.

Parents can help at home by reinforcing their child’s efforts to learn assigned sight words. Reading these words to everyone in the family several times a day will help mastery. Making flashcards, playing concentration and writing the words are additional activities to support your child’s mastery of this skill.

It is important to note that building sight words is only part of an effective reading program. Practicing sight words should not replace the valuable time a child needs to spend independently reading each day, or the time families spend reading together. Time spent reading and discussing books is a way for a child to master new sight words and improve comprehension as well. For more information on reading fluency, click here. For more information on reading comprehension, click here. If you would like additional information on sight words, here are some excellent resources.

Where is the technology within this program? I provided all the resources linked to this post on my classroom website. I never sent home a hard copy of the word lists unless requested by a parent. Parents and students enjoy visiting our class website for resources.

To order sight word "dog tags," I have had a lot of success with J.P. Cooke Company. Be sure to tell them how you heard about their company and that you want information on the reading incentive program, not actual dog tags. They provide a high quality product and excellent customer service. Their website is a little limited on the sight word incentive program though, so I recommend getting your pricing information from the catalog. To contact J.P. Cooke Company, e-mail: sales@cooketag.com