QUESTION: Why is it so hard for my child to remember “sight words”?
ANSWER:
As a parent of a child with dyslexia, I understand your fear that your child’s reading difficulties will cause them to fall behind in school, and they’ll struggle to catch up.
You want to see your child succeed, especially in crucial areas like reading. Learning to read is an essential skill that forms the foundation for your child’s academic success. When you see them struggle to remember sight words, your imagination may go into overdrive conjuring up negative consequences leading to feeling frustrated when you can’t help them.
You’re not alone…
Many parents who wonder why their child can’t seem to recall these simple words, don’t know how to effectively assist them either.
First, let’s get clear on the term “sight words.”
Not everyone calls sight words the same thing. Some people call them “high-frequency words,” “instant words,” or “whole words.” It doesn’t matter what you call them. The point is that sight words are important for your child to learn so they can read better and become more literate.
Although sight words are an essential component of language development and reading proficiency, for many children, these words can be elusive and challenging to recall.
Today, we’ll explore why this is often the case, and I’ll offer 3 helpful strategies to boost your child’s sight word memory.
Why Sight Words Are Important
Young readers need to know some words by heart, like “the”, “and”, “is” and “it”. These words don’t follow the usual rules for reading, so they must be remembered instead of sounded out. It is very important to know these sight words because they help your child read more quickly and understand what they’re reading. Most books have lots of sight words, so it’s important to learn them.
When first learning to read, sight words are important. They help your child understand what they are reading. As they learn more about reading, the sight words become part of their vocabulary. They give your child a way to understand sentence structure, syntax, and meaning in what they read. This helps them focus on harder parts of reading like critical thinking and analyzing.
How Sight Words Are Learned
Children learn sight words by seeing and saying them many times. First, they learn words that are easy to say and are used a lot. Then they learn harder words with weird spellings. The more practice they get with these words, the easier it is for them to recognize and remember them quickly.
Memory and Sight Words
When your child is learning sight words, their brain uses different kinds of memory.
- Visual Memory: Some children have trouble recognizing and remembering what words look like. This is called weak visual memory. It makes it hard for them to remember the shapes of sight words.
- Auditory Memory: Sight words have sounds that help your child remember them. Auditory memory is when they can remember and process sounds. If they have trouble remembering the sounds of sight words, it can make it harder to learn them.
- Semantic Memory: Semantic memory is when you remember the meaning of things. Sight words have special meanings even if they don’t look like other words. If a child has trouble with semantic memory, it might be hard for them to understand sight words in sentences.
- Working Memory lets them remember things for a short time
- Long-term Memory helps them remember things for a long time.
If any of these kinds of memory is not functioning well, it can make it harder to learn and remember sight words.
Dyslexia and Sight Words
Children with dyslexia often find it challenging to learn sight words for several reasons:
- Dyslexia makes it hard to recognize and work with the sounds of spoken language. It can be difficult for children who have dyslexia to match a word they see with its sound. Sight words, because they don’t follow language rules, are especially hard for these children to figure out.
- Children with dyslexia may have trouble seeing things correctly. This includes understanding what words look like, telling two words apart, and remembering what they saw. They may not be able to figure out certain words that are made of letters that look the same or similar, like “was” and “saw”.
- Working memory is like your child’s brain’s scratch pad. It helps them remember things for a short time. Children with dyslexia may have trouble with this type of memory. This can make it hard to remember sight words.
Boosting Sight Word Memory:
The good news is there are several effective strategies and tools you can use to help your child improve their sight word recall. Here are 3 of them:
- Repetition and Consistency: Practicing regularly can help your child remember sight words.
- Multisensory Techniques: Help your child learn sight words by using their five senses.
- Contextualization: Use sight words in your everyday conversations and activities.
Remember, every child learns at their own pace. It’s important to stay patient, consistent, and supportive throughout your child’s reading journey. With the right tools and strategies, your child can master sight words and unlock their full reading potential.
I can help you devise fun, effective, and personalized ways to learn their sight words. Schedule a complimentary session with me here.
Hi Florence,
My grand daughter lives in England and we talk almost daily over FaceTime. In England, phonics are taught before they learn the names or order of the letters of the alphabet. She just turned five last month and is progressing quite well at sounding words out. She likes us to type words onto the Facetime screen and then she sounds them out. We have progressed to short sentences and had some fun with words like “like” and “lick”. For example “I like my new ball” was read as “I lick my new ball”. Reading can be fun, 😉
That the best way to teach phonics and when it’s done during the young years, parents can identify any issues early and use strategies to remediate the challenges.