Welcome! It has been awhile since I’ve had time to post (a new baby, you know). 🙂 This year I have been reintroducing myself to teaching reading and language arts. I have taught only math for the last seven years! One of the ways I check student progress is by monitoring their sight word knowledge. I use the Instant Word list from The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists. The book claims that the first 300 words makes up about 65% of all written material. If you teach RLA and don’t have this book, I would suggest checking it out. I couldn’t live without it. It has lists for everything: synonyms, homophones, idioms, etc.
While I LOVE this book, I have found sight word testing to be tedious and cumbersome. To help with that, I have created some teacher-friendly forms and flashcards that correspond with all of the first 300 words. My Instant Words eBook is completely FREE!
I also like to play a quick game of Finger Knots (think Twister, but with hands only) with each kid after the sight word testing. It’s fun and it gives me some idea of their vowel skills.
As always, I would love to hear what you think. Have a wonderful week, everyone!