teaching sight words

This post was first published in 2020 and is now re-released with revisions. 

‘Environmental print’ is something that we have heard about forever and there are many different ways to look at this concept.

I have seen environmental print placed around a room with the hope that children will ‘pick up’ the words and be able to use them for a variety of purposes.   This might take the form of labels around the room or lists of words placed on the wall by the teacher.

I have also seen word…

Tip No. 4 - Ditch the Sight Words

In a previous post I challenged the popular practice of giving beginning readers predictable texts. This week I’m REALLY asking you to go against everything you know and ditch the sight words. Yes, that’s right.  I said it. DITCH THE SIGHT WORDS.  Why? Basically, because they are not a thing.

For years and years we have been attempting to teach children to read using flawed methodology based on misunderstandings of how our brains process words.  Personal…