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Differentiating Literacy Instruction for Culturally, Linguistically and Ability Diverse Students

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Sight Word Identification

Obtaining a sight word vocabulary is important because it enables readers to read without segmenting words into sounds and letters. This automatic recognition of words permits the reader to read seemingly without effort. It's especially important to teach students how to systematically identify words if they're still having trouble decoding one syllable words by the time they complete first grade, and multisyllable words by the time they complete second grade (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).

• Developing readers need to develop the ability to recognize words "on sight" so they can use their knowledge of words to figure out new words through analogies and spelling patterns.
• Knowing these spelling patterns can, in turn, help students develop more advanced decoding strategies that continue to feed the decoding-vocabulary-development-cycle.
• Sight word recognition can decrease the need to rely on the use of context to guess words. Some studies have shown this strategy to be ineffective (Stanovich & Stanovich, 1995) because authentic and content related texts can be unpredictable.
• Encouraging recognition of sight words does not mean encouraging 'word calling'. This phrase describes when a student can read the words on the page, in or out of context, but fails to understand what they mean in the context of reading. This can be prevented by continuing to encourage reading and repeated readings of texts using targeted words, throughout the process of developing a sight word vocabulary.

  Teaching Strategies for Learning Sight Words

  • Using word lists, word walls, or word banks containing
    • High frequency words that are very common or used frequently in a student's environment, such as articles, pronouns, and words like 'dog,' 'boy,' 'girl,' 'book,' 'desk,' etc. Words should become progressively more difficult and less common. They should be presented in context and in meaningful ways,
    • More comprehensive word lists of high frequency words, such as of, and, a, to, in, is, you, that, and it. For more information on high frequency words, see the Dolch words (Johnson, 1971) or the Fry New Instant Word List (Fry, 1980),
      • Words organized in like groups, such as 'action' words, 'when' words, 'color' words, etc.,
      • Content related words for specific lessons or future topics,
      • Functional or vocational sight word lists for older students.
    • Conducting one-on-one data-based evaluation procedures, such as
      • The use of time delay procedures where the teacher asks the student to identify words on a flashcard using reinforcement and prompting. Teachers should decrease the delay before prompting as the student improves (Meese, 2001).
      • Periodic evaluation of sight words requiring students to call off words on the list as they are revealed, while keeping track of correct and incorrect responses, time delays, decoding attempts, and requests for prompts.
    • Using visual imagery. This involves combining the use of word flash cards with visual image flash cards. Teachers should gradually remove the visual cues as students progress.
    • Word attack techniques, such as the Word Identification Strategy, DISSECT (Lenz, Schumaker, Deshler, & Beal, 1984). These methods include teaching students to combine what they know about phonics, structural analysis and context clues to create a strategy for figuring out unknown words. Researchers at the University of Kansas (e.g. Ellis, Deshler, Lenz, Schumaker, & Clark, 1991) have developed procedures for teaching learning strategies such as the ones mentioned above.

• Multisensory techniques that involve repeating a cycle of tracing, saying, and writing words and word parts until the student can write words from memory.
• Approaches that involve combining oral language skills with reading and writing, allowing students to talk about topics of interest or experiences that they can then write and read about. Some approaches encourage teachers to scribe for students as they dictate to assist with story writing or creating texts about what they've learned. All students can then use the scripted texts to practice reading. An example of an approach that uses these techniques is the Language Experience Approach (Stauffer, 1970).
• It's important to note that students who don't demonstrate mastery of sight words need more exposure to these words, in and out of context. They may need help developing decoding skills, and need to understand that not all words should or can be decoded.
  

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