Word rings can be used much like flash cards to help students memorize sight words. Create a table of all the sight words for your grade level. Choose the first ten sight words and fit in a word processor page in two and five rows. Choose a large font like Arial 80 so that the word is easily read. Arrange the words so that they are evenly spaced for cutting and centered in both directions. Print on tag board or heavy bond paper. Cut the words out of the paper into flash cards, punch a hole in the top left corner and bind with a re-closable ring. Send home the word rings with students to work with parents as homework. Assess students on the words periodically. Add new words to the ring to as appropriate. Retire known words when mastered.
Played sight word Bingo in class to teach spelling and memorization of sight words. Create a five-box-by-five-box grid with a word processor. Randomly enter 24 sight words in the grid without repeating a word. Remember to make the center a "free" space. Print, trim and glue onto a piece of construction paper. Shuffle the words and make six more cards that are different from one another. Laminate or trim and slip into vinyl page protectors. Make flash cards using the 24 sight words. To play, hand out a Bingo card to each student. Shuffle flash cards and hold up first card. Students must say the word on the card in order to mark the spot on their bingo card. Have students say the word, spell the word and then say the word again. If you make more than one game of Bingo, color coordinate the construction paper so that you can easily sort correct game pieces.
Students can play sight words around the world. Make sight word flash cards on index cards in large print. Students sit in a circle on the rug or around a table. Choose one student to go first. He or she stands behind or directly beside an adjacent student who is the competitor. The teacher exposes the sight word card and the two students say the sight word. The first student to successfully guess moves on to the next student. Game play continues around the circle of students. The first student to get back to their initial position is the winner.
See it, build it is a game where a small group of students see who can build the sight word the fastest out of alphabet tiles. The teacher exposes a flash card with the sight word to be copied. Students work to quickly put the letters in order. After all students are done, the teacher and the students say the word, spell the word and then say the word again.
Sight word hunt is a task where the students search a reading book for sight words. Make a worksheet that lists about ten sight words that the child will be looking for. Read and spell the words together. The child independently searches the reading book for the sight words and writes a tally mark on the worksheet for each word found. As an extension to this activity, have the students exchange books with a partner. The partner performs the sight word search and the students compare their results.