Group sight words together by similarity in sound pattern. Some examples would be: words that end with --ve (live, five, save); words that start with a schwa and continue with a long vowel (about, ahoy, away, ahead); mismatched vowel patterns with sounds (who, do, been, said, only).
Explain to students any exceptions involved with these groups of words before having them sound out the words. For example, for a word such as "was," explain that the "z" sound comes at the end instead of the "s" sound. Explain the silent "e" before having them sound out "five" and the rest of that word family. Model the sound as well.
Continue with other groups that have exceptions in their sounding: silent letter words (knee, would); unexpected long vowels (kind, hold), and so on. Explain the exceptions before having students work on sounding them out.