Sight Word Studies & TpT Sale!

Good Morning, Everyone!
I am so excited to be sharing my first product on TpT with you all! As we wrap up the school year (I can't believe that we've still got 11 days!), I reflect back on our school year. Last year, my grade level team and I decided to test out a greater emphasis on sight word recognition as a method of boosting fluency and reading comprehension. We had no parameters set by our school or district and put it all together on our own. Initially, we created a list of 36 sight words and required students to successfully identify 17 words by the end of the year. Our students blew that out of the water!
This year, we decided to expand upon that idea. Last August, I sat and developed a list of 50 words. For this year, we have doubled the expectation -- students are expected to reach proficiency at 36 words. Well, this year... our students DESTROYED their goals! Through the year, I ended up creating TWO ADDITIONAL LISTS of 50 words apiece and check out these stats!!

• 23 out of 24 students in my class have COMPLETELY MASTERED at least the first 50 words taught!
• 5 students have mastered ALL 150 words!
• 12 students have mastered OVER 100 words!
• 24 out of 24 students have reached the benchmark of 36 words!
• Last year: 11/24 exceeded proficiency on the DRA2, this year? 22/24 exceeded proficiency!

I am extremely proud of my KinderSTARS for all of their hard work towards achieving mastery in sight word recognition this year! They were motivated and worked diligently on a daily basis. What amazes me most, though, is that we were so focused on the benchmark of 36 words -- just imagine what will happen when we raise the bar again next year!!

One tool that was particularly helpful was a series of weekly assessments. Every Monday, I sent a letter home to families indicating the 5 focus words of the week. I asked that parents work with their child on learning these sight words both in and out of context and help to prepare them for a Friday quiz. Students practiced these sight words during our morning meeting, through literacy workstations, during guided reading, etc... I plan to share more regarding our sight word strategies in the future! Each Friday, they took their quiz which included the current week's words as well as all past words in ensure they retained the previous words.

What was wonderful about these quizzes is that they were done QUICKLY. The goal was sight word recognition so each one-on-one quiz took 1-2 minutes per student and could be completed by myself, a paraprofessional, or our building intern!

The last step was that I would make a copy of the quizzes to keep for student records and data collection, then cut up and send home each weekly result to the parents. My families really enjoyed checking the back packs for these quizzes each week and the kiddos LOVED celebrating their successes!

For my first-ever TpT product, I have put together all of the parent letters and weekly quizzes into a master Sight Word Pack. Right now, they only cover the first 50 words, but I will add the next 2 lists soon.

Click here to grab it up while it's still on sale! :) Also, please leave feedback. Since this is my first product, I would love to hear what I can improve upon for next time!

And please comment below on how (or whether) you teach and use sight words in the classroom!