THIS IS A VERY LONG READ.
IF YOU LOVE YOUR CHILD/CHILDREN TAKE THIS TRIP. READ ON.

I have to share this knowledge here because it just occurred to me that many Nairalanders are young parents.

I have been an educational consultant for a while now. We can learn from each other. I have related with over 2000 school owners. Less than 10% have heard of sight words. About 3%, please "I DO NOT" mean 30%. A miserly 3% know about sight words and are deploying them.

Almost all schools in the USA, Britain, Canada, Australia and many in India are using this method to get their children to start writing, reading, and comprehending earlier.
But there is good news here.
You can't assist your child's reading efforts using the phonics approach unless you are a graduate of the English language or a related discipline. With phonics, every word has to be broken down into syllables, synthesized, and sounded right.
But even with a modest education, teaching your child sight words is a piece of cake.


Sight words are spelled as they are written. Because is b, e, c, a, u, s, e. Shikina.
Hey! When we talk about sight words, you will be wondering: these words must gave fallen from heaven. No.

They are the words we use more frequently daily. Examples are; the, of, and, too, come, go, because...
Do a little research yourself. Let us be meeting here on this post for a week thereabouts, and share what we have learned.

As we go, I will be making some posts that will help you avoid wrong decisions regarding your child's education

Holding this topic for a while will help those who will get here late to catch up.



TEACHING KIDS TO READ EARLIER WITH SIGHT WORDS

This method is very popular amongst schools that want their pupils to read very early and parents who want to provide a learning advantage for their children.
Children exposed to sight words read before their mates. If you give your child that special advantage at home, in their classes, they will shine like a million stars. They will become the focus of attraction, attention, love, and privileges. Remember, you can't shoot down a shooting star. Nobody ever did.
This method has many names viz
look-say,
whole-word,
whole-language approach,
sight-words,
service-words,
high-frequency words, etc.

According to Wikipedia "sight words, often also called high frequency sight
words are commonly used words that
young children are encouraged to memorize as a whole by sight so that they can automatically recognize these words in print without having to
use any strategies to decode them."
Sight/high frequency words were developed from the research work started by Edward William Dolch in Britain in the 1930s. He presented a list of 220 words plus 95 high frequency nouns that make up 80% of the words you
would find in a typical children's book and 50% of the words found in writing for adults.
His list was reinforced by the in-depth collaborative research list of 1000 high frequency words compiled by Dr
Edward B. Fry in 1996, 1his American research found that;

Just 25 words make up approximately 1/3 of all published text,

100 words make up about 50% of all published text, and

300 words make up 65% of all written material

Wikipedia further says; "the advantage for children being able to recognize sight words automatically is that a beginning reader needs to recognize 50-75% of words at a beginning of any text before they attempt to read the material.
The child will not have to stop and process (think about) every single word; this allows children more time to concentrate on the meaning as they read and write.
Advocates of sight word instruction believe that being able to read many sight words automatically by sight contributes dramatically to fluent reading and is the best way to unlock the meaning of any text. As children begin to develop a store of sight words, they find learning new sight words easier. As a child acquires more sight words, his/her confidence will grow". Recognizing sight words automatically is helpful for beginning readers because many of these words have unusual spelling patterns, cannot be sounded out using basic phonics knowledge, and cannot be represented using pictures.
It is also of note that these words are already in the
children's vocabulary, hence it is easy for them to relate to and memorize their written forms. Research studies have shown that children taught with this method have higher reading levels than children
learning reading through only the phonics method. This is because they learn to automatically recognize a small selection of words. Combined with phonics instructions, a perfect reader is molded.
In advanced countries, many materials aid the teaching of sight words. We don't have them here. Where you chance to find them they cost a chunk.
As we progress, I will instruct you of a no-cost method you can easily use at home to teach your child sight words