Over the last week, I have been working with Dexter, who just turned six, on his reading skills. We have this great set of Lego Star Wars phonics books that we bought him, and he has been going through them, sounding out each sight word beautifully. But I do find that it’s sometimes hard to get him to pay attention because he wants to just get through the story, and he isn’t always so concerned with actually reading. As such, he tries to guess each word instead of sounding it out.
I decided that the best thing I could do was to create some sight words flash cards that would help him to memorize a few of the most often appearing words so that he can begin the process of putting sentences together.
In all honesty, I’ve been amazed at his progress. He’s recently had his mid-year testing done, and our parent teacher conference was very telling. He has come a LONG way since the beginning of the year, and he is way ahead of where he used to be. But that doesn’t mean he’s caught up to the rest of his class. In fact, he’s significantly behind them.
Because of his early hearing loss, for which he had surgery at almost three years old, he has been massively delayed in his learning skills. He’s never gone to preschool, nor had any therapy leading up to starting kindergarten, so he was off to a harder start than others. But he’s done so well this year to better himself, and we are so proud. To put it in perspective, though, his little brother, Dan – who just turned four – can read almost as well as he can. He knows all his letters and their sounds, and he can sound out two- and three-letter words amazingly well.
So basically, we are now working hard with both kids to help them to reach their full potential. For Daniel, I guess he will be ahead of his peers, or at least on par with them when he starts kindergarten in a year and a half. And for Dexter, we are hopefully going to be able to enable him to catch up to his classmates as quickly as he can. I know he has the rest of the year to learn as much as they can teach him. He has a wonderful teacher, and he loves her class. The rest is up to us.
With that in mind, I decided to share these printable flash cards so that others can print them off and use them to help their own kids. These are some of the most common sight words, and they are perfect to begin at preschool level. But they are also great for 5 – 8 year olds who may struggle with reading.
Please feel free to click on each worksheet for the pdf to print out. I suggest using card stock to print them on, but you could also use regular printer paper and use self-adhesive laminating sheets to laminate each card to make them more sturdy.
I hope these can help someone else.
Please feel free to share this post with anyone who may need it. My aim is to help other parents to help their children learn to read more easily.
Kimm at Reinvented says
March 3, 2017 at 1:00 pmMy daughter is a preschool teacher and just loves sight word cards. They really do wonders.
Thanks for sharing at Funtastic Friday!
Julie says
July 26, 2017 at 1:35 pmThanks ! Very helpful. Just what I was looking for ^^ .
Michelle McIntosh says
December 28, 2017 at 1:03 amThank you so much! This is just what I was looking for for my six year old son who likes to guess the words instead of sounding them out. I plan to laminate them and post them around the house for him and my 4 yr. old to see every day.
Angela says
January 17, 2018 at 10:45 amThank you so much for sharing these and allowing them to be used by others for free!
Rizvana says
February 4, 2018 at 3:07 amThank you!!!!
Jennifer Baker says
February 16, 2018 at 7:32 pmThank you for your generosity both in heart and words.
Keisha says
March 24, 2018 at 12:39 pmThank you for sharing your story and the flash cards!!
Maribel says
March 25, 2018 at 3:41 amThank you so much
Brenda Kang says
April 3, 2018 at 9:18 pmThese fresh cards will be very useful for my students. Thank you so much!!!
Mary Roselle Cal says
April 25, 2018 at 8:26 amThanks! this is very useful for my kids.im looking for this printables because I’m teaching my 2 kids at home.thanks somuch!
Vani says
June 1, 2018 at 10:51 pmThank you, the cards are clear and visible and very helpful
Teri Chinski says
June 28, 2018 at 9:39 pmI don’t seem to be able to print these wonderful cards. I have clicked on everything and nothing happens.HELP!!
Katie Reed says
June 30, 2018 at 3:03 pmHi Teri,
You should be able to just click on any of the card pictures, and it will open a pdf file with that color card. Then just print and go! I hope that helps!
Becky Kenney says
August 26, 2018 at 7:43 amHi. Is there a way to make the cards editable? I love the cards, but would like to add my own words.
Becky
Katie Reed says
August 28, 2018 at 1:21 pmHi Becky,
There are some blank cards included so that you can write on them whichever words you want. Unfortunately that’s the best I can do for now. I hope they are useful!
prerna says
July 3, 2018 at 10:30 pmHi I see some blank cards at the end… I need some sight words that are not there. pls can you tell me how we can edit and write on the blank ones. sight words I need are :
me, saw, away, take, too, our, off, just, went, must, only, here, came, where.
Katie Reed says
July 9, 2018 at 8:46 pmHiya!
I added in the blank ones so you can just write on them once they are printed. I hope that helps!
Andrea says
July 17, 2018 at 12:32 amThank you so much – these are really helpful!
Peter Bouvier says
July 31, 2018 at 5:59 pmI shall use these in my ESL class immediately! Thank you!
Michaela says
July 31, 2018 at 9:12 pmThank you so much for the wonderful printables!!!! Hope Your son is doing Well!
Jocelyn says
August 8, 2018 at 4:25 amA big thanks! I will use these in my class.
pam says
August 20, 2018 at 4:00 pmthank you so very much
De says
September 6, 2018 at 12:49 amThis is Awesome! Thank you very much!!
Erica says
September 17, 2018 at 6:33 amTHIS is exactly what I was looking for!! Thank you so much.
Mary says
October 2, 2018 at 6:26 pmWow! These are wonderful! How grateful I am that you offered these for free! Thanks so very, very much!
Cathy says
October 5, 2018 at 9:51 amA HUGE THANK YOU for these COLORFUL Sight Word FLASH CARDS!!!! 🙂
Nayoung Myoung says
November 27, 2018 at 1:47 amI was looking for some flash cards.
Thank you very much!
kim says
January 28, 2019 at 2:30 pmhi! these are great, what grades do these cover? (i need PK – 3) 🙂
Katie Reed says
January 28, 2019 at 6:18 pmThese are great for PK – 3, though most kids will learn these in 1st grade. 🙂 They are good practice for struggling readers, though, as they get older.
Carolyn George says
February 13, 2019 at 12:21 pmThe page won’t load properly for me for some reason. Is there a way to have you send me the link to the free printable sight word flashcards?
Sarah says
February 23, 2019 at 8:06 pmThank you these are wonderful!
Tamika says
March 27, 2019 at 2:53 pmDo you have a blank template of these sight word cards? My son like these and I wanted to be able to add more words with the same card style. Thanks.
Katie Reed says
April 2, 2019 at 8:44 pmHi Tamika,
There is a set of blank cards included that you can use to write your own on. I hope that helps!