What are Sight Words?

Here, we will be discussing “What are Sight Words” in detail along with the sight word definition, examples, properties and their importance. Needless to say, Sight Words for Kids are extremely beneficial to phrase meaningful sentences for effective communication. These words will enhance your child’s comprehension and other important skills required for conversing and interpreting information appropriately. To enhance their language skills, you can explore common sight words for kids. At the beginning of their learning process, these sight words will enable them to communicate with others efficiently. 

To make them practice sight word sentences, start with short and simple sentences. For example, I am going to Market, I like to eat ice cream, This is my toy, etc. These sight words for kids will enable them to grasp the sentences quickly with complete understanding of the communication that they want to convey. The first sight words for kids will include It, Is, In, The, etc so that they can start using these frequently used words in the sentences. Apart from recognition, they should also know the sight words definition so that they will know the meaning  of the words that they are using while communicating. At the beginning, explore preschool school sight words for kids.  

Sight Words Definition For Kids 

If you are wondering what sight words mean, we are here to help. Ever noticed that we come across some words more often than other words? What are these words called? The words that are frequently used in the sentences for meaningful communication. These words are known as Sight Words.

What’s a sight word? Sight words are basically the words that appear more frequently than other words in our reading and writing materials. These words occur so often that the learners are expected to recognize them easily and quickly. Sight words are not easily represented by images or graphics. They are not often linked to any particular subject. That is why we find them repeatedly in various parts of texts, irrespective of the topic the texts are based on. Teaching these words for kids will enable them to become proficient readers. 

Sight word recognition is crucial to becoming a fluent and persuasive reader. The more you know about the commonly used words, the better you become at reading. The first sight words are the ones that even kids are expected to be familiar with. They should be able to quickly recognize these words so that they can put in more effort to understand the meanings of other words that are actually used less often and thus, are tougher.

List Of Sight Words For Kids 

a	I	is	am	in	on
the	am	me	my	we	you
and	are	it	not	to	up
an	our	his	him	her	she
at	he	do	did	they	but
are	them	with	if	of	say
what	why	where	how	when	who
has	have	had	look	so	then
from	yes	no	please	come	go
up	down	out	does	can	could
thank	some	any	by	there	than
always	never	around	been	be	best
sit	their	help	big	may	here
said	give	know	eat	us	very
about	date	nice	much	also	many

Properties Of Sight Words

Here are certain characteristics of sight words in English language as mentioned below: 

• Sight words are high-frequency words and thus appear highly often in text or speeches. 
• Most of the sight words are words that provide a sense to a sentence and the text as a whole. 
• They are majorly helping verbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs and adjectives.
• Sight words are not very easy to represent through images or videos. (How can one explain ‘the’ or ‘it’ or ‘am’ through pictures!)
• Sight words are often phonetically quite random. You won’t find sight words very consistent in terms of the way they are pronounced. Some of them go in line with the usual rules of phonetics while others don’t.
• These are basic sight words that can only be recognized and memorized. 
• Sight words give meanings to the information that you want to convey.
• There is an increase in the fluency of the language by using sight words appropriately. 
• Though the words seemed to be small but have more weightage in terms of meaning. 

For example, the pronunciation of sight words ‘in’ and ‘it’ are similar – both having a short ‘i’ sound in their pronunciation. But, the pronunciation of the sight words ‘so’ and ‘to’ are way different – while ‘so’ has an ‘o’ sound in its pronunciation, ‘to’ has ‘oo’ sound. That is the reason why sight words are also referred to as trick words. Did you know that sight words are also known as popcorn words? This is because sight words pop-up so very often in texts and speech. 

Few Examples of Sight Words

Some of the most basic sight words are the, to, and, do, did, a, an, in, is, etc. The set of sight words that occur even more frequently are called the first sight words or the beginning sight words. Examples of first sight words can include a, an, the, is, in, on, it, me, my, not, to, up, we, you, etc. When children are exposed to sight words, they are often initially introduced to the first sight words as these are simple and most used. Some of the beginning sight words used in sentences are mentioned below: 

• This is part of a plant.
• I am going to the beach. 
• This is my friend Sam. 
• I have pet dog 
• Do you want a pencil?
• This is a large animal. 
• I went to school in a bus 
• The sun is out. 
• She is playing with dolls. 
• The monkey is here. 
• Can I take this pen? 
• The rose is red. 
• He is cutting nail. 
• My mother is cooking. 
• Can we go to the park? 
• I like to eat apple pie? 
• Is this your house? 
• There are many butterflies in the garden. 
• Do you like shrimp? 
• Do you want to play scrabble? 
• Where is your school? 
• I like to play with my dogs. 
• Can you sing a song? 
• There is a lot of noise here. 
• She ate all the oranges. 

Why are Sight Words Important?

Some of the benefits of learning sight words are mentioned below: 

• Build Vocabulary: As a parent, you must want your child to develop a rich vocabulary.
  The journey of knowing lots of words starts with getting acquainted with a few words. Sight words are the first set of words that children would come across very often and thus, should become a part of their vocabulary soon. 
• Improves reading: The basic idea of categorizing some words as sight words is that these become incorporated in an individual’s reading and writing in such a way that he/she doesn’t have to stop and think about its meaning or pronunciation anymore.
  Sight words become a part and parcel of communication for young children as well, thus, making them more fluent readers. 
• Familiarises with pronunciation: Above everything, sight words are basically words!
  When kids come across them so frequently, eventually they get familiarized with how these words are to be pronounced. 
• Refines writing skills: Most of the things that improve reading skills would automatically have a positive effect on writing proficiency. Essay writing, sentence formation, etc. would obviously need usage of sight words. If kids are thorough with sight words, they will be able to write better. 
• Introduces them to English phonetics: As discussed, sight words have irregular phonetics. When kids are made aware of several sight words, their spellings and pronunciation, they get to know that there can be irregularities in terms of spelling and pronunciation of words. Thus, they get an insight into English phonetics. 
• Helps in communication: In the formative years of children, they need to grasp a lot of information on different things. This needs to be done through communication. Sight words boost kids’ comprehension of information that is imparted to them. 
• Builds confidence among kids: While using appropriate sight words in sentences, there will be clarity in the information that is being conveyed. Eventually, this will build confidence among kids to make effective use of sight words in communication. 
• Provides meaning to the sentences: Sight words will help in giving meaning to the sentence that is being communicated. Without use of appropriate words, the information can be miscommunicated or misinterpreted. Here, sight words play an important role in making meaningful sentences. 

We hope that this article will help you understand the meaning of sight words, examples, recognition of sight words in a sentence, properties and their importance in linguistic comprehension. 

Apart from the above, you may also want to explore Kindergarten Sight Words, Preschool Sight Words, First Grade Sight Words, 2nd Grade Sight Words, 3rd Grade Sight Words and Color by Sight Words. 

Frequently Asked Questions on What are Sight Words?