Is teaching sight words a bad idea? DS loves videos and has the baby bumblebee videos memorized. I thought about buying him the "your baby can read" program. www.yourbabycanread.com I have heard that teaching sight words can interfere with phonics later on. But then again I read that autistic kids learn better with sight words. So are sight words a bad idea or a good idea?   As a teacher and therapist, I think it's a great idea. It significantly reduces frustration with early readers, and helps to encourage fluency from early on. However, it must be properly supplemented with other strategies to help children figure out how to sound out other words (ie, phonics.) Yes, my son learnt to sight read from the baby bumblebee videos (and learnt to say the words well also!). Now he is older (3), he continues to enjoy sight reading words and it really seems to help him understand what is going on. For example, I will write a sentence like 'today we went to the park' or 'tom is going to the shop with daddy'. It does help prepare him. A speech therapist, who works with asd kids, suggested I carry a little book round with us and then write what we just did in a short sentence. He loves it and is keen to read. I have been told by other speech therapists (less knowledgeable about asd) not to encourage sight reading because I needed to concentrate on making my son more verbal. I disagree, I think sight reading makes him more verbal, he enjoys it and is learning from it. He also has started trying to sound out words as well. An interest in words is a tool to be used!! I think the baby bumblebee videos are great. They helped my son so much. He was less interested in the 'your baby can read' videos, I don't know why. Good luck. Lots of kids in school learn to read really well using the Edmark program, which is based on sight words.  Some of those kids eventually switch to phonics based programs.  For some, they remain in sight word programs and do well.  It all depends on the child. The truth is ALL OF US read using sight words. NO accomplished readers "sounds words out."  Phonics is great for learning to read (sounding unfamiliar words out) and for teaching the concept of how unfamiliar words can be deciphered. But it's not necessary to learning to read.  Kids need to be taught using the research-based methodology that helps them make progress. If that's a sight word program, fine. If it's a phonics program, fine. The GOAL is to read fluently.  I'd definitely start a little one with sight words and a program is not necessary.  Label things around the house. Knowing sight words gives a child the feeling that he CAN read.  It has nothing to do with whether or not the particular child can use the phonics method later on to learn to attack unfamilar words.  My little girl (NT) was two when she started reading sight words...she is now 4 and loves books both to read and to be read to...she loves the Starfall web site and I think she learned any phonics she has from there...she sounds out unfamiliar words but her sight word vocab is pretty amazing for 4...my son ( age 9) was also an early sight word reader but I dont think he started as early as DD. have you ds check out the starfall website..it is lots of fun   Sight words are important, as they are so frequently used and its very difficult to use beginning phonics on words like THE....WHERE....and so forth. I actually make little homemade PowerPoint stories for my son using the sight words and vocabulary words from school, and put him and his little brother or buddies from class in as teh characters.  It inspires him to keep reading. Wow, I never thought about using PowerPoint for my son. What a GREAT idea. I think it's the PERFECT method for doing Social Stories. Now, if I can figure out how to download photos to my computer, I can "illustrate" the stories with pix of him.  Thanks for the idea! To get back to the topic. When my son was in K, the class started using Edmark. He make RAPID progress. The drawback to Edmark is that, while it teaches sight words very well (it's a research-based reading program that's been around for decades because it works so well with developmentally delayed kids), the stories in the program are very silly and boring.  To combat that, the teacher created individual books for each child using the words THAT child mastered and illustrating the books using stick figures that represented the particular child and his friends and family.  This can be done on the computer nowadays, using real photos!  I never thought of that.  And PowerPoint has tons of clip art that can be accessed, too. Thanks for the idea! Tzoya, I also Google "images" for tiny little photos of Walmart, Target, even some of our favorite restaurants and movies.  Most of those I use for biweekly calendars - these days, he uses the calendars to talk about what he did last week and what he will do in the week upcoming.  Helps him talk to the NT kids at school. PowerPoint rocketh! I think T is basically a sight-word reader, and she has been taught with emphasis on sight words over phonics, to work around her APD.  POWER POINT -- excellent! At our school they use phonics and teach sight words as well.  I think the mix of both works best. Basically, the words learned as sight words are what they call "high frequency words."  The thought being that kids should know high frequency words by sight and then use phonics as a strategy to sound out the other words. [QUOTE=kristys] At our school they use phonics and teach sight words as well.  I think the mix of both works best. Basically, the words learned as sight words are what they call "high frequency words."  The thought being that kids should know high frequency words by sight and then use phonics as a strategy to sound out the other words. [/QUOTE] And of course, many words in our lovely composite language MUST be learned as sight words -- particularly homonyms (remember them???) and irregularly spelled ones! And in T's case, despite Jolly Phonics and all ... she just was not "getting" it!  Now, she can somewhat handle spelling dictation, but she must learn the words by sight, first, even then! My ds learned predominantly with sight words at an early stage, before being verbal. He could point to the word I said in a book, etc. Later, when he was beginning to be verbal and had a good vocab. of site words, we began adding in some phonics. (Phonics Jr. was what we used here at home). Now he reads to the rest of his class and amazes me with words he can read.  My biggest problem at this point is still working on reading comprehension. He does much better when read to/asked orally than on paper. I just wanted to throw that in, because this is an area we have struggled with. I think maybe had I begun earlier to work on that part, he would have done better. Ask the IEP TEam to suggest a research-based reading program that focuses on comprehension. According to both NCLB and IDEA, your child has a right to specialized instruction using research-based methodologies that will help him MAKE PROGRESS.  If he's not making progress in reading comprehension, they IEP Team has to continue trying different approaches until his reading comprehension improves. Hi As a former teacher, when I used to teach the little ones we always had sight words in coloured circles around the room and used to go over them daily. It is an important teaching method for high frequency words and it also helped when teaching kids when English was their second language. With my little darling he often points to words and wants to know what they are; which is basically the same thing.  He knows the sounds individual letters make (he is non-verbal at this stage, but if you make the sound he will point to the appropriate letter) but is no where near up to sounding out whole words so it is an important method of teaching for him. Cheers Alison Sight reading can also be a great tool for children who have a hard time developing expressive language.  i use them all the time to teach my students to answer safety questions.  they have a book of words like "I am 7"  "I live in Sacramento" "My name is___"  and when you ask them a question, they can show you the correct page.  we teach it in dicrete trial first, and then generalize it.  also, if a child needs an assistive communication device, sight reading makes their options more broad.
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