Sight words, popcorn words, high frequency words, or any other term that teachers choose to call them, are often a major part of a primary reading program. These words are words that children should learn to read by sight. The child should immediately be able to recognize and say the words without much given thought process or phonemic principle. It is important to teach sight words to students for two main reasons. First, some words cannot be read through decoding or phonemic rules. Second, some words appear in text so frequently that there is a great need for speed when reading them.

In many cases, words on a sight word list will be words that do not follow the normal spelling or phonics rules that accompany reading. Because these words cannot be sounded out by the student, the student has no choice except for to simply memorize and read the words by sight. Words such as these that are very common on primary level lists are the, of, to, what, and said. These words do not follow any rules that are taught through aphonics program. Teachers use basic memorization skills for teaching these words.

In other cases, the words on the sight word lists are decodable and can be sounded out following the rules of phonics. However, the words are so commonly seen in passages of text that students would lose much reading time by sounding them out each time that the word arises. Words that most commonly found on primary lists that fall into this category are: like, can, is, and, he, see and she. A phonic principle can be related to each of these words. However, they are so frequently seen in text that students should not need to stop and sound them out when reading.

Recognizing basic sight words helps lay a foundation of reading for the students. Many simple readers are based on sight word recognition. Learning these words by sight allows for students and teachers to focus on reading fluency and reading expression rather than phonemically reading words. When a student can successfully read a passage containing many sight words without pausing continuously to sound out words, then the teacher can move the student further into comprehension and other reading skills.

When teaching a child to read, it is important to place value on both sight words and phonics. The two often go hand in hand in most reading programs. Students learn to read using a combination of sounding out words and reading them by sight.

Recognizing and reading sight words can give students a feeling of reading success before they have mastered blending sounds that is required for reading other words. There are several games designed to help students remember sight words. In fact, many teacher resource books are devoted to teaching sight words and seeing successful gains in word recognition.

If a child is excelling in phonics, you will still want to spend the time to review site words so that it is easier for them to read simple stories and books. Something as simple as using flash cards to review common words can do the trick.

It has even been found that many older students who struggle with reading have difficulty recognizing basic sight words because they are an essential element of reading well.

The foundation that sight words provide for early readers carries over into the success that the students experience in the future.