Free Resources to Teach Your Child to Read

Sight Words

Build speed and fluency in reading by learning to read high-frequency words by sight. Lessons, flash cards, and games provide effective teaching and make learning fun. More

Phonological/Phonemic Awareness

Teach your child to listen for individual sounds within words. This is an invaluable skill that children must develop before they can learn to read. More

Phonics

Play sight words games. Make games that create fun opportunities for repetition and reinforcement of the lessons. More

Handwriting

Learn the history behind Dolch and Fry sight words, and why they are important in developing fluent readers. More
Sightwords.com is a comprehensive sequence of teaching activities, techniques, and materials for the building blocks of early child literacy. This collection of resources is designed to help teachers, parents, and caregivers teach a child how to read and write. We combine the latest literacy research with decades of teaching experience to bring you the best methods of instruction to make teaching easier, more effective, and more fun.
  • Phonological/Phonemic Awareness is the foundation every child needs before diving into letters and spelling. Through our series of games and activities children will learn to listen for the individual sounds within words, which will help tremendously when it is time to start reading.
  • Phonics is blah blah blah important…
  • Sight Words build speed and fluency when reading. Accuracy, speed, and fluency in reading increase reading comprehension. The sight words are a collection of words that a child should learn to recognize without sounding out the letters. The sight words are both common, frequently-used words and foundational words that a child can use to build a vocabulary. Combining sight words with phonics instruction increases a child’s speed and fluency in reading.
  • Handwriting is a vital skill for every child, even in the computer age. Blah blah blah…
This website includes a detailed curriculum outline for each section to give you an overview of how the individual lessons fit together. It provides detailed instructions and techniques to show you how to teach the material and how to help a child overcome common roadblocks. It also includes free teaching aids, games, and other materials that you can download and use with your lessons. Many of the teaching techniques and games include variations for making the lesson more challenging for advanced students, easier for new or struggling students, and just different for a bit of variety. There are also plenty of opportunities, built into the lessons and games, to observe and assess the child’s retention of the lesson. We encourage you to use these opportunities to check up on the progress of your student and identify weaknesses before they become real problems. Help us help you. We want this to be a living resource that is constantly improving. So please provide us with your feedback, both the good and the bad. We want to know which activities worked for your child, and which fell short. We encourage you to contribute your own ideas that have worked well in the home or classroom. You can communicate with us through email or simply post a response in the comments section of the relevant page.