This entry talks about a method I developed for using flash cards to teach sight words. If you want the background and justification for this method, please read Part 1.
While working with my struggling readers, I made a few observations. Nouns and verbs are easier for them to learn than other kinds of words. The more abstract the words, the harder it is for these students to learn them.
By abstract, I don’t mean Cubism or Dadaism, though those are pretty hard to get your head around. I mean pronouns, and adverbs, and the words we, as adults, would have trouble defining. Give it a stab. Try telling yourself what the word ABOUT means. How about OF?
Anyway, when my students have no problem recognizing the words PENGUIN and NINJA, but can’t tell if they are reading IT, AT, IF, or IS, then I think it’s clear that the nature of a word holds sway over the ease of its acquisition.
To this end, I designed my flash card program so that the meaning of the word and its role in a sentence are given just as much importance as the look of the word. Three things to learn instead of one, yes, but three things that put the word into context, and allow for connections to be made beyond the dolch word list.
To make the flashcards, here’s what you do.
On the front of the card, as with any flashcard, write the word nice and big. With me so far? 😉
Front of sight word card
Now, on the back, write examples of other words that have a similar phonic structure, or make a note about the exceptionality of the word.
For example, you might note that the word WHAT starts the same way as other questions words like WHY, and WHEN. You could also note that the H is silent, and other words like WHITE and WHALE have a silent H.
The next thing to do is write a definition of the word. A good definition will explain what the word means, and how it works in a sentence. It will convey the purpose of the word. This is the REALLY difficult part, because you don’t want a dictionary definition. You want something the student can relate to and understand. And don’t use the word itself in the definition!
BAD: “What is what we use to ask what something is.”
GOOD: “WHAT is a word we use to ask the name of something.”
Or, “We say WHAT when we want to know about something.”
And last, you have the student come up with a sentence that uses the word. Write this sentence on the card, highlighting the word. It is important that your student makes up these sentences. First, because it will immediately tell you if he has any concept of the word – of course he won’t be able to read the word if he doesn’t even have it in his lexicon. Second, the sentence will be something he can connect to, so he can access his schema later. Third, it will be at his vocabulary and grammar level. Fourth, there is a current way of thinking that says students should encode before we ask them to decode. This is encoding at the sentence level.
Details of the back of WHEN flash card
Keep in mind that these are intended for use with students who need remediation. You can certainly use the methodology in a whole class lesson, but the cards themselves are too involved to have a class set, especially since they include generating personalized sentences.
Now, let’s use the cards.
First, see if she can read the word when she sees the front of the card.
Front of Sight word card
Then, flip it over, and discuss the spelling of the word. Point out the features, exceptions, and similar words. After several visits to the card, see if the student can recall the spelling pattern on her own, or if she can read the other words you’re associating.
Next, review the meaning of the word and how it’s used. Again, see if the student can eventually define it herself. It’s okay if she just gives an example of its use, rather than a definition. Remember how hard it was for you to define them when making the cards.
Last, have the student read her sentence from the card. Have her point to each word though, so she isn’t just parroting her words. You can make a new sentence later, if you need to use the cards often.
Details of the back of FROM flash card
Run through several cards repeatedly, over days. As the student becomes more familiar and shows that she has memorized the appearance, features, and use, you can move on to new cards. Remember to revisit old cards to reenforce the learning over time.
Now, I can’t guarantee that this method will work for all students, and students with severe learning disabilities may not benefit from this at all. But I have had success, especially with children who do not learn grammar patterns through osmosis.
As always, you will have to try the method, give it a few weeks, and then test to see if it’s working. If you try this out, please let me know how it went. If you came up with any tweaks, or have a particularly good definition for one of the trickier abstract words, please share.
Mister Reed's Writing 
This is brilliant, Roy! I have been working with some students on sight word recognition and they weren’t making much progress until I started putting the words into a sentence after I’d said them. After reading your post, I will definitely try your method. Context is so important and it makes sense that the student needs to first encode the words. Thanks so much. I’ll let you know how it goes. And, as always, your hunour is greatly appreciated 😏
Thanks, Joanne. And you forced me to remember my password for my site. So, double thanks.
Pretty sure you won’t know your password now even if you check. I love this post. Will share with staff. I work with profoundly deaf kids who sign. They don’t have the “visual” (as you call it) and context is hard (they learn English WHILE learning to read). So sightword knowledge is essential. I had added “give me the word in a sentence” a while back after seeing a teacher do that. But I love the idea of putting all this on their own sight word cards. So great. (If I get time I might also add things like which signs we can use for that word – sometimes one Eng word can be translated with several signs (like IN) and other times multiple English words all use one sign.