After rereading my 15 awesome literacy ideas I shared last month, I knew that there were definitely one or two that could help Em with some sight words that are causing her a bit of trouble. The, there, then, they all seem to blend together, as do where, when, and what. I know she just sees the first two letters and takes a guess. I thought maybe doing a little fun sight word practice–with a splash of moving around–might motivate her to remember a word or two. So we took an old favorite literacy activity and improved it, and created Step, Hop, Read!
Instead of just drilling Em on sight words, I find it’s much more effective to get her body involved. So I took those tricky words and wrote them on construction paper hearts (since we were still excited about Valentine’s Day). Then I also wrote the alphabet so Little H could get in on the fun.
We scattered them across the floor, and I’d call out a letter for Little H and a word for Em, then tell them how to get there. Hop to the letter M! Skip to the word “where”! The gross motor element really made them laugh and encouraged them to play together and for longer than I would have thought.
Then they’d wait on their word or letter for the next instructions. Learning patience is a great skill for this age, too!
Em was happy to help her sister when she needed a helping hand.
But then Little H made the predicable move of stealing all of the purple hearts, regardless of what was written on them, because purple is her favorite. When she started hoarding the hearts, I knew the game was over. Attention span spent. Back to H’s favorite pastime–sorting.
I was finally able to extricate the words from Little H and left her to happily organize her heart alphabet. Em and I gave her sight words one last go.
This time, playing hopscotch! She would yell the word and then hop over them.
We love to read, and jump, and skip, and play, and it shows!
Now it’s your turn to get reading. Hop to it!
