Wild Words

For English language learners, the English language is just complicated! Words have letters that when put together make an entirely different sound or no sound at all. This makes spelling extremely difficult for students in ESL.

As a result, I try to work on sight words as much as possible. My students have such a hard time remembering that these are words that they cannot sound out. They always want to sound it out and then get stuck when they can't figure out what letters make a particular sound. They don't like sight words very much.

In order to make sight words a little more interesting, I've reintroduced them, not as sight words, but as "Wild Words." First, I read the story Animal Strike At The Zoo It's True by  Karma Wilson.

After reading it, I explained that just as some animals in the book didn't want to follow the rules, there are words that don't follow the rules either: sight words. So just as the animals went wild, these words are wild.

Then I went over the sight words we are going to work on this week. Afterwards, I had them spell out two sight words using foam letters. When completed, they had to put their words in a cage because they just won't follow the rules. :) (they had to glue the words on construction paper and then glue the cage on top of them). After placing their words in the cage, they grabbed a sentence strip and used each word in a sentence.

They loved putting their words in the cages. I like to think they enjoy writing sentences. :) Here is the final product: