Meet the Sight Words New DVD Series For Learning

As a former first grade teacher who spent a great deal of my days teaching kids to read, I am always on the lookout for great tools to help children develop a sense of literacy. I was more than excited to preview Meet the Sight Words with my 4 ½ year old daughter who is quickly becoming a reader.

Preschool Prep Company’s Meet the Sight Words DVD is designed to help children learn common sight words. Sight words are those that commonly appear in the English language, but are difficult to decode because they don’t follow regular patterns. Recognizing letters, developing decoding strategies to figure out unknown words, knowing what sounds letters make (phonemic awareness) and sight word recognition are all important parts of learning to read.

Meet the Sight Words is 35 minutes of immersion with a set of words. We previewed Meet the Sight Words 1 which teaches children to recognize of, play, it, he you, in, I, to, have, and, a, said, is, the, for and that. Each word is presented in big and bold on the screen and turned around so kids can view it from multiple angles. Then, the letters in the word are transformed into colorful character that acts out scenes to help children remember the word. Finally, the word is seen again in big and bold font before the next word is introduced. All the words that are shown during the lesson are put together for a simple story at the end of the DVD. Each word is highlighted as it is read so children begin to make the connection between the written and spoken word which is crucial for sight word recognition. The story also helps children learn the word in the context of a story.

All kids learn how to read differently and while I thought my daughter would enjoy Meet the Sight Words, she didn’t. She’s a child who loves sitting down with a book and being read to. Her sight word vocabulary has increased dramatically because of the amount of time we spend reading to her and her love of using her LeapFrog Tag, which has helped her become a more independent reader.

Unfortunately, the format of the show didn’t really interest my 4 ½ year old reader. She could already read the words that were part of the first DVD and kept wondering, “When is it going to start?” I was surprised when she said, “Oh, I hate this because it is nothing but words I know,” since she rarely hates anything having to do with reading. She felt that it would be better for her 2 year old brother, “because he doesn’t know how to read.” Indeed her brother was fascinated by the DVD and repeated the words as they were being said and laughed at some of the short skits that featured each words, but he doesn’t have the attention span to sit down to watch something on the screen. He prefers having stories read to him.

Meet the Sight Words is designed for ages 15 months to 6 years. I think it would be worthwhile for children who need active visuals to help them remember common sight words that they will frequently encounter in text, but it wasn’t the right fit for our family.

Meet the Sight Words DVDs are available through the Preschool Prep Company’s website for $14.95.

Written by Leticia, a part time working multitasking mama who loves spending time with her husband and two children, exotic vacations, and cooking great meals. Leticia writes about technology products and technology issues affecting children through her blog, Tech Savvy Mama.