Learning after school is something we try to do most days but we keep it fun. Making learning a game is my magic trick for my son who is possibly the world’s most competitive 6 year old. I set this sight word game up quickly and had it all ready for him before he got home. I wish I could take all the credit for this idea but it’s spin off from our contributing writer Kim’s amazing letter dominoes post from last year. After you read this one make sure you check it out.
- Gather your materials. You will need some sentence strips, a marker, scissors and a list of about 20 Dolch sight words. We used a mix of levels 1, 2 and 3. Dolch sight words are high-frequency words that are often thought to be best to teach children to read by memorization, not through decoding (sounding out/using other clues like context ).
- I chose some words that I knew would be easy for my son. Some that I wasn’t sure and a few that would take a few seconds to figure out. I always try to boost confidence with some easy, hit right on target for most and challenge him with some as well.
- Cut the sentence strips.
- Draw a line down the middle and write a word on each side.
- Play!
- We played dominoes by placing one card down on the table and flipping the rest over from a pile over until we found a match.
We played on the table because of the terrible light (winter weather is not blog friendly!). But we moved to the floor later where we had much more room to make a bigger and better domino structure. 
- The next game we played with the cards was, even more, fun. Start with one card each on the same spot on the floor or a table with a clear finish line.
- Place all the other cards in a pile.
- Flip the card and when a match is found add it to your line.
- The person to reach the finish line first wins. He was counting to see who was ahead but we were neck and neck!
Repeat! This game got him reading so quickly wanting to hurry up and flip to the next. 
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hahaha, he looks like he is taking the competition aspect so seriously! Well done on motivating him!
Thanks – my husband was like ” Oh he was into that!” which is my goal 🙂
My kindergarten sidekick would love this one! Maybe I’ll put some together using all the paint chips I have lying around the house. Thanks, Allie! Great game idea.
Thanks – I love the term sidekick , I may borrow it 🙂
Great ideas! Thanks so much for sharing. I have a kindergartener that I think will enjoy these and we are always looking for ways to spice up sight word and spelling word work. I love the simplicity of these games and that they will be quick and easy to prepare. I also think these will be a great way to add interest to reviewing past sight word lists to make sure he is retaining the knowledge. I’m sure the lure of a bigger structure will be all he needs to want to add the prior words to the domino stack.
So did you have him read the word before he got to place the domino or how did that work? I think this would be fun for me and my son to try.
Thanks!
Yes – read each word first.
I was just wondering how many tiles you made for each word? This looks like a great idea!!!
Great question – I did 2-4 of each. I was pretty random about it after the initial 2 of each. I would write one set ( and/blue) then start with the 2nd one ( blue/they) and so one and so forth 2 times using the list of words as a check list. Then after that the additional tiles were random.
Thanks for ideas. I just love the Speed Racer.
What a great way to practice sight words and fun too. My son is in kindergarten and they have just started getting tested on sight words. We use a lot of different ways to help with getting familiar with the words.
http://wifemotherfirstlady.com/2013/01/tests-or-assessments-for-kindergartners/
Great tips as always!
Love this! It looks so fun – my students would love it. Thanks for the idea 🙂
This idea works great for second language learning too! Will be trying it in my classroom soon.
Thank you for this! I have an early reader in our youngest son, but he’s also the one that I have to make ALL learning stuff FUN or he thinks it’s boring.
We’ll be doing this next week!
Sounds very very familiar ! Have fun.
I will have to try this withmy 3 year old who has been reading for a year and a half. He will LOVE this activity! Thanks.
This game looks great. Can’t wait to try it!
I love this! I have some third graders in my class who are not at third grade reading level and I think i’m going to try this game with them. I don’t have sentence strips so I may have to end up using index cards instead though.