60 Fun Ways to Practice Sight Words at Home

Learning new sight words can become tedious and challenging for kids. Here are some fun and easy ways to help your kids practice sight words at home.

This post may contain affiliate links and I may earn a small commission when you click on the links.

Card Games for Sight Word Practice

Memory: Spread out sight word cards face down on the table. Play concentration by taking turns turning over 2 cards and trying to create a match. Whoever collects the most pairs of sight words is the winner.

Go Fish: Use 2 sets of sight word flash cards to play Go Fish. In this variation on the classic game, kids take turns asking for a word card from their opponent to try to make a match. If the opponent has the card, they read the word out loud and put the matching cards down on the table. If not, they can draw a card from the fish pond. Whoever makes the most matches is the winner.

Sight Word Boom: To play this sight words game, write each of your child’s words on a piece of paper. Write the word “BOOM” on several pieces of paper as well and shuffle the deck. Players take turns drawing cards and reading the word. If they can read the word, they get to keep the card- but if they draw a “BOOM,” they have to put all the cards back. The first player to accumulate 5 or 10 cards is the winner.

Variation of Sight Word Boom: You can also play Sight Word Boom with dice. On each turn, players roll a die. They draw that number of cards and read them one at a time. If they draw a “BOOM,” they must stop reading cards and put back the number of cards they rolled on the die.

Who Has More: Challenge your child to read as many sight word cards as they can. If they know the card, they get to keep it, and if not, you do. Whoever has the most cards wins.

Indoor Sight Word Activities

Word Find: See if your child can find their Dolch words in picture books or magazines. You can even use a catalog or piece of junk mail for this. Try asking your child to circle the words that they find.

Write a Story: Another great sight word activity is to ask kids to write a story using some of their sight words. Young readers can also tell a story for you to write down. Then, help your child find and circle their sight words in the story.

Roll and Read: Make a die out of paper or get a large dry-erase die. Write a sight word from your child’s list of words on each side. Then, take turns rolling the die and reading the words.

Word Wall: Write a few sight words on a large piece of paper to make a word wall. Practice them a few times per day. Add more words to the wall as your child continues learning.

Related Post: Kindergarten Sight Words

More Fun Sight Word Activities and Games

Practice Sight Words While Playing

Sight Word Parking Lot: Use tape to create a parking lot for toy cars. Write a sight word inside each parking space. Call out a sight word and ask kids to park a toy car in the matching space.

Sight Word Pancakes: Write your child’s sight word on brown circles of paper. Call out a sight word and ask your child to use a spatula to “flip” the corresponding pancake.

Sensory Bins: Make a sensory bin by filling a large tub with rice, sand, or even seasonal items like dried corn in the fall. Bury your child’s sight word cards in the box. As they dig to discover the cards, they can practice reading the words.

Light Up Words: Write your child’s sight words on index cards and tape them to a wall. Turn off all the lights. Your child can shine a flashlight on the words and read them. Or, quiz your child by telling them a sight word and asking them to find it with their flashlight beam.

Activities to Practice Spelling Sight Words

Magnetic Letters: Use magnetic letters to spell a sight word, and ask your child to read it. Or, you can ask them to make the words. You can stick the magnets to your refrigerator, or a cookie sheet or metal lunchbox if you’re on the go. This is a great activity for helping kids notice the differences between similar words.

Sight Word Tower: Write letters on Legos or other building blocks. Kids can stack the letters to build their sight words. Or, write a different sight word on each block. As you call out words, kids can find them and add them to the tower. (You can also write the letters on tape and tape them to the blocks if you want to be able to re-use the blocks).

Scrabble: Use Scrabble tiles to build sight words. You can build the word and ask your child to read it or ask your child to build the word themselves.

Sight Word Cookies: Make a batch of sugar cookies. Use alphabet cookie cutters to make letter cookies and use them to spell the sight words. Young children will love to eat their sight words when they are done.

Pool Noodle Word Building: Cut foam pool noodles into pieces and write a letter on each piece. Slide the letters onto a dowel to build sight words.

Edible Sight Words: Help your child write their sight words with M+Ms, raisins, pretzel sticks, or any other food you can think of.

Letter Scavenger Hunt: Write the sight word. Then ask your child to find an object somewhere in the house that begins with each letter in the word.

Bath Sight Words: Use bath crayons to write sight words on the walls of the bathtub.

Fun Sight Word Games

Bingo: Create a BINGO card using common sight words that your child is practicing. Shuffle sight word flash cards and read them one by one. If your child has that word on their card, they can mark it with a bingo marker. Use small edible treats or seasonal items as markers to make the game even more fun.

Tic Tac Toe: To play this fun game, make a tic tac toe board and write a different word from your child’s word list in each square. When you play tic tac toe, ask your child to read the sight word out loud before marking a square. Whoever can get three in a row first wins.

I Spy: Spread out sight word cards. Give your child clues to help them guess which sight word you are thinking of. This is a great activity for helping your child think about their words in new ways.

Use a Timer: How many words can your child read before the timer goes off? Keep track of their total and then try to improve the score with multiple attempts. You can also increase motivation by making a video of the attempt for your child to watch when they’re done.

Use Sight Word Practice Worksheets

Sight Word Practice Worksheets are a great way to help kids learn new sight words. They can be used independently for review as well.

Active Sight Word Games

Sight Word Path: Spread out your child’s sight word flashcards along the floor to make a path. Ask your child to walk from one end of the path to the other, stepping only on the cards. Spread out the cards to make a fun physical challenge while practicing high frequency words!

Sight Word Swat: Spread out sight word cards on a table. Call out sight words. Your child can use a fly swatter to swat the sight word that they hear.

Sight Word Twister: Tape sight word flashcards to each of the colored dots on a Twister mat. As your child moves to each of the dots, ask them to read the sight words.

Sight Word Fishing: Put tape, magnets, or velcro on sets of sight word cards. Put the cards in an empty wading pool or large container. Make a fishing rod and ask your child to fish for sight word cards. When they collect a card, they can practice reading the word.

Moving Alphabet: Write down a sight word. Then, challenge your child to make each of the letters in the word using their whole body.

Practicing Sight Words by Running, Climbing, and Jumping

Frog Pond: Choose a small group of sight word flashcards and spread them out on the floor. Call out a word and ask your child to jump on that word. You can also write your words on the sidewalk or driveway with sidewalk chalk and play this game outside.

Climb the Stairs: Write sight words on sticky notes or index cards. Put one on each step of a staircase. Ask your child to climb the stairs one at a time, while reading the word on each step.

Sight Word Race: Put a stack of sight word flashcards on a table or chair at one end of a room or hallway. Sit on the floor at the opposite end. Ask your child to run across the room, grab one flashcard, bring it back, and read it. Repeat for the rest of the flashcards.

Related Post: Sight Words vs. Phonics: Which One Is Best?

Sight Word Hide and Seek Games

Sight Word Search: Hide sight word flashcards around the room. Then play sight word hide and seek and ask your child to find the cards. When they find each card, they can bring it to you and read the word.

Egg Hunt: Put sight word flashcards inside plastic eggs. Hide the eggs for your child to find. When they find each egg, ask them to open it and read the word inside.

Words Around the House: Write your child’s sight words on cards and tape them around the house. In this easy activity, whenever your child passes the words, invite them to tap the card and say the word. The whole family can join in with this simple game.

Secret Password: Choose a word of the day to be the secret password. Post the password on a large size piece of paper on one of the doors in your house. Every time someone goes through the door, they need to read the password.

Tossing, Throwing and Catching to Practice Sight Words

Frisbee: Write each of your child’s sight words on a paper plate. Then set up a pillow or couch cushion to make a target. After your child reads each word, they can throw the paper plates like frisbees towards the target.

Beach Ball Words: Blow up a beach ball. Use a permanent marker to write one sight word on each colored section of the ball. Play throw and catch with the beach ball. Ask your child to read the word that their right hand is touching each time they catch the ball.

Ring Toss: Spread out word cards from your word wall on a table or floor. Kids can take turns tossing checkers, math counters, pennies, or other small objects and trying to get them to land on the card. If they can read the word, they get a point.

Sight Word Target Practice: Draw a target on a large sheet of paper. You can tape the paper to the wall or put it on the floor. Then, ask your child to throw soft foam balls or rolled-up socks at the target. They can practice reading the words as they hit the target.

Outdoor Sight Word Games

Sight Word Hopscotch: This is a great way to practice sight words while getting some activity outside! Draw a hopscotch board on a sidewalk or driveway with sidewalk chalk. Then, as your child jumps, ask them to read the words that they land on. You can also do this activity inside if you make the hopscotch board out of painter’s tape or masking tape on the floor.

Squirt the Word: Write your child’s sight words on the driveway with sidewalk chalk. Then, give your child a small spray bottle full of water. Your child can read each word and then squirt it with the squirt bottle.

Sight Word Soccer: To play this sight word game, tape sight word flash cards onto play cones or plastic cups. Challenge your child to kick a soccer ball and knock down the cones. As each cone is knocked down, your child can practice reading the sight words.

Sight Word Bowling: Write words from your child’s list on plastic cups. Set up the cups like bowling pins and invite your child to knock them over with a soft ball. After the round of bowling is complete, your child can collect the cups and test their reading skills by practicing the sight words.

Crafts and Art Projects

Invisible Sight Words: Use a white crayon to write your child’s sight word on a piece of paper. They can paint the paper with watercolor paints to make the sight word appear.

Alphabet Stamps: Kids can use a set of alphabet stamps to stamp their sight words. Using a washable ink pad is the best way to minimize mess during this activity.

Sight Word Collage: Use scissors to cut out sight words, or letters, from magazines. Kids can use a glue stick to glue the letters on a piece of paper to form their sight words. Or, they can make a collage with all the sight words they found.

Finger Paint: Kids can use finger paint to write their sight words.

Popsicle Sticks: Kids can use popsicle sticks to build their words. They can glue the popsicle sticks to a piece of paper when they are finished.

Pasta Collage: Help your child use dry alphabet pasta to spell their sight words. This activity also works well with alphabet cereal. This is a great hands-on activity for younger kids.

Pom Poms: Write common words from your child’s list in large letters on a piece of paper. Then, your child can glue pom poms on the letter to make a fuzzy version of their words.

Glitter Writing: Write tricky sight words on paper or index cards, and trace the words with a thin line of white glue. Shake glitter over the whole paper, and then tip the paper into a pan so the glitter slides off the paper and sticks to the sight word. When the glue dries, the resulting word will be a fun tactile way for kids to explore their sight words.

Fun Sight Word Activities for Writing Words

Sidewalk Chalk: Your child can use sidewalk chalk to write their words on the driveway or sidewalk.

Stencils: An alphabet letter stencil is a great tool for helping kids practice writing their words in different ways.

Play Dough: Form the letters of the sight word using long thin pieces of playdough. You can also flatten out the playdough into a large sheet with a rolling pin and write sight words in it with a toothpick. Pipe cleaners, wiki sticks, and even Twizzlers also work well for this activity. This is a great way to practice fine motor skills too.

Sensory Writing: Put salt on a tray and ask your child to write their Dolch words in the salt. Other fun sensory play ideas for sight word writing include shaving cream and whipped cream.

Sticks in the Dirt: Go outside and ask your child to write their sight words in the dirt (or in the sand in a sandbox) using a stick or their finger.

Trace, Cover and Check: Fold a piece of paper to make 3 columns. Write the high-frequency words that you are practicing in the first column. Ask your child to trace the word. Then, fold the paper so the word is covered and ask your child to write the word. Finally, unfold the paper and check to see if they spelled it correctly. Make any needed corrections in the third column.

Which Activity Will You Try?

These fun ideas are the perfect way to help your kids remember their sight words, no matter their grade level. What are your favorite ways to practice sight words with your child? Using engaging activities like these to teach sight words in new and creative ways will help your kids have fun learning and remember their words better too.