The Sight Word List
Some words appear so often in reading that you should not have to decode them every time. The, and, is, of, you, was, are, in, on, with. In Urdu: یہ، اور، ہے، کا، آپ، تھا، ہیں، میں، پر، کے ساتھ. These are called sight w…
There is more than one way to understand this. If you have only been taught one, you have been taught less than you deserve.
There is more than one way to understand this. If you have only been taught one, you have been taught less than you deserve.
Some words appear so often in reading that you should not have to decode them every time. The, and, is, of, you, was, are, in, on, with. In Urdu: یہ، اور، ہے، کا، آپ، تھا، ہیں، میں، پر، کے ساتھ. These are called sight words. The job is not to sound them out. The job is to recognise them in one glance, the way you recognise a friend's face from across the bazaar.
If you learn the top fifty sight words in each language, you can already understand more than half of any everyday paragraph. Half. From only fifty words. The rest of reading becomes much lighter once these fifty are automatic.
How sight words enter your head is different from how decoded words enter. Decoded words come through the mouth. Sight words come through the eyes, by repetition. Five exposures, ten exposures, twenty exposures, then suddenly the word is yours forever. There is no shortcut, only repetition.
There is a danger to sight word lists. If you only memorise them in isolation, you can recognise the word but lose its meaning inside a sentence. So after every flashcard pass, read one real sentence with one of those words in it. The card teaches the word; the sentence teaches the life of the word.
Today's habit. Pick five sight word pairs from the list. Make five paper cards. Read them once in the morning, once after school, once before bed. Three passes a day for one week and those ten faces will live in your eyes for the rest of your life.
Estimated time: 12 min