We all know that English is not a phonetic language. Not every word can be read or written phonetically. Therefore, no reading knowledge is complete without learning the non-phonetic words. Once the child has got the hang of alphabets(phonetically) and started reading the 3 letter words, we can start working with sight words. The way to do this is, to teach a the child to recognize them through sight. We will start with only the essential words. Don't worry, children are very quick at it. We know that most young kids recognize the "M" from the MacDonald's sign. This is reading through sight. We will use this strength to teach them sight words.
Some, early sight words are: this, that, he, she, it, a, and, go, here, I, be, am, do etc. There are many more that you can find online. Make one flash cards for each sight word(write the whole word on one card). Other steps are much like you followed for letters from my previous posts.
Once you have your flash cards ready, start by introducing only a few at a time. E.g. "This", "is" and "a". Once the child has understood these, you can start building sentences: "This is a b-a-t", "This is a d-o-g", "This is a p-e-n" etc. Repeating the sight words will make the memorizing easier. The next day, you can continue by introducing one more; like "That". The continue by making sentences like, "That is a b-a-t", "That is a p-i-n" etc. Keep going...Soon, your child will reading sentences.
