As I mentioned, last week, I am beginning an "experimental" stage of my educating role. I am working with sight reading over phonics, just to see if it both helps my "early reader", and also if it kickstarts my non-reader. So far, it's been going well! It's instantly giving my reader a lot of courage, and she is fast identifying the sight words she had previously struggled to identify. That ALONE I consider success! Add to that the enthusiastic and speedily gained ability of my non-reader, to identify several of the words we have been learning, and you have a double whammy of early success. Without a doubt, the use of repetition, and picture association, helps massively. I think my non-reader could almost tell you it by memory. I'm no dozer, though. That is NOT reading - that's memorising. He CAN, however, identify words if you ask him out of context. Enter my newly created, printed, and laminated word "strips". I figured that if repetition was undoubtedly going to be a key factor in this new reading malarkey, then I was going to make it fun and interesting! As my non-reader can't write, I needed a non-written way to reinforce. The printed words, for him to replicate the sentences, seemed the obvious choice. We sat together, looking back over the reading he had done. I spread the words out on the floor (yes, the floor - who needs tables, right?...) and he was to find them for himself, and copy the sentences from the book. I had TOTALLY forgotten how much joy and EXCITEMENT this kinda' thing can create for a small person - how incredibly thrilled and overjoyed he was to copy the sentences for himself! It was a huge hit, and he would have stayed up all night copying all the sentences in the book, but, alas, it was bedtime! Mean mother, making him SLEEP, instead of WORKING! Yes, I forgot, also, how they don't realise it's work, to begin with - I DO remember that fazes pretty jolly quickly.... In the meantime, I am going to enjoy pressing on with this approach, and seeing these two little treasures learn to read! I'm all for spreading joy, so if you think it may be of use to you, I have created a printable for you, of the words used in set "1" of the Key Words Ladybird reading scheme. Not everyone has these books, but I know they are out there, used by many over the years! I will list the words for you, so you know if they will be useful in your own education setting, before you bother to download them. I will also create more as we go through, so, by the time we are at the last set of books, you would have most of the commonly used "sight words" to print and use. I have created the printable over 4 pages, to include repeats of the more commonly used words, so there are plenty to use. Just click on the image to get to the document, then print it off as you need it. I hope they are of use to someone! I will continue to update as we carry on with the Key Words scheme - so far, so good!