One For The Suitcase

A Fast Language Activity For The School Holidays

Looking for a quick ‘easy to pack in a suitcase’ language activity

for your children for the school holidays?

Well..… here it is.

152 of the most used words that make up about 25% of all words used in the English language. Help your child to learn these by sight and they will be well on their way to reading a quarter of all the text on a page. This will provide them with a great head start when school starts back.

Here’s what you will need:

Flashcards of 152 of the most used words

Download those here, print them out and cut them up.

A checklist of the words so you can mark off the ones that your student has mastered.

Download that here.

Some envelopes for each set of flashcards, a pencil or pen – Get those from your home office or your local retail outlet.

Here’s what to do:

Put each set of words from each sheet in order in a separate envelope. Number the envelope in order from the easiest to the hardest words. Start with the Number 1 and so on…
Start your student with the 5 easiest words first – Put these 5 flashcards in an envelope marked with the word ‘Learning’.
On a second envelope write the word ‘Mastered’.
Now your student must be able to recognise each word 5 times ‘by sight’ on 5 separate occasions (with at least an hour between each session) before the word can be relocated to the mastered envelope. You can indicate each success on the back of each sight word flashcard with a separate tick.
Once a word has 5 ticks on the back replace it with a new word in the ‘Learning’ envelope for the next sight word session. Your student should only be learning 5 words at a time.

Note for Parents: Recognising a word by sight should take no longer than about 3 seconds. It is not about using phonics to sound a word out, but having a memory strategy to recognise a word by sight almost instantly. If you child cannot do this, and some can’t, because they do not have a good sight memory, then use coloured highlighters to chunk words, slashes for syllables or the like to provide them with a visual cue they can use to help them to remember a word for the future. The idea is to provide a ‘bridge of support’ when an activity proves too difficult for them.

Your children will love to have one-on-one time with you regardless of the activity. Why not choose a great book to read to them over the holidays as well.

Enjoy the break!

Best wishes,

Liz Dunoon