ANSWER:
Having your child learn sight words is critical to becoming a successful reader. It is an imperative skill which should receive a lot of attention. If your child is progressing through the grades and still seems to be spending too much time on word identification, then your child would benefit greatly from sight word practice....no matter what grade he or she is in.
The purpose of reading is to construct meaning from text. This “meaning” is dependent on the rapid, automatic, and effortless recognition of words. The key word is "automatic". Children must be able to automatically read the most common sight words found in text. As their "bank" of sight words increases, so does their reading success in the areas of fluency and comprehension.....and hopefully a 'love' for reading. This need to build accuracy and speed is critical for at-risk students with reading and learning disabilities.
Automatic sight word recognition allows your child to focus on the more mentally demanding task of reading comprehension, and helps your child make the shift from "learning to read" to "reading to learn." While they will still need to know the skills involved with 'word decoding', those skills will now mainly need to be applied to what is known as 'instructional words' (Tier II Words) or 'content words' (Tier lll Words).
