Sight Words Australia assists children to improve their decoding skills of everyday and complex words. The program works using the model of ‘I do, we do and you do’.
The app narrates the word (I do), press replay and say it with the narration (we do) and then the student has the opportunity to say the word themselves (I do), before moving onto the next word.
The voice narration of the words may assist children to recognise words during reading and develop the ability to pronounce words correctly improving their accuracy. The program is appropriate for individual and small group activities.
Unlike its competitors Sight Words Australia, is suitable for students in kindergarten to senior primary. The words in each group start off small and as you work through the groups the words become more complex. The word sets have been carefully selected so with each complex list there should be a word that is familiar. This is because we want our children to have some success so they are left feeling like they have accomplished something rather than nothing.
The school version has a testing component without the narration, which may be suitable for diagnostic and/or formative assessment purposes. During the testing the student will need to state the word and the teacher or teacher aide will select correct or incorrect. At the end of the test the results can be emailed or the other option is to use the assessment checklist available through the app to download for your records. This works especially well when a teacher aide is working with a student individually.
If there is a particular word that needs to be practised, the program allows you to test using ‘my own words’. This may be helpful if you want to work on particular words that are not on the list, for example; plurals and past, present and future tense verbs.
Text and background colours can be set to cater for students who require certain colour and/or shades to support their learning needs for example, students who are Dyslexic and those who have Irlen syndrome.
21st Century Learning for 21st Century Children.
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