If you are a teacher and are not familiar with The Florida Center for Reading Research please do yourself a huge favor and go to the link now. They have amazing instructional materials for students in grades K-5. I give them full credit for the materials found in the sight words center I am about to share with you.
FCRR has basic fluency practice sheets for students with passages, but I have third grade students who still have not mastered the Dolch sight word lists. There is an activity on the FCRR website that uses common phrases instead of whole passages or individual sight words.
There are two versions of this center. For the first one, I put each phrase on a card so students could practice them like flash cards. There is a record sheet where they can keep track of how many cards they can read in 1 minute. My students use a simple turn-over timer from an old board game. For the second version, I put the phrase papers in a sheet protector along with the record sheet so students can keep track of their practice. This second version let's them practice in the familiar left to right sweep. My strategic readers enjoy this activity and are always asking to practice.
I rarely use commercial games or premade centers. I used to work at a high-end toy store though and sometimes a product would come in that I thought was educationally valuable. This center contains one of those products. Sentence Building is advertised as an ELL activity for students in grades K-2. I think it works just lovely with my low level readers in third grade though. It contains pictures cues and sight words that are perfect for these learners. Instead of purchasing this product, you could make your own using sentence strips cut apart or paint sample cards.
Students use the pieces in the box to build sentences. The cards that link together include words, pictures, and punctuation marks. The pictures are a wonderful challenge because they create a sort of rebus. For an extension, have students use a sticky note and write the picture word on it. Put the sticky notes on the picture card. For a challenge, leave blank spaces and have a friend fill in the blanks either with their own words or with words from the pieces. Students can also copy their sentences onto paper and illustrate them. Have students try to put the sentences in order to create a story.
This activity can be used with content vocabulary or sight words. A student chooses a heart and reads the word written on the heart out loud. Then she reads the labels on the buckets. Put the heart into the bucket that describes a category the word fits into. For a challenge, a partner must use the word in a sentence. Take turns picking hearts.
Instead of hearts, you can also make this center with other holiday shapes and just change the title of the center: shamrocks--Lucky Words, snowman--Winter Words, etc.
