Sight Words for Dyslexia: A Practical Guide for Parents and Educators

Amanda Unrau
CCC-SLP
06/24/25 | Last modified: 08/06/25

Sight words are important words that are foundational to speech and language development and early reading success. Sight words are words that you can recognize and read instantly when you see them. However, sight words are not easy for everyone to read.

Dyslexia is a learning difference that affects reading, particularly phonological processing, or the ability to use sounds to process spoken and written language. Children with dyslexia require explicit literacy instruction since they are unable to gain these skills independently.

This article will explore how sight word instruction can support children with dyslexia. We will take a look at which methods are most effective.

What Are Sight Words?

Sight words are words that children are expected to recognize instantly. They are high frequency words, meaning that we see these words often when we read. For example, words like the, and, it, and you are common in almost every sentence. 

By recognizing sight words, children can focus on comprehension instead of decoding. These words provide a foundation for more advanced vocabulary and help children read with confidence.

Why Sight Words Are Challenging for Children with Dyslexia

Dyslexia affects phonemic awareness, decoding, and memory, all of which are important in reading. Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate the individual sounds, or phonemes, in spoken words. With phonemic awareness skills, children can manipulate the phonemes in words by blending and segmenting words, both of which are important for reading. 

Children with dyslexia have difficulty recognizing the individual parts of words, which also makes it difficult for them to decode words. Decoding is the ability to use knowledge of letter-sound relationships and sound patterns to read written words. Children use phonological working memory to store phoneme information in a temporary place to be used during reading and phonological awareness tasks. Children with dyslexia have difficulty remembering written words. 

Children use something called orthographic mapping to move from sounding out every word to automatically recognizing sight words. This process involves forming connections between letters, pronunciation, and meaning to store a word in memory. Due to weak memory, children with dyslexia struggle with this process.

The irregular nature of sight words adds another layer of difficulty. These words often contain irregular sounds or spelling patterns that cannot be sounded out like other words. For example, the ‘er’ in “where” and ‘ai’ in “said” do not follow the normal decoding pattern.

Comprehensive Sight Words List

To help children build a strong foundation for reading, it’s essential to familiarize them with a comprehensive list of sight words that they can recognize instantly and use to enhance their reading fluency.

When choosing sight word lists for dyslexic learners, start with more regular words before introducing irregular words. Allow the child to master each word before gradually adding more. This helps children build confidence and without getting overwhelmed.

We have included dyslexia sight words list below, divided into three different levels. 

Best Methods for Teaching Sight Words to Kids with Dyslexia

Below are the best strategies for how to help kids learn sight words. Different methods will work for different children, and you may need to trial or use more than one method. Structured and repetitive strategies lead to improvements over time.

Sight word treasure hunt

As a way to build awareness, go through reading passages or favorite stories with children, and have them identify all the sight words. Have them highlight, underline, or write a list of the words. Then pay special attention to those words as you read the story or passage together. 

Over time, stop reading when you get to that word and see if the child can tell you the missing word. Before they know it, they will be able to recognize those sight words!

Segment sounds

This strategy starts without even looking at a sight word; it is based on sounds alone. Have children identify the individual sounds in each word by tapping each sound with their finger. You can also incorporate manipulatives, such as pom poms, beans, beads, or candies. 

Map sounds to letters

Once children have identified individual sounds of words by segmenting them, they can work on identifying the sound representations, which may or may not be the correct spelling of the word. 

Then you can write the letters that represent each sound, and discuss which parts may be irregular. This is a way to explicitly teach orthographic mapping. 

Use tactile writing

Write words in the air, in sand, or in shaving cream or whipped cream. Create play doh or clay letters to write the word. Just like the act of writing out notes can help adults remember information, using their hands to trace or form the letters of words can help inscribe sight words into their memory.

Add visuals

Another multisensory approach is to incorporate pictures into sight words. Many children are visual learners, and they will be able to retain an image of the word. If you can pair pictures with sight words, they may have a better chance of remembering the word because they can bring that image to mind each time they see the word. 

This could entail creating flashcards with small pictures next to each sight word, or drawing small visuals onto the letter of the word themselves. Children can even help to create the pictures. 

Understand the etymology

Learning the history and meaning of words or parts of words can be especially helpful for learning irregular words. When children understand why a word is spelled a certain way, they will be able to remember it better. They may also begin to notice patterns among different sight words.

Play games

Incorporating games into your sight words teaching strategies keeps children motivated and allows for multiple exposures to high frequency words. One example of a game is to lay out flashcards of sight words and start giving clues to the child about the word. 

For example, tell them the letter it starts with or a word it rhymes with. Continue to provide clues until they can identify the word. If you are working with a group of children, you can display an array of written sight words, and see who can point to the word you say fastest. See who ends up with the most words. You can also play sight word Bingo and have children cover up each word you say until a child yells “Bingo!”

Incorporate tools

Forbrain is a helpful tool to include when teaching sight words. Forbrain is an auditory stimulation headset that the child wears to enhance the auditory feedback loop. It can help children with dyslexia improve their reading skills in several ways. 

Wearing Forbrain helps children remain focused and attentive to the sight words task. It can improve their auditory processing skills since they will be able to hear speech louder and more clearly. This can help to improve memory of the sight words they are learning. 

Final Words

Sight words can be tricky for children with dyslexia to master on their own, but given the right support, they can become successful readers. If you teach, work with, or are parents of children with dyslexia, review the teaching strategies we included to find a few to try with your child or student. 

Keep in mind that multisensory approaches will reach a variety of children, and repetition leads to increased learning. Forbrain can be added to any of the methods you choose, so consider incorporating it as well. 

References

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (Accessed 2025, June 18). Phonological Processing. ASHA. https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/written-language-disorders/phonological-processing/?srsltid=AfmBOor4cIOeLoj2uiugbCN2NvJxufWVxZxZWXrG0vcrEmTT8QoqTO7S

Harrison, Casey. (2021, April 7). Teaching Sight Words by Mapping Speech to Print. The Dyslexia Classroom. https://www.thedyslexiaclassroom.com/blog/teaching-sight-words-orthographic-mapping

Moats, Louisa. (Accessed 2025, June 18). Decoding: The Basics. Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/node/30970

Partnership for Reading. (Accessed 2025, June 18). Phonemic Awareness: An Introduction. Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/phonological-and-phonemic-awareness/articles/phonemic-awareness-introduction

Reading Rockets. (Accessed 2025, June 16). Basics: Sight Words and Orthographic Mapping. Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/reading-101/reading-and-writing-basics/sight-words-and-orthographic-mapping

Stirtz, Toni. (Accessed 2025, June 23). High-Frequency Words and Dyslexia: What Educators Need to Know. Smart & Special Teaching. https://smartandspecialteaching.com/high-frequency-words-and-dyslexia/