When children know a core set of basic sight words their reading becomes more fluent. By the end of kindergarten I hope that each child will be able to quickly recognize many high frequency words. By the end of the year I usually have about seventy to eighty words on the word wall. I have listed fifty of these words below. The words are placed on the word wall so that the children can refer to them when they write in their journals or to their friends. Some of the words are very helpful because they have common endings - they are part of a word family. When children become familiar with certain words, decoding and spelling rhyming words becomes easier. Words that have a common ending pattern have a * next to them. Words that all Kindergarteners need to be able to read by the end of the year are in green.
a, am*, an*, and*, are, at*, big*, best*, can*, come, dad, do, down*, friend, fun*, get, go, has, have, he, house, I, in*, is, it*, like*, little, love, me, mom, my*, nice*, no, not*, play*, said, school*, see*, she, so, the, they, to, up*, want, we, went*, will*, you, your.
