A sight word is any word that is known by a reader automatically. Sight words are the basis behind the whole-word approach to reading education. Some have suggested that sight words and the whole-word approach to reading are a significant teaching technique considering 65% of the population identify themselves as visual learners . However, the majority of recent educational research suggests that phonetic based learning strategies are more effective for languages written with alphabets, such as English. Small children are also predominantly visual learners and can therefore learn to read more effectively using sight words and the whole-word approach, if their language has an ideographic or syllabic writing system, such as Japanese or Chinese. Scientific studies have also shown that children with learning difficulties such as Dyslexia, Autism or Down syndrome are also visual learners, and therefore also read words as pictures . In learning to read via the sight words, readers begin to understand that a word represents a 'thing'.
Sight words are pronounced without decoding the word's spelling. Effectively, an alphabetic writing system is made into an ideographic writing system. Unfortunately, speakers of ideographic languages have to spend a much longer time learning to read because of the sheer volume of symbols they must memorize. A common first sight word is a child's given name. Beginning readers are at an advantage when they learn to read sight words that occur frequently in print such as those included on the Dolch and Fry word lists. However, it is possible to read a word on sight but not know the meaning of the word. For example, a child might be able to read on sight "there, their and they're" but not understand the differences in meaning. Thus learning words by sight only should not be seen as a complete reading solution.
In phonics instruction, sight words refer to common words where one or more phonemes in the word has a unique spelling that cannot be sounded out using common phonics rules (for example: aunt, friend, and sieve). Reading researcher Diane McGuinness estimates that there are approximately 100 common words in English which fit this description, and require specific word-level memorization.[1] This number is far less than the 220 sight words listed on the Dolch word list.
Sight words are also words having very high frequency of usage particularly in early stage of learning to read. They become familiar due to very frequent occurring and are remembered through vivid memory and sound associated with them. This process can be better understood as NLP.
Durkin, D. (2004). Teaching them to read. [sixth edition] Boston: Pearson of Allyn & Bacon