Seven ways to make sight words stick; Kid-friendly ideas that work. Plus: the 100 words 2nd graders should know.

Your kids can read "Spiderman" and "Nickelodeon" backwards and forwards, but have they mastered the basic (and difficult to decode) sight words they'll need to know as they enter the higher grades?

These days, you're preoccupied with the progress students have made since last August (we'd guess it's more than you give yourself credit for!). But the gains you'd still like them to make before June are probably on your mind, too. That's why we're sharing a Reproducible list of 100 words kids need to know by second grade (see page 67).

Of course, every reader is different, but this list provides a good benchmark for measuring children's familiarity and recall of the words that experts agree need to come "automatically" in order for them to be strong, fluent readers.

If your students aren't familiar with a few (or most) of the words on the list, don't panic, just think of it as a goal. Try one of these seven activities below to introduce or reinforce sight words. And remember to give yourself a pat on the back: They've come a long way!

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SIGHT WORD BUILDER #1: Sight Word Charades

When Melinda Leitner, from Ashland, Virginia, wants to introduce or reinforce important words she plays this simple game. First she writes the words on index cards. Each student picks two index cards and looks up the words' meanings in the dictionary. Then the children take turns acting out, drawing, or expressing the meaning of their words in another creative way. The rest of the class tries to guess the meaning of the word, and the first player to guess correctly wins that index word card. The player who has the most cards at the end gets to write the words on the chalkboard (a special treat!) while the others write the words in their journals.

SIGHT WORD BUILDER #2: Mind Reader Game

Can your students guess what you're thinking? That's the goal with this gumshoe game, developed by the Four Blocks literacy program (see www.wfu.edu/fourblocks for more). First, ask children to write the numbers one through five on a piece of paper or a mini-whiteboard. Then tell them you are thinking of a special word and that you will give them five clues to guess what it is. After each clue, they will write down a guess. The first clue is always "It's one of our word-wall words." The next four clues should narrow the possible choices down to just one word. For example, if the mystery word is "sing," your second clue might be, "It has fewer than five letters." Your third clue could be, "It has more than three letters;" your fourth, "It's in the same word family as 'ring;'" and your final clue: "You do this in music class."

SIGHT WORD BUILDER #3: Paper Chase

Get kinesthetic learners on their feet! Write each vocabulary word on a piece of paper and crumple the first one up around a small object like an eraser, suggests LaDonna Langwell. "Then crumple each paper over the first piece, one by one, until you have a large paper ball. Toss the ball back and forth, but before a child throws the ball to a classmate, he or she removes one layer and reads the word. Together as a class, chant the spelling." It's a great way to take advantage of pre-recess restlessness.

SIGHT WORD BUILDER #4: Rainbow Writing

Invite students to practice writing sight words over and over again--in a rainbow of different colors. In Making Word Walls Work (Scholastic, 2005), Judy Lynch suggests asking kids to write a sight word in one color, whispering the letters as they write. Next, they trace over the top of each letter in four other colors. "Make sure that children write the entire word with the same color," notes Lynch. "If children stop after each letter they break the flow of whispering the letters as they write them."

SIGHT WORD BUILDER #5: Online Matchmaking 

There are many fabulous Web sites that can help primary-age kids practice reading sight words. Bonus: Going from the page to the screen can be motivating in itself. We like the bright, colorful matching games at www.tvokids.com. Click on "Games" and then "Gisele's Pick & Click" to access three difficulty levels and categories ranging from animals to fruit.

You can also have kids create their own matching game by cutting out pictures from old newspapers and magazines to represent the words on our list. Invite them to paste the pictures and words on separate index cards. Children can then play in pairs, spreading the cards on the floor and choosing the word card that goes with each picture. For an added challenge, turn the cards over and kids will also practice their memory skills.

SIGHT WORD BUILDER #6: Message in a Bottle

Tracie Pohlmeyer, who teaches kindergarten in Bay City, Texas, writes words she wants students to practice on slips of paper, and puts them into an empty water bottle. Then she fills the rest of the bottle with popcorn kernels, brightly colored buttons, or other small objects, screws on the lid, and shakes it up. It's up to Pohlmeyer's students to find the "hidden" words, read them, and cross them off the word list. What fun! (You can check out pictures of Pohlmeyer's bottles and her other creative literacy centers on her Web site, www.mrspohlmeyerskinderpage.com.)

SIGHT WORD BUILDER #7: Word Scavenger Hunt 

In her new book, Kindergarten Literacy (Scholastic, 2005), reading expert Anne McGill Franzen recommends inviting kids to hunt for sight words both in books you've read as a class and in their own writing. You can also arm students with clipboards and have them seek out words in newspapers, on the classroom wall, and in the hallway at school.

This is an activity that can be done "alone, in groups, in pairs, in centers, and at their desks," notes Franzen. "Through word hunts, children make connections between their work with words and their actual reading and writing," she says. "They practice using words that are familiar in order to read and write words that may not be as well-known or familiar." In other words, it's important to always connect any word work with actual reading, and to remember that the end goal is not to memorize a list, it's to gain the tools to become a more confident contextual reader.