Students frequently skip over short words (also called sight words) that don’t create a concrete picture in their mind, like the, a, and an, or other basic sight words. Most of the time, these small words aren’t critical to creating meaning or getting the overall gist of the text. Sometimes a student might even be reading the word in his/her head but skips it orally.

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Here are some tutoring tips to try while reading with your student:

• Have the student use his/her finger to follow the words when reading to help with focus.

• Ask the student to reread a line to raise awareness of skipped words.

• Ask, “Does that sentence sound right?” when the student misses a word.  

• Read the sentence back to them and ask if it sounds different from how he/she read it.

• Check to make sure the student does know how to read grade-level sight words.  Use the sight word PDFs listed below to review with your student.

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• Note: if the sight word list is hard for the student, note the words that they don’t read correctly. Practice the missed words from time to time.

• Make sure to point out growth once the student does master a word. 

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