sight words

Like all kids, Ben excels at some things and struggles with others.   His attention span is a bit lacking, even for a three year old, and some of his motor skills are behind.  He does take a little more motivation than some kids to take part in "un-preferred activities," and things he struggles with.   We use the iPad to encourage (force) him to do un-favored activities in order to earn his iPad time.   Ben excels for his age in most rote academic areas so it's a delicate balance of helping him keep up and working harder on the tougher things like coloring and writing. While the Zingo sight words game might be quickly becoming a preferred activity, he's doing really well with it.   We don't actually play against each other.   I have Ben match the tiles to the words on the cards and then read them off.  I have been shocked at how quickly he's started memorizing some of the words.  When I learned to read, phonics was the big deal but we all certainly still memorized many words.  I think this new combined learning is great and realize lots of kids can memorize words by sight long before they can sound them out.
I was a very proud mama this day as he completed the board all by himself and read them all aloud correctly except 2.

I've added sight word apps to all our electronics and like that each app and game has different words.  I hope our upcoming road trips will allow some quality sight word flash card time and hope it all pays off in the end by making reading easier for our big little man.