Homophones Homographs and Sight Word Activities
Homophones
On the one hand, homophones are words with the same sound but different meanings, spelling, or derivations. Bear et al. (2017) state that homophones are spelt differently. For example, words like to, two, and too are spelt differently but have similar sounds with different meanings. Other examples of homophones are the words merry, Mary, and marry (Bear et al. 233), a set of three different words with different meanings and spelling but similar pronunciation. Studying homophones is important for children because homophones help learners grasp and understand the context of sentences with words with more than one meaning.
Homographs
On the other hand, homographs are words with the same spelling but with different meanings, pronunciations, or derivations. Most of these words have different sounds (Bear et al. 233). An example of a homograph is the word bow: the bow used to shoot an arrow and the bow of a ship. Some homographs sound the same as the word quail, which means cower, and quail, a bird type. In addition, Bear et al. affirm that studying homographs is vital for children because it helps them better understand whatever they are reading (233). Conclusively, learning homophones and homographs is essential to children and learners because it helps them learn to decode, identify, differentiate, and understand the meaning of different words.
Sight Word Activity
I would create a sight word war activity where children play with their partners. They would use three stacks of sight word cards. Each player should flip over a card they have, and the person who reads the sight word first keeps the cards. If both of them flip the same word card, that becomes a war. When a war occurs, they will lay the two cards facing down, and a teacher or a different person flips a third card up. The person who reads the third card fastest wins that pile. Eventually, the child with the most cards becomes the winner. Therefore, for this activity, I would create different small cards with different sight words such as a, in, and, on, to, you, was, go, he, in, is, it, for, an, of, it, and the. After creating them, I would divide and teach the learners how to participate in the sight word war activity as explained above. While explaining this, I would do a demonstration. For example, when both partners flip the word ‘and,’ the two will both put their cards facing down, and a different person can break the war by flipping a third card up, and then the person who reads the flipped card the fastest wins that pile. If war does not occur, the person who gets the most cards wins the game. Learning and teaching sight words using games or class activities helps teach learners and children to read (Altani et al. 86) because sight words enhance speed, fluency, and accuracy in reading comprehension.
The picture example below illustrates two cards with the words ‘the’ and ‘go.’ In an activity involving these words, a player who reads the words first and correctly takes the cards. This activity will help learners and children learn how to recognize various sight words after seeing them with little to no difficulty. As a result, their reading fluency, speed, and accuracy will be more advanced. Taking part in such sight word games makes reading much simpler, fun, and enjoyable for learners.
Works Cited
Altani, Angeliki, et al. “From individual word recognition to word list and text reading fluency.” Journal of Educational Psychology 112.1 (2020): 22.
Bear, Donald R., et al. Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, 2017.
ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE
We’ll write everything from scratch
Question
ACTIVITY
What are homophones?
What are homographs?
Homophones Homographs and Sight Word Activities
Create a game or activity using high-frequency or sight words. Take pictures of the game and upload them under the assignment tab.