How to Teach Essential Reading Skills using SnapWords® Classroom Kit
The SnapWords® Classroom Kit will be your best, most hard-working set of tools to use to give your students comprehensive reading skills that go way beyond just calling out sight words.
Here is what you do:
Download Beyond Sight Words Activities
Then stack the 6 packs of SnapWords®: A, B, C, D, E, Numbers & Colors
Next locate SnapWords® Mini-Lessons 
Finally, stack the three copies of Sight Words in Sentences
Get Started
- The Beyond Sight Words Activities Download will guide you through exactly what to do. This resource has hundreds of activities laid out for you in 25 levels of difficulty. If you are beginning with your whole class, the simplest thing to do would be to start with the first level. There are several activities and games you can print and hand out for each level of difficulty. Some activities will be whole class, some individual or small group activities, and some can be used for homework! If you have done a sight words pretest, and you already grouped your students by skill level, you can start each group exactly on the level that is most suited to them.
- Find the SnapWords® cards that correlate with the BSWA Level(s) you have chosen to start with. Put these SnapWords® cards into a pocket chart and follow the directions in SnapWords® Mini-Lessons for introducing the words.
- Complete the activities for each Level before moving on to the next. At the end of each Level you will find a reproducible assessment you can use as you assess each student. You will mark words missed, making helpful notes regarding what would benefit the child and so forth.
- When a group has completed all 5 Levels of a List of SnapWords®, they can practice reading with partners using the pages in Sight Words in Sentences that correspond to the SnapWords® List they just completed.
Also in How to Teach Other Things
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How to Teach Digraphs
We’ve got two options when it comes to teaching a child to recognize SH, CH, TH, and WH. We can either point to SH and say, “This says Shhhh,” OR we can engage the entire child-- mind, emotions, and body-- in an activity that will make learning digraphs unforgettable.
How To Teach Complex Words
Go through all the SnapWords®, pointing out word chunks or sound spellings so that when they come to a more complicated word, you can show how the larger word has pieces that are similar to much smaller words they already know. The brain loves making connections!