Learning sight words is one of the most important things that our kids can do as they become readers.
However, learning sight words can also be one of the most boring things our kids can do as they become readers.
So it’s up to parents and teachers to make learning these important words fun.
Over the years, though, I’ve come up with tons of super cool and super fun ways that our little ones can learn these important words because I know how important it is.
Now that I’m back in the classroom and teaching first and second grade reading, I’ve had to re-visit these oldies but goodies for my students’ literacy centers. And you know me–I love it.
I have this Rainbow Words printable free for you below.
My students love when I pull out the Rainbow Words activity because they know it’s fun but they also know that they’ll be able to use PaperMate InkJoy Gel Pens.
Here’s the skinny. . .
Rainbow Words — Free Sight Word Printable
The reason sight words are important is because these are words that students need to learn to read by sight. That means, they need to be able to read these words anywhere and everywhere and they need to read them quickly.
Many sight words aren’t even words that can be sounded out, so most decoding strategies don’t work for them.
Kids just need to know them.
And Rainbow Words can help.
Each week, my students focus on 4-5 different sight words. We practice them every day, and we search for them in guided reading books.
Rainbow Words requires students to write six different sight words in the bands of the rainbow, in either red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or purple.
The cool thing about this printable is that it is totally customizable–you can write whatever words you want on the lines next to the colors. And after you write them, you can make copies for the students.
All I did was write the week’s words next to the colors:
red: from
orange: go
yellow: other
green: were
blue: am
purple: here
And the students took it from there!
To ensure that their sight words were written in the brightest, boldest colors, they used the amazing Paper Mate InkJoy Gel Pens.
Who doesn’t love using gel pens?! These pens write easily and clearly, and they don’t smudge. They’re awesome–and they’re perfect for Rainbow Words!
If you want to download the Rainbow Words printable, you may do so here:
It’s a great activity for a literacy center, where students work independently, or it’s a great extra practice for students at home, after school.
One thing I made sure to add was two little extension activities for the early finishers:
- Students can see how many sight words they can squeeze into the big cloud at the base of the rainbow. That way, they’re writing and counting!
- Students can write sentences for each word on the back of the page.
There are always speedy workers, and they always need something to do to continue the learning!
Check out a quickie video of Rainbow Words in action:
Stay tuned for more helpful tips from Go Teach!
Go teach! is a new community dedicated to helping teachers by providing resources, product tips, lesson ideas and more! For more information and to be at the forefront of giveaways featuring teacher fan favorites such as Elmer’s, EXPO, Sharpie, Paper Mate, Mr. Sketch, Prismacolor and DYMO, like Go teach! on Facebook
fyi: Thank you Go Teach! for sponsoring this post. As always, all opinions are my own, influenced only by my experience as a parent and educator.
Never did rainbow words that way. Interesting. Always had the children write the word in one color and then trace over it with another color and then one more color.
I cannot find the printable. Can you help me please?
Thanks, friend! All you have to do is put your name in the box on the post, and it will end up in your inbox! THANK YOU!
What a fun way to help the child stay engaged! This could be an ongoing project that could be kept in a little book at the end of the year. It would be interesting to see the progress as the year goes on and each version could include different forms of color, like markers, pens, crayons, etc. Love this, thanks for sharing!
This is a nice way to add some interest to a tedious task. Your rainbow worksheet would have been perfect when I was teaching first grade.
In the comment field, I can’t capitalize any words. I don’t know if that’s intentional or not but it’s kind of freaking me out. lol