Product Description

Learning sight words has never been this easy!

Many words don t follow basic decoding rules and are taught in pre-k and kindergarten classrooms as 'sight words', 'instant words', 'high frequency words' or 'star words'. A new reader finds sight words very frustrating until they are memorized. A good reader will be able to instantly recognize sight words without having to 'figure them out'. Preschool Prep Company makes learning sight words fun and easy. With 16 sight words the viewer will continue to build from the foundation created by Meet the Sight Words 1. The combination of the Meet the Sight Words 1 & 2 teach the top 20 Fry words, the top 20 Dolch words and the Houghton Mifflin kindergarten list. Preschool Prep Series DVDs have won over 25 national awards and are used in thousands of schools. You will be amazed at how easily your little one can learn sight words!

1. Instant Words determined by Fry, Kress and Found in the Reading Teachers Book of List, Fourth Edition ©2000 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
2. Dolch Words prepared in 1936 by E.W. Dolch
3. Houghton Mifflin Reading, California Teachers Edition copyright ©2003 by Houghton Mifflin Company

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11985 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-06-01
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Animated, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 34 minutes

Review
Teacher's Picks - Best for Learning Sight Words.
The Meet the Sight Words DVD series covers all the basic sight words through engaging video. This layered approach to introducing sight words is very effective, says our tester. The child first sees the word in black letters, then colors and sounds are introduced until the child sees a graphic representation of the word. The sensory clues really help children retain the words. --Scholastic Instructor Magazine

Review
This DVD is an animated teaching tool, not a cartoon show. I'll liken it to freshly squeezed juice for a child vs. KoolAid! I am extremely picky about what my children view on any screen, and Meet the Sight Words passed with flying colors (no pun intended). --The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

About the Actor
animation

Customer Reviews

Best $10 Spent this Year (on Kid Stuff)
This DVD is part of a 7 pronged approach to teaching my preschool twins the preliminaries to becoming successful readers.

My oldest son has had difficulty reading. He went to an expensive Montessori for 3 years prior to entering school, but I had to hold him back to repeat 1st grade. I am angry at myself for not having taken his phonics and reading program into my own hands from the time he was 3. NOTHING replaces one-on-one time daily with a child, even if it's just 15 minutes a day. Consistency and patience is key.

I have several things in rotation for drilling the twins on phonics. They think it's all a fun game, however. This DVD plays a part in their daily exposure to phonics and the fundamentals of reading....they were calling out the sight words on this DVD within a week and a half. And that is what these words are: SIGHT WORDS, which are supposed to be memorized. The animation may not match the actual word meaning, but it still works, and well. Better to spend [...] and have them vegetate and LEARN something vs. watching SpongeBob. Start them early. They will feel special and smart when in class they are the one who can read these...what a confidence booster!

As for our learning plan here's what we are using (Besides Meet the Sight Words):
1. Take It to Your Seat Phonics Centers, Grades K-1 This book is a bunch of fun learning games/puzzles for the kids. There are several in the series. Do not make the mistake of thinking that you can sit them in a corner with this. Plan on spending 15 - 30 mins the first time through each exercise, harder ones require your assistance every time. These are tools, not babysitters. (Any DVD is more of a babysitter, however.) I bought a laminator for [...] from Sam's Warehouse to make these last.

2. LeapFrog Word Whammer, Fridge Phonics Set and the single phonics one: LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Magnetic Alphabet Set If they had questions about the sound a letter made, I taught them how to find out themselves by finding the letter on the fridge then getting the Fridge Phonics device to tell them the sound. Thus if they ever wanted to know, they could help themselves at any time.

In 6 months both my twins were able to state the letter names and the sounds they made. All is not perfect, however. One is still singing the alphabet song "...HIKK LMNOP..." Oh well...he can order them accurately, however, if he's looking at them. Visual learner, I guess...

3. Leap Frog Videos. Leap Frog - Letter Factory, Leap Frog - Talking Words Factory, and Leap Frog - Talking Words Factory 2 - Code Word Caper. The last one is kind of advanced, but exposure to it is not hurting the effort. It's my daughter's favorite one.

4. Post-its shaped like the letters of the alphabet. Got these at Wal-Mart, cant find them on Amazon as of this writing. Each child got a letter to stick on somethign in the house that began with that letter sound. Again, this was only a 15 min exercise, even though they wanted to continue.

5. Books on tape from the library, trips to the library. Reading books to them is not one of my favorite things because they stop me multiple times to ask questions and (since there are two of them) this extends the reading time to 30 mins or more on one book. Usually this is just before bedtime when they are stalling and I am exhausted...so books on tape from the library are an excellent alternative. The point is to get them interested in reading. After the Meet the Sight Words DVD, they were excited to find a sight word that they knew on almost every page.

6. Hooked on Phonics Learn to Read Pre-K Edition This series is the least-used item in the program. This is mainly because it is just not as FUN as the other stuff and requires me to motivate them as well as fully teach. Other stuff is more able to practically teach itself. HOP is a drilling/practice tool. However, I break out the HOP program once a week. To get anywhere on this, it takes about one hour each time you do an exercise. However, the CD game that comes with this set is great for early phonics learning. They have a magician who tries to change a Hat into a Cat, for instance, and the child has to select the correct letter out of 3 possible choices. Very simple, very instructional. They get rewarded with animation and praise on the computer screen. I have looked all over for a simple Phonics learning CD like the one in here, and this is the only one like it I have found. Again, if you get HOP, expect to have to work at it with your kid. I use the included letter cards to play "Go Fish" where I ask " do you have Big A?" if I already have little A. I say the SOUND of the letter, not the name. And occasionally to be silly I might pretend I don't know a sound properly and ask if they have "Big PFFT" where PFFT is the sound of a fart. (As if one of the letters makes that sound! This always draws huge belly laughs...) Kids love potty humor. Use with discretion. LOL. Make sure you sound really confused like Mr. Noodle would when you do it...but "Go Fish" is really useful, especially if you make sure that they win...which is easy since little kids never hold their cards where you can't see them. They should already know the letter sounds a bit before trying "Go Fish."

7. Reader Rabbit educational CDs Reader Rabbit Learn to Read Phonics Preschool - Kindergarten (Jewel Case)for their age group (on the PC). These are a filler, because they don't always focus on what I am teaching, but they are still very much worth it. We actually got the Reader Rabbit: Thinking Adventures (Jewel Case)from Chik-Fil-A as a part of their meal and it was a very pleasant surprise to find that the CD was chock full of interesting logic puzzles, and matching games in a matrix format that teaches the concept of matching in a matrix. The matching games taught concepts that were enough of a stretch for a 4 year old to be a challenge but do-able with a little initial help. My twins LOVE this software.

I researched and used each of these items and methods. For myself, I got a couple of books for ME to read to help with my older son: The Motivation Breakthrough: 6 Secrets to Turning On the Tuned-Out Child. It's not too late for him, but he needs some successes. We are slowly getting there. The other book I got for myself to read and understand how children can better learn reading is The Reading Reflex: The Foolproof Method for Teaching Your Child to Read. Children see reading differently than adults. This book helped me more with the younger twins than my older son, but we are doing the more advanced drills with him. He is almost finished with the second try at 1st grade and is reading at 1st grade level. He is tested at 3rd grade level understanding in math. He shows signs of being an engineer like his mom someday.... :^)

Good Luck! (Actually luck has nothign to do with it. A positive attitude, patience, and doing some work with your child for at least 15 minutes every day will get you along farther. More than 30 mins at a time may tire out your kid...putting away the materials while they are still clambering for more ensures that they will be excited when you take it out the following day....make it fun! )

----------
The twins have started school. I find I have been remiss in two areas: counting to 20, and WRITING. I highly recommend adding writing to the repetoire. My daughter is fine, my son lags her in writing and fine motor skills. I found excellent resources, but the best by far for teaching writing is Mead's Writing Fundamentals:Capital Letter Stories "Pathways For Learning M2-201 Capital Letter Stories" featuring alphaboxes paper. The standard elementary paper is broken up into blue, green, and brown. The letters are shown as figures, e.g., the letter B is a girl (first downward stroke), and there's a bee that flies from her hat to her belt and then to her feet to create the letter 'B.' This hit a chord with them, it made sense to the twins, I could see a light dawning. I tried primary ruled paper and tracing letters with tracing paper, but this set of activity sheets by Mead was much more successful in getting them to actually try to write their letters. TAKE NOTE that the Letter Stories paper pads are available for far less in some common brick & mortar stores (f ive clams or less.) Fine motor skills can also be improved (along with proper pencil grip) with mazes (pencil & paper kind). I am able to find these at some free educational sites online.

As for counting, I used Skittles to show each child how many Skittles would be represented by each number up to 20. The simple act of counting to twenty every time you get in the car would be enough exposure. Additionally, you can try phonics games that teach how to string sounds to make a word. E.g., "I am going to say a word very slowly, can you guess what word I am saying?" And then sound out cat by saying the hard C, count out one second to yourself, then say the short A sound, then the T sound.

One last caveat: make sure your child can write their name before starting kindergarten!

Great Buy
I purchased Meet the Sight Words 1,2,&3 DVDs for my 5 year old son. He has caught on really quick and can pick out almost all the sight words from the 1st DVD. Once we complete DVDs 2 & 3 he should be able to read a short story. This was a great investment and I wish I would have learned about it earlier.

AWESOME learning DVD!
Meet the sight words has been able to help both my 5 year old and my toddler recognize words!