My Time With Sight Words: A Love Story AND A Giveaway

(FYI- Before we get started here today, I wanted to let you know that this post ends with a giveaway so totally keep reading. Are you loving all these August giveaways or what?!)

Friends, I’m not sure I’ve shared this with you before, but I love word study. LOVE IT. I love the games, I love the teaching, I love the centers, I love seeing the transfer into reading and writing….nerdy nerd love. And what’s even worse, I love the organizing of word study. The Ziplock bags for centers, the lists of sight words and spelling patterns, the charting of concepts they’ve mastered, the grouping of friends…I mean, we’re talking chills here, people.

Think I’m crazy yet?

I have been called the Word Study Guru in my day and considered having a T-shirt made. Yes, I was that proud of the title.

Anyhow, I was recently sent two sets of interesting books, geared mainly for parents to use at home with their friends, but I wanted to share these little gems with all of us today. Use them in your classroom, suggest them to parents….whatever! I think it will be easy for you (those of you who teach the small fries, specifically) to find a use for these.

I can practically hear you screaming, “Just get to the point already, woman!”

I can take a hint.

I’m talking about Bob Books sight word book packages for kindegarten and first grade (although I think one could start to use these whenever their child is ready). Here’s a peak at the boxes:

In each box, there are 10 books, 30 flash cards and a brief set of tips for parents. The set of books aims to teach 30 different sight words, incorporating three specific sight words into each book. The flash cards have the word on one side and then use that word in a sentence with a picture on the back. (I totally heart that part!). Plus you can get activities to go with the books by clicking here.

Slightly reminiscent of the Dick and Jane books from my childhood, these books are each about 12 pages. What I liked is the simple text mainly made up of easily decoded words (and sight words….duh), combined with simple pictures that also provide strong context clues. I mean, hello fab opportunity to practice the good old “look at the picture…what makes sense?” strategy.

Check out a sample page:

 Perhaps my fave feature is that each book comes with a tip for parents. An example:

(Ahem. And I quote…)

“This is a good opportunity to talk about words that describe things (adjectives) – small, long, big, good, pretty, flat. Help your child think of more adjectives.”.

Not only does the tip fit the subsequent story, it makes sense when combined with the particular sight words being tackled in each text. Plus, I am digging the huge hint to parents that you should only work on a limited number of new sight words at a time. I mean, how many times have I had to kindly suggest that perhaps it is a bad idea to introduce your child to 25 new words in one sitting and then expect them to master each and every word becuase our society constantly teaches us that more is better, push your child, do, learn, read…read dammit! Maybe it’s just me, but those conditions don’t seen conducive to fostering a love of books. Call me crazy.

Bob Books has a pretty rad website too. Click around to check out the resources for parents – they have some great additional advice on reading with children, stuff like rewards charts and ideas for how to make reading the books more fun. While I was clicking around, I learned that Bob Books is a family business that was originally started by a teacher. Clearly, I was all, “you go, sister friend!”. We’re talking girlfriend used to write, copy, and collate these puppies out of her home, asking her husband to do the illustrations. Get this- they originally packaged them in sandwich bags!!

Kind of gives you a warm fuzzy feeling, doesn’t it?

The books grew in popularity and I kind of want to high five someone or do some Charlies Angels bad ass karate kicks- the idea of a teacher making it happen like that gets me pretty pumped up!

Sooooooooo……on to the giveaway part! Bob Books has graciously donated a set of sight word books for kindergarten as well as a set for first grade. Ha-cha-cha! These sets sell for $16.99 each, but they can be ALL YOURS if you take a moment and….well, here are the deets.

How To Enter:
* Leave a comment on this post. Maybe something about your love for word study or another nerdy passion of yours.
* Become a fan of Mrs. Mimi on Facebook, then send me an email (meemerdo at hotmail dot com) letting me know you’ve joined the crowd. The email part is required friends…how else am I gonna know?)
* Sign up to follow moi on Twitter. If you already follow me, tweet about the giveaway but don’t forget to include @MrsMimiTeaches, so I see it too.

Then I’ll put all your entries into chronological order, assign you a number and use a random number generator to pick the winner. You get a set of books and I get to give stuff away AND make a bunch of lists!!!! Whee!

Enter once, twice, three times but no being a cheater pants and leaving four hojillion comments. So, only one entry per method, sound fair?

Big hugs and good luck! The contest starts today and runs through Saturday, August 21st.  I’ll announce the winner on my blog on Sunday the 22nd, so keep those eyes peeled!!

xoxo,
Mimi