Sight Word Practice: 3 Easy Ways to Make Sight Word Practice Multisensory

What is Multisensory Learning?

For most of our lessons, our students have to engage their senses of sight and hearing. They look at what we present to them and listen to what we’re saying in order to process information and store it for later. Multi-sensory learning, on the other hand, engages many of our students’ senses at once.

For example, when we teach students to add and subtract, we don’t just tell them how it works and expect them to remember! We give them manipulatives like counters to model these mathematical processes. They are engaging their sense of sight, touch, and hearing. These activities are both tactile and kinesthetic. You are likely already incorporating many multi-sensory learning opportunities into your math instruction - so why not bring it into our students’ sight word practice?

Multi-Sensory Learning is:

Visual
Auditory
Kinesthetic
Tactile

Multi-sensory learning benefits all students, but especially students who struggle with attention or visual and auditory processing skills. You may be thinking, “well, I don’t have any students with auditory processing issues” - but you may be surprised. Check out this graphic by Speech Buddies.

Making Sight Words Multisensory

Today I’ll be sharing 3 of my favorite, low-prep ways to make sight words multisensory for your students. Not only are they multisensory…they’re also FUN!

Idea # 1 - Keyboard Skins

Ready for a super simple, prep-once sight word center?

When I taught first grade, I spent years collecting a bunch of old keyboards to use during sight word centers. My plan for the center was to have students bring their ring of words with them to the center and practice typing each word on their keyboards. They LOVED IT. It was one of those centers that I could depend on year after year to be a crowd pleaser.

The only downside? Storage. Have you ever tried to store 6-7 keyboards from 1999? They weren't exactly space-saving. Then one day, it hit me.

Keyboard skins. KEYBOARD SKINS. What's a keyboard skin? It's a little piece of silicone that is designed to sit on top of a laptop keyboard to protect the keys. Here's a picture in case you have no idea what I'm talking about.

I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it before. Now, instead of trying to store 6 full-size keyboards that would inevitably fall whenever I opened the cabinet door, I could replace them with keyboard skins that would fold up small enough to fit into all of those picture cases I had bought from Michael's.

This center is even more of a hit now that I have keyboard skins in every color of the rainbow. You can find the exact ones I have here.

Idea #2 - Dry Pasta

This next idea is another crowd-pleaser. All you need is a box of dry pasta! Students will use the pieces of pasta to build the sight words on their desk or table. Your students will love exploring the different textures of pasta shapes while they practice their words.

Idea #3 - Beads & Pipe Cleaners

This last idea is my personal favorite. Students will make their own “kabobs” with letter beads and pipe cleaners or Wiki Sticks. This center is an excellent way to incorporate fine motor work into sight word practice - something that many of our younger students will benefit from.