At first sight

A sight word is a word that occurs commonly and is not necessarily easy to sound out. Words like "the," "is," "are," and "to" must be mastered and memorized by early readers. Point out a common sight word to your child and challenge him to find it throughout the book. When your child gets good at this game, play beat-the-clock to see how many times your child can find a word in a book in 30 seconds. If he finds it exciting to "read" a new word, he may start finding these words everywhere.