The Dolch 220 sight words make up between 50-70% of the words we encounter in text.  Most of these words cannot be sounded out and students need to be taught to instantly recognize these words in order to be fluent readers.  Because recognizing these words is so important during reading, it is important that we use a variety of activities to teach, practice and memorize sight words. It all begins with assessment.  Before you begin teaching sight words, it is important to know which words your student(s) already know.   When you download the Sight Word Assessment and Progress Monitoring file, you’ll receive the assessment, student recording forms and progress monitoring charts.  You’ll want to periodically re-assess you student(s) to be