English Language Arts

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

At Avonworth, we utilize the program Fundations as a part of our Language Arts curriculum to teach foundational reading skills. Attached, you will find grade level specific word lists of “Trick Words” (previously referred to as sight words and/or high frequency words at APC). These lists are composed of words that are of highest utility in our language (such as “they”, “what”, “of”, etc.). Trick Words contain parts that have an irregular spelling pattern or parts with spelling patterns not yet introduced in the curriculum. This is why they are “tricky”!

During the school year, students are asked to read and write these words daily. Any additional practice and support at home would be beneficial to your child. A few suggestions of how to practice Trick Words at home are listed below.

Flashcards - Print flashcards from the Avonworth website or write words on index cards to use as flashcards. Set a timer and see how many your child can recognize in a set amount of time.

Find and Swat - Lay cards on a hard surface, face up. Say a Trick Word and have your child find it and swat it with a fly swatter. If they find it, they can keep it. Continue this until all cards are picked up. At the end of the game, your child can practice writing some of the words in a list with a marker, crayon, highlighter, pen, pencil, colored pencil…whatever is most fun for your child!

PlayDoh Words - Have your child build a few Trick Words out of PlayDoh. Create each letter by rolling and forming it into the correct letter!

We hope that these ideas help you to reinforce Trick Words at home. Learning these Trick Words will strengthen your child’s reading and writing fluency.

We are excited to see our youngest learners grow and develop as strong readers! Thank you in advance for your support at home.

Scott Miller, Ph.D.
Principal

You can view and download the above letter and trick words for all grade-levels here.

Flashcard Downloads

You can view and download the flashcards for each grade level below:

Kindergarten Flashcards

First Grade Flashcards

Second Grade Flashcards