Third Grade Sight Words Digital I Spy Activity

Can I get WHOOP, WHOOP for Third grade?! I hear you, teachers! Those of you on fire for third grade know how fun this age can be. Reading instruction becomes less about learning to read and more about reading to learn. The Third Grade Sight Words Digital I Spy activity provides an easy, no-prep way for students to engage with the entire list of sight words for the year.

Sight words and fluency practice is still an important component of 3rd grade reading instruction, along with more complex letter/sound combinations, vocabulary, and comprehension strategies.

The Digital I Spy activity is compatible with Google Slides or Seesaw so you can pick your favorite platform and share! It’s designed to be as versatile as your students.

Colorful graphics engage students right from the start. Then, each of the 41 slides contains interactive opportunities to READ and SPELL each word, TYPE it, and FIND it on a grid mixed with other sight words.

Third Grade Sight Words

Sight words (also known as ‘service words’-who knew?), are common words found in written text. The Dolch words are words derived from children’s books of the 1930s and 40s.

The entire Dolch list includes 220 words which are then broken down into levels, from Pre-K to 3rd Grade.

As reading fluency grows, students learn to recognize these words automatically, omitting the often laborious act of ‘sounding it out.’

Sight words practice is a key component of building fluency. Ultimately, we want kids to read to find the meaning of the text rather than just to read individual words.

The 3rd grade Dolch sight word list includes 41 words:

How to Use Third Grade Sight Words Digital I Spy

Click on the link below. Choose your version and click on it, either Google Slides or Seesaw.

In Google Slides, a blue button will pop up that says, “MAKE A COPY.”

Click the button so you have your own copy of the activity.

This awesome activity includes 41 slides! That’s one for each 3rd grade sight word.

Click on the first slide, making sure you are in “Edit” mode as opposed to “Presentation” mode. If you accidentally click, “Present,” just hit escape and you’re back to editing mode.

Each slide contains one word at the top for students to read.

Then, they can click on the “Type It” box and use the keyboard to type the word.

Finally, it’s time to play “I Spy!” on the word grid. Once the high frequency word is spotted, students can click on a colored play dough blob to drag it onto the grid to cover the word.

When ready, click the next slide.

Complete as many slides as your 3rd grader is ready for. DO NOT feel you must complete all 41 slides in order to complete the activity! You can keep coming back to practice sight words over and over again.

How to Teach Sight Words in Third Grade

Many third grade readers are delving into reading materials based on interest, and are perhaps reading to learn as opposed to learning to read. That’s an exciting transition!

You can still use fun activities and sight word games to keep students engaged learning the 3rd grade sight words list.

If giving your students the entire slide show of 41 words could potentially be overwhelming, I would suggest breaking the list of words into sections.

In Google Slides, you can highlight individual slides and make a copy to create a smaller activity that includes maybe 10 sight words for kids to work with. This is perfect for small groups!

Other ideas include:

• Help students learn sight words by creating their own set of flash cards based on the words they are working on.
• Create a word wall students can refer to while reading and writing.
• Give each student a sight word activity folder that contains the Dolch word list, paper, index cards, open-ended game ideas and an individual progress chart.
• Adapt common games, like Go Fish, Bingo, and Uno to be played with sight word cards instead of playing cards.

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