Improving Primary School English Reading With Sight Words:an Empirical Study At Shangdoumen Campus Of Wenzhou Square Road Primary School

Reading ability is one of abilities that students must acquire at the primary school level. However, in daily teaching at present, teachers often ignore reading ability, and pay great attention to the cultivation of listening and speaking abilities. Many students spend little time on reading, and even more students do not know how to start English reading. Since they do not know many words, they have problems in understanding the meaning of English stories, picture books and other reading materials. As a result, many students become reluctant to read, ignore or even give up reading. Therefore, I have conducted sight words teaching among the fifth grade students in primary school, and have done a practical research in order to improve students’ English reading ability. This study aims at teaching students to learn sight words by using different teaching methods, so as to improve students’English reading ability, cultivate their interest in learning English, and develop good reading habits.This study consists of three main areas:1) teachers use games and other methods to teach sight words according to students’current level, and consolidate the knowledge with sentences and English texts.2) Students improve reading speed and comprehension of texts through mastering sight words.3) Students increase interest in reading with the enhancement of reading skills.Edward William Dolch sorted out 220 high-frequency words in 1948, and set a specific classification for them, forming a complete set of theories. This set of theories provides a solid theoretical basis for this study. The research lasted for 2 months, and the used sight words were the vocabularies of Dolch at five levels:Pre-Primer, Primer, first, second, third. I used Flash cards, PPT, Bingo, Word search and other methods to teach and consolidate these sight words. In addition to the understanding of words, I also chose sentences corresponding to these sight words to help students learn how to use them. Finally, I also introduced short stories of some sight words, and guided students to read these stories to improve English reading ability. I collected data through preliminary and post tests, student questionnaires before and after the experiment, tests, and other forms, analyzed the data, and drew a conclusion in the end. That is, introducing sight words to in elementary school is in line with the learning situation of domestic primary education. Through specifically teaching sight words group by group, teachers can help students accelerate their reading speed, improve comprehension ability in English reading, and enhance interest in English reading!...