Engaging ways to teach heart words (science of reading way)

Teaching sight words use to be making flashcards and having students memorize these words that do not follow normal phonics patterns when learning to read and write such as said. Research has been done in the past few years to show this old method, although can be effective is not the best way to teach students with learning disabilities. Many of the sounds in sight words (some say tricky words) can be sounded out and the others are what we teach students need to be learned by heart. How I teach sight words to my students is first showing them the visual with the heart under the sound that has to be learned by heart and with these letters highlighted red. I always try to also incorporate a picture and a key phrase and motion to use with the word. I then have the students tap and say the letters on their arm and sky write. Then I have them use pop-its and say the letter names then the whole word. I have created packets of all of these activities and the first 20 sight words that need to be learned. Of course, also having the students visually recognize the word is an important step and then being able to use the word in a sentence to understand the meaning. That is why word searches and unscramble the sentences are also included. Since I have used this strategy, I have seen many students become fluent with their sight words. I hope this is helpful!