TEACHING SIGHT WORDS USING FLASHCARDS - Developing Reading Fluency of Young Learners - Fransiska Way Warti

Aug 29, 2026

Understanding the relationship between reading fluency and early childhood development is essential for teachers of young learners. Appropriate teaching methods strongly influence students’ ability to build reading fluency. This study involved five kindergarten students to examine the impact of teaching sight words with flashcards. Fifteen Dolch sight words were used to test reading, followed by a reading comprehension post-assessment. Data analysis and observation showed flashcard use effectively improved reading fluency, with all participants rising from unsatisfactory/required improvement to satisfactory and good levels.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Early childhood literacy and reading support

Current school context and reading performance

Teaching sight words with flashcards

Research question and aims

TEACHING SIGHT WORDS USING FLASHCARDS IN DEVELOPING READING FLUENCY OF YOUNG LEARNERS Fransiska Way Warti [Siska_mw@yahoo.com](Siska_mw@yahoo.com) Politeknik Tonggak Equator Abstract Understanding the important relationship between reading fluency and early childhood is crucial for a teacher teaching young leaners. The right method in the teaching also played a significant role in the success of developing reading fluency. Five kindergarten students were involved in this study to reveal the impact of the teaching sight-words using the flashcard to develop reading fluency. A set of 15 words of Dolch sight words was given to the students to test their reading. At the end of the school year, students were given a reading comprehension post-assessment to compare the results from the previous one. The analysis of the data and the observation showed that using the flashcard in teaching sight words proofed to be effective in developing the reading fluency of the students. All of the participants have shown an improvement based on the post-test results considering that they all started from an unsatisfactory or required improvement level and ended with a satisfactory and good level. Keywords: teaching sight words, flashcard, elementary students Introduction The progress of language is one of the main problems during early childhood and plays an important role in children’s social development. In fact, it has been researched that young children who are often read to, have better vocabulary and early literacy skills (such as alphabetic knowledge and phonological sensitivity) than children who are less often read to (Mol and Bus 2011; Mol, Bus, and de Jong 2009) . Research proofed that toddlers and preschoolers who are read to every day mastered a wider range of vocabulary than those who are not read to at all. Not only does reading develop a child’s vocabulary, and assist them to understand how to read and write, but reading aloud to children also boost their understanding of different topics about the world and life. Early reading which exercised effectively ensure the building of cognitive and reading skills which in turn prevent reading difficulties among young learners Research done on early childhood literacy by Bridges, M., & Dagys, N. (2012) mentioned some of the functions of early reading programs are as follows: • Enhance early language, reading development, and literacy development of kindergarten children. • Provide preschool-age children with cognitive learning opportunities in high quality language and literaturerich environments so they can acquire the fundamental skills and knowledge necessary for reading development among young learners. • Provide literacy and language activities based on empirical studies and support age-appropriate skills in oral language (vocabulary development, expressive language, and listening comprehension), phonological awareness (rhyming, blending, and segmenting), print Warti, F. .W : English Language Studies and Applied Linguistics Journal 1(2): 34-43 awareness, and alphabet knowledge (letter recognition) . At the school level, learning to read will in turn to assure that a student will grow into a successful adolescent, and eventually a successful, contributing member of society as an adult (Burns, 2007) . Early literacy skills should be taught to students as early as preschool. Literacy skills at Sekolah Adicita Mulia in Pontianak are taught to students as early as Kindergarten level. The principal explained that kindergarten literacy programs are expected to significantly impact students’ preparation for primary schools. Therefore, reading and phonic is introduced to Kindergarten B (TK B) students. She also added that kindergarten reading programs will assist students inlaying the literacy groundwork for the skills they need in elementary school. The observation at Adicita Kindergarten revealed that the ability to read in the beginning level in group B

FAQs

What was the purpose of using flashcards in this study?

The study examined whether teaching sight words using flashcards could develop kindergarten students’ reading fluency.

How were the students’ reading abilities assessed?

Students received a set of 15 Dolch sight words to test reading, and later completed a reading comprehension post-assessment for comparison.

What were the results after the flashcard intervention?

Analysis and observation indicated that flashcard-based sight word instruction was effective, and all participants improved from unsatisfactory or required improvement to satisfactory and good levels.

Aug 29, 2026

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