Printable bingo cards
Sight word bingo cards
Sight words are the short, very common words that beginning readers learn to recognise at a glance, such as the, said and they. Bingo is a painless way to practise them: the teacher says a word, each child scans their card for it, and the whole class reads the same word at once.
Sight word bingo
Sight word bingo
The preview is scaled to fit your screen and prints at full size, one sheet of paper per page of cards. In the print dialog choose your printer or Save as PDF, and set scale to 100%. Nothing you type leaves this browser.
Teaching with sight word bingo
- Use this week's words, not all fifty. Paste the ten or twelve words being taught plus earlier ones for revision until the box has at least thirty lines, and the cards will mix new and known words.
- Say each word, put it in a short sentence, then say it again: went, we went to the park, went. Do not show the slip. The children must find the word by reading, not by matching shapes.
- When a child calls bingo, ask them to read their winning line aloud to the class. That is the assessment: a line covered by guessing shows up straight away.
- The page begins with four by four cards of 16 words, a comfortable amount of print for five and six year olds. Twenty-four cards use twelve sheets; drop to three by three in the first weeks of school.
- At home, one child can play against a parent with two cards. Swap roles halfway so the child becomes the caller and has to read every slip out loud.
Starter list of sight words
Fifty frequent words that appear in most early reading schemes. They are a starting point, not an official list: replace them with the words your school or reading programme is teaching this term.
- the
- and
- to
- said
- in
- he
- of
- it
- was
- you
- they
- on
- she
- is
- for
- at
- his
- but
- that
- with
- all
- we
- can
- are
- up
- had
- my
- her
- what
- there
- out
- this
- have
- went
- be
- like
- some
- so
- not
- then
- were
- go
- little
- as
- no
- see
- look
- come
- here
- play
Questions
Which sight words are on the cards?
The page opens with fifty high-frequency words such as the, said, they and little. Every one can be changed. Type or paste your own list, one word per line, and the cards are made from that instead.
Can I use my school's word list, such as a set from a reading scheme?
Yes. Copy the list into the word box. Up to sixty words fit, and thirty or more gives well-mixed cards. Nothing is saved anywhere except in your own browser.
What grid size is right for kindergarten or reception?
Three by three, with eight words and a free middle, suits children in their first term of reading. Move to four by four once they know twenty or so words by sight, and five by five for confident readers.
Why are the words in lower case?
Children meet these words in lower case in their books, so the cards show them that way. For capital letter practice, retype the lines you want in capitals; the cards print exactly what the box contains.