Whole Brain Wednesday: Sight Words

Welcome to another Whole Brain Wednesday!

This week I will be sharing a super fun way to practice sightwords... Superspeed 100 and Superspeed 1000!

I got an email from a coworker who has started using WBT asking if I'd heard of the sightword games Superspeed 100 and Superspeed 1000. A friend of hers had sent her the files and told her it was a WBT game. I had COMPLETELY forgot that at the WBT National Conference we had been shown the NEW Electronic Superspeed 100 and 1000 slide shows that had been created to accompany the game. I immediately downloaded them onto a flashdrive and began passing them around to everyone in my building. The same day, I used the Superspeed 1000 slideshow with my kiddos and the next day we played the game... They LOVED both versions of Superspeed 1000... are you curious to know what it's all about yet?!

Before I share how wonderful Superspeed sightwords are... ALL of the files I mentioned above are FREE on WBT's website! You just need to create a (FREE) account.

Okay so Superspeed 100 and 1000 involves a list of sight words. but NOT your traditional list. No, the 100 list has "levels" of repeating sight words. Each level adds another sight word. After 10 levels, the easier words start to disappear as other words are added. There are 100 words in the Superspeed 100 set. The sheets look like this...

When kiddos play Superspeed 100, you have students partnered up (groupings of one stronger reader and one weaker reader works well). Give students 1 minute to read as many levels as they can. If a student gets stuck or reads the word incorrectly, their partner can give them a "helpsie" before moving onto the next word. After the first minute, have the students record how far they got, then, read for a second time, to see if they can beat their first record. Because the words repeat, it doesn't matter if the partners switch who goes first or have the same student go first. If your whole class has mastered words at the beginning of the superspeed 100 list, you can tell the class to start at a certain level, or even differentiate having some groups start at different levels.


Superspeed 1000 is a little different. The lists of words do not repeat and each "level" has a silly word called a zinger at the end (such as 'zoink'). When students play this game, they read for a minute, mark their progress, then read the list again having the opposite student start (since the words DON'T repeat, it is important for the students to switch who goes first). Zingers are worth 5 points and all other words read are worth 1. This gives students motivation to get to each of these zingers! Here is what a Superspeed 1000 sheet looks like:

At the end of the Superspeed 1000 file, there are sheets with stars for students to record their points each time they play. They can then try to beat their previous record.

 Like I said earlier in this post, there are "Electronic" Superspeed games that are available as powerpoints FREE through WBT's website. Tune in next Wednesday for a post all about how to use the powerpoint files in your classroom to help your students learn sightwords!!! And in the meantime, think about downloading Superspeed 100 and/or 1000 to use in your classroom. I am even thinking about printing out the 1000 list to give to parents at conferences for them to use as practice at home!