Sometimes you can look at something someone has made or written or said and think, “That pretty much sums up who that person is.” Such was the case when my husband Bill appeared one day with his Sight Word Scrabble Board. At the time our daughter was in kindergarten and loved to play Scrabble Jr. Then Bill went to a parent-teacher conference and was given the Sight Word List by the teacher. The Sight Word list is a list of words that a child is supposed to master at a given age.
So my graphic-design-whiz husband disappears into the office for a few minutes and emerges having developed the Sight Word Scrabble Board. He even printed his rules on the board. Each player gets seven letters then has to finish the word by placing matching letters on the board. Once the player has completed the word, he/she needs to say the word aloud, spell it and use it in a sentence to get a point. He designed the board in Illustrator, printed it out and laminated it onto a foam core board. That’s our Bill. The kindergarten teacher was so amazed by it that she asked to borrow it from time to time.
Should you want to keep little minds busy over summer vacation, Bill’s even made his game into a pdf that you can download and customize to the child’s reading level or language (multitalented husband not included).
Click thumbnail below for a downloadable 6-page PDF (1.7MB) of the board game and letters.
craftnectar.com 
Nice idea, I have sent it on to a teacher friend of mine who might be able to use it! Pat hubby on the back!
Wow! What a thoughtful and creative dad,I love this! Thanks so much for sharing this, I’ll be linking.
That is awesome. My 5 year old loves to try playing Scrabble – this would be a great one for her. Thanks to Bill.
thank you and your husband so much! i’ve been wanting to buy a scrabble game to play with my young daughters, but i think this one is an even better idea! i can’t wait to try it out!
Thank you so much for sharing this. I just printed and am getting ready to glue. My son is going to love this game!
Cheers,
Tracey
You and Bill never cease to amaze me with your endless creativity. Well done, Bill!
Thanks for this! I have two boys who will love it!
Just found your blog – having fun going through it this morning!
thanks so much for sharing this!
Love this – linked to it on my weekly roundup! Thanks!
This is great! Thank you for sharing. My son and I are going to enjoy this. I hope you don’t mind that I linked to you as well.
Great idea! Another great activity to expose children to sight words is playing a board game called, Er-u-di-tion.
This award winning game incorporates over 300 sight words and the letters of the alphabet and their basic phonic sounds in an enjoyable, engaging activity, providing both teachers and parents with a useful tool.
Cards are categorized so children of all reading levels can play together!
O.K. ….This is too weird. Today I was brainstorming ideas for a children’s literacy group and…
You guessed it. I thinking about a Scrabble Junior with tailor made words. This is a great board!!! Thank you for sharing it.
Your husband is truly talented. Please thank him for me.
Is it ok if I use it for the group at the library?
Thanks,
~Gwen~
Hi:
WOW!!! I am so fortunate to have “found” this almost 1 year after you posted it : )
I am 61 and learned to spell through phonics; I can even remember my 1st grade teacher that made reading such a joy : )
Huge kudos to your wonderful husband for this game. I have my 1st grand daughter and although she is only 10 months old her grasp of words and communicating is astonishing. Her Mom, my youngest daughter, reads, sounds and spells out words for her all of the time. I will print this out so when she comes over we can play it.
Such a marvelous idea!!!
Thank you
regards
carole
Fabulous! Thank you for sharing your husband’s educational game. Learning can be fun! Pass along our thanks to him.
Thank you for posting this. What an awesome idea. I’m linking up over at my literacy blog.
Thanks for sharing.
Aimee
Fantastic idea. Thank you for sharing!
this looks great! THank you so much for sharing!!!
I just LOVE this activity!! kudos to your hubby for creating such a great game!! I’ve shared it here: http://dollarstoremom.com/2012/01/make-a-sight-word-scrabble-board-free-printable/
Thanks!!
This is SO NEAT. I’ve been giving sight word word cards to my niece for her daughter each year since she was Pre-K but they just disappear. This “game” might just stick around. I’d like to take this idea up a notch and make my own board for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade sight words. Thanks for the great and fun Idea. What an Awesome Husband to make this!! And Thanks for sharing it with the rest of us. Hmm, I might even use it for my ESL classes! Whoohoo!
This is genious. Not only is the idea great but the execution is beautiful. Well done dad. Thanks so much for sharing I know my daughter is going to like playing this.
Wow
This is great! Do you think your hubby could make a template to share? I’d love to make more games using other sight words.
Julie,
Click on the .pdf link. That is the template.
Hi! This seems awesome. I’m a nanny of two boys who have different sight word lists and I’d love to customize this. Any chance of getting the Adobe Illustrator file? Thanks!
No sorry. Feel free to make your own version.
I love how he used his talent to help learn by play. It’s awesome to see dads involved so much in their children’s education. Thank him for the clever activity. I will definitely be using it.
I know that this was made a while back, but I just found it and love it. I will be using it in my Kindergarten classroom this year. Thank you so much for sharing it.
I copied this off on paper and had two kids play it in the grade 1/2 class in which I volunteer. The kids rated it highly. Sight words are an issue and these kids know enough for the game to work and yet is challenging enough for them to learn more. To keep interest high and get allow more kids a turn, we did not play a complete game. Thanks to Daddy who racked up this game faster than I could ever have done. I will now make a permanent more durable game. Thank you for sharing.