Pre-K and Kindergarten Sight Word Help

Well, when we went to Kindergarten orientation a few weeks back, we learned that our little 'soon to be kindergartener' was expected to know certain Pre-K sight words.  Hmmm.  We hadn't any idea.  We thought we were set.  He knew all his letters, capital and lowercase, numbers to 100, can write his name, etc.  Words?  Wow!  We were shocked.  We felt like bad parents.  We also learned that Steel was going to be tested prior to the start of school.  Ut-oh!  The hub scrambled the day before the test and worked with Steel briefly to cram.  Okay, so it wasn't a full out studying session but we wanted him to at least be familiar with a few words that he was expected to know in hopes that we didn't look like total failures.

Steel went to preschool when he was 3 but he only attended day care when he was 4.  Since preschool is only for a few hours a few times per week and we had to work and didn't have means of taking him, we opted for daycare alone.

Well, the test went well.  His score wasn't flying off the charts but it was no where near the bottom of the barrel either!  Thank goodness!  We passed!

Well, to help out our little kindergartener, we work with him daily for a few minutes.  I have flash cards that I bought previously when I was feeling ambitious.  (I used to try to work with him and he had no interest and I did not press the issue.)  I picked out a few words on the Pre-K list from the flash cards and I also write them on pieces of construction paper and hung them in the foyer.  Steel enjoys going over them.  We add a couple more words every few days.  I figure that the flash cards and the papers are different enough so that he just doesn't memorize the words by the color of paper and the hanging them by the door helps in practicing on the way in and out of the house.  (He actually was starting the memorize the order so I also point to the words in different order all the time.)