Correct Answer: was, the, were, who, to sight words, sometimes referred to as high-frequency words, are common words that young readers are encouraged to memorize as a whole by sight, so that they can automatically recognize these words in text without having to use decoding strategies. this approach is essential in early education as it helps to build reading fluency, allowing students to read more smoothly and quickly.
the list "was, the, were, who, to" consists of words that are prime examples of sight words. these words do not follow simple phonics rules, making them hard to sound out and therefore ideal candidates for sight word recognition. for instance, the word "the" is pronounced with a silent 'e,' and "who" is pronounced with a silent 'w,' which can be confusing to a child learning to read using phonics alone.
in contrast, the other lists such as "stop, hop, drop, pop" and "bake, baking, baked" are more suited to phonics-based teaching. these words can be easily sounded out and belong to specific word families, where a common phonetic pattern is shared (e.g., "-op" in "stop, hop, drop, pop"). teaching these words through phonics helps students understand how letters are linked to sounds and how these sounds create words.
similarly, "sing, sang, sung" represent verb forms where the change in the vowel sound illustrates a change in tense. these are not typically taught as sight words because they provide an excellent opportunity to teach students about verb conjugations and the concept of regular and irregular verbs.
therefore, the correct answer "was, the, were, who, to" represents true sight words because these words are generally taught for immediate recognition to aid reading fluency. recognizing these words on sight without decoding them allows students to read more complex texts more easily and with better comprehension, as they do not get bogged down by trying to decode every single word. this method of teaching sight words is a fundamental part of literacy education in elementary schools.
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