I've been teaching my daughter to read using phonics. When do you teach sight words?
You can incorporate them into play right now. As long as you are not being pushy you can start as soon as you want. All the big items in our playroom are labeled by name so the children can see the words as they play. Things like table, chair, bookshelf, window, door and their names are on their drawers and coat rack.
They start them in Kinder here so anywhere from late 4 to almost 6 depending on the student.
My grandson was introduced to them in pre-K, and recognized quite a few words and letter combinations by the time he was 5. There are certain areas of the brain dedicated to recognizing patterns and shapes, and in individual kids, these develop earlier or later. So give it a try, but don't be alarmed or frustrated with your daughter if she's slow to get them. She will when she can.
My daughter was introduced to them in Kindergarten.
I started pretty quickly but waited to teach them until age 5.
My experience with my kids' school is in preschool and PreK, they learned the letters, what they look like and the name, in Kindergarten they start sight words and the sounds of letters from day one. So I guess your answer is, do it at the same time. In school they have a couple of letters a week and a couple of "Star" words per week ("star" words are the sight words).
My 3.5 yr old knows a lot of his sight words. He loved the "Meet the Sight Words" videos from preschoolprepco.com He's known most of them since he was about 2.5 - 3 yrs. But I think that's not the norm.
