Just wondered as our school uses sight words a lot. Ds is now in year one, has a great memory and can blend well so can pretty much read most things now. Dd has just started reception and is young (late June birthday) and has been given 3 sight words to learn a few letters and a few basic phonic words e.g. Sat, pat etc. She has learned the letter sounds but it took about a week to learn 5 just quickly going over them once a day. She can't remember the sight words except 'a' but she can blend the phonic words pretty well.
I am not worried as it is very early days but I just wondered as I have heard it said on here that children shouldn't learn by remembering common words but should decode all words. Is that right? I have never questioned it before as it seemed to suit ds but it isn't suiting dd (though I do realise that it might be a readiness issue). It just seems a shame that she can blend basic words well but is behind on her sight words