First, lets review what word families are…
Word families are words which end the same forming a chunk that the children can learn to say altogether rather than sounding out each letter sound. For example can: sound out the c and add the chunk an forming can.
Word families also encourage children to find patterns in words so they can recall this information in a timely fashion.
Word families encourage children to spell better as you guide them to search for a word in the family that they already know how to spell. …read more

Sight words are the most frequently used words in the English language. Even though there are only about 200 words in this list Sight words make up about 50-70 percent of everyday language and text.
Immediate recognition is important because we use these words so often. In fact, no one should have to decode these words…we should know them on sight.
There are two basic lists of sight words, the Dolch List of Basic Sight Words and Fry’s 300 Instant Sight Words.