What is a "sight word"?

By now, you're probably realized your first grader keeps coming home talking about sight words.  So what are they and why are they important? 

As beginning readers, it's crucial that students immediately recognize common words that will appear throughout their reading texts.  Phonics (or sounding out words) is essential, but students should not spend their time sounding out the common words like "the" and "with" but instead should immediately recognize these words.

You can read more about all this on this great website: What are Dolch words?