Creating Sight Words Reviews

I love PowerPoint the things you can do with a presentation are endless.  I use PowerPoint to create a lot of my units and I have always used PowerPoint to create sight words reviews and test for my students when I taught ELA.  I still use it to create Podcast for my class and especially when I create the Morning Announcements for my school.  So for many, you might already know how to create the PowerPoint Sight words review, but when I create my sight words review, I use it to create podcast and videos that my parents can use at home with their students off their computer or even downloading them on to a table they might have.  So here is the how to:

The Before Work:
1. I create a normal PowerPoint presentation with one word per slide.  I usually add a background color to make the words pop on the slide.
2. After I create the slides, I save the PowerPoint 2 ways.  First I save it as a normal PowerPoint.  You can go to TRANSITIONS and have your PowerPoint advance after 3 seconds and students can study the words without you changing it for them.  Second I save the PowerPoint in JPEG format, yes you read correctly, as JPEG.  To save as JPEG, hit SAVE AS and then right under the PowerPoint title, hit the drop down menu at the SAVE FILE AS...and find the JPEG FILE INTERCHANGE FORMAT.  When you click on that a pop up menu will come up asking you if you want to save EVERY SLIDE, CURRENT SLIDE ONLY or CANCEL.  Click on EVERY SLIDE.  Clicking on this will save every slide individually as a JPEG file in its own folder, usually in the same location of the first save.
3. Now like I said if you save the PowerPoint in the normal way with 3 second advancement you can save the file and bring it up when you would like students to practice their sight words, but what about those students that you know don't know the words or need the extra help reading the words?  That is where the JPEG files come into play.

Creating a voiced video for sight words practice using Windows Movie Maker: 
1. Open up Windows Movie Maker.
2. Import all the pictures of the slides you saved as JPEG.
3. Go to Options and make sure your slides are set to the 3 seconds on the transition for each slide before putting the pictures on the story board.  For older versions of Movie Maker, you will need a separate program to record the voice portion of the video.  I usually use Audacity (google it and you will find the FREE download).  On my newer computer (Windows 8)  the Movie Maker has a option to record narration and I use that now instead of having to move from program to program.
4. After recording the voice portion on Audacity (for older models) save it as an MP3 format and then import it to the Movie Maker and line it up with the pictures you have already added to the story board.
5. Save the video to the computer.  REMEMBER TO SAVE AS PROJECT TO BE ABLE TO GO BACK AND MAKE CORRECTIONS, but the video is not complete till you save the video to the computer.

Congratulations you have just created a voiced sight words review.  I usually upload the videos to my webpage so parents can download on to their tablets at home and also so my Spanish speaking parents can use them to help their students study the words at home.

If you would prefer to watch a how to video on how to create sight word videos, I have embedded the videos below.

Part 1 of 3 video Creating Sight Words Video
Part 2 of 3 Recording Your Voice
Part 3 of 3 Putting It All Together

Thanks for coming by I hope you found this tutorial helpful, follow my blog for more tutorials on how to integrate more technology into your classroom. 

If you are not ready to create these reviews yourself, click on the picture below to the Sight Words Review PowerPoint from my store.    

I would love to hear from you, please leave a comment on the tutorial or what you would love to see on this webpage.  I would greatly appreciate any feedback on how to make this a better website.