Implication for students' current literacy

• Students were more familiar with words of higher frequency.
• They learned more words in the less frequent word lists than in the more frequent ones throughout the learning process, which shows that it is meaningful to teach sight words as their word bank to improve sight recognition and correct pronunciation.

Implication for students' future literacy from explicit teaching of sight words

• Reading frequency can be enhanced.
• Reading comprehension can be improved.
• Students' word bank can increase as obvious improvement was shown in the less frequent word lists.

Implication for teaching

• The teaching of sight words can be started earlier.
• Teaching sight words should continue and more interesting ways of teaching be developed to sustain students' interest and maximise learning outcomes.
• More opportunities could be provided for students to write using the sight words they learned.
• Students' reading fluency could be further developed by providing more opportunities to read aloud e.g. repeated reading practice, paired reading and rereading, reader's theatre, computer-based/tape-assisted reading, choral reading, etc.
• Teachers should include the teaching of sight words while planning a holistic school-based curriculum for literacy. A scheme of work showing which word lists should be covered/reinforced at which level to achieve vertical curriculum planning for teaching sight words.