You just want
kids to master
MORE sight words
MORE easily.
We do too!
Sight Word Success
The BRAIN-FRIENDLY Mini-Course and Classroom Materials created to help you make words really stick!


Sight Word Success
The Mini-Course
In the Sight Word Success Mini-Course, you’ll learn the WHY and the HOW of brain-friendly high-frequency word instruction.
This two-hour on-demand course is ready when you are. You’ll learn the secrets behind making high-frequency words really stick for your students. You’ll leave with the confidence to prioritize, assess and plan for sight word instruction efficiently. You’ll also learn a simple but powerful science-aligned lesson routine that harnesses the power of orthographic mapping to teach ANY words in ways that make them stick!
$39
60 Days of 24/7 Access

Sight Word Success
The Classroom Materials
+
The Mini-Course
When you purchase the Sight Word Success Classroom Materials you’ll ALSO get the Sight Word Success Mini-Course, for FREE! Our gift to you!
Together these two powerful tools provide you with both the know-how and the materials for more effective high-frequency word instruction. The classroom materials include 109 ready-to-use-tomorrow instructional slide shows, assessment tools, a teacher guidebook, priority word lists, and more! Our goal is to make word learning easier for your students while also making teaching high-frequency words easier for you!
$149
5 Years of Access
Wondering what you will get?

The Sight Word Success Mini-Course
The SWS Mini-Course teaches you the WHY and the HOW
of brain-friendly sight word instruction.
- Anytime access to the Sight Word Success mini-course
in video AND audio formats for 60 days,
- Two hours of clear and engaging video/audio instruction from Jan and Kari,
- The 109 Power Words in 3 different formats–sorted by frequency, by spelling pattern, and alphabetically,
- The “Which Words When? Weekly Planning Tool”,
- A Ready-to-Use Lesson Template for teaching ANY word in brain-friendly ways, and
- Printable Assessment Tools to ensure instruction is responsive and targeted.

The Sight Word Success Classroom Materials
+
The Mini-Course
With the SWS Mini-Course + SWS Classroom Materials, you’ll be equipped
with the WHY and HOW of high-frequency word instruction AND
a no-fluff system you can implement with your students immediately!
- The 150-page SWS Lesson Guide packed with a collection of teaching resources, including specific guidance on using the lessons, FAQs, assessment directions, word lists, and other tools,
- A collection of easy-to-use materials to make planning for and teaching sight words easier,
- Phoneme/Grapheme Mapping Guide for all 109 Power Words,
- 109 ready-to-use lessons–one for each Power Word–following our 10-step lesson structure. The lessons include teacher language to scaffold orthographic mapping effectively,
- 109 interactive slideshows in a fun, flipbook format. The slideshows follow our 10-step lesson structure and make teaching the 109 lessons engaging and brain-friendly (and easy to plan!),
- 109 two-sided, printable Word Mapping Cards for small-group and independent practice,
- Video Library with videos of Jan and Kari explaining how to make the most of your SWS Classroom Materials, and
- Individual and group assessment materials in printable and digital formats. These will help you figure out which words children need to learn and help you differentiate your instruction.
- PLUS! The On-Demand SWS Mini-Course FREE!
Two tools designed to work great together for
brain-friendly instruction to make words stick.

Sight Word Success (SWS)
BRAIN-FRIENDLY Mini-Course and Classroom Materials created to help you make words really stick.
What are educators saying about
Sight Word Success
with Jan and Kari?
“Apply it the next day!”
You can take it and apply it the next day!
– Jaclyn, K-6 ELA Specialist
“The best PD ever!”
It’s fabulous! I tell all of my colleagues about this course and Shifting the Balance Online Class. I felt like I was reuniting with old friends. The information you share is practical and meaningful. The best PD ever!
– Heather, 2nd Grade Teacher
“A more effective way to teach sight words.”
This course helped me to understand the reason why so many of the ways I have used in the past to help young readers learn sight words have not been successful or have been inconsistent. The course helped me understand a more effective way to teach sight words. The course explained the “why” behind why this method of teaching sight words is more effective and then showed me exactly how – step by step -to introduce and teach new words. It also gave great ideas for assessments to determine what sight words need to be taught and how to keep track of the data.
–Gayle, Kindergarten Teacher
“I appreciate the step-by-step breakdown.”
It was very helpful. I appreciate the step-by-step breakdown of the lesson and the editable lesson plan. The consistent language will be key, and I appreciate your thoughtful wording/prompting for students.
– Becky, 2nd Grade Teacher
“I would highly recommend this course!”
I would highly recommend this course! Knowing the why AND the how is so important for effective teaching, so I truly appreciate how clear, concise, and explicit the information is presented in this course. Every part of the course is so practical and easily transferred to my current teaching.
– Karin, Reading Teacher
“Get all the information along with resources.”
It was very informative. I loved that I could get all the information along with resources to test it out in a relatively short amount of time.
– Ashley, First Grade Teacher

You’ve got questions?
We love that!
We’ve got answers.
How long will the course take?
The SWS Mini-Course is a self-paced course, so you can start, pause, rewind, and restart as often as you’d like. From start to finish, the video instruction lasts about two hours. But that time is broken into short and digestible segments, so you can “binge it” all at once or take it in bits. You will have access to the mini-course for 60 days
I don’t have a lot of room in my weekly schedule to teach sight words, so I need students to learn them primarily by practicing on their own. What can I do?
What if my school district has an assigned list of sight words that I’m required to teach?
Do I have to show up for the mini-course at a particular time?
Do I have to finish the SWS Mini-Course before accessing the SWS Classroom Materials?
Do I have to buy both the mini-course and the classroom materials together?
How long will I have access ?
What if I have already taken the Shifting the Balance (StB) Online Class?
What is your refund policy?

We’re excited to help you bring the power of orthographic mapping to life in your classroom.
We’re Jan Burkins and Kari Yates.
As experienced educators and consultants, we have deep roots in early childhood education and share a passion for supporting students (and you — their teachers) in the earliest stages of reading and writing development.
We were surprised to learn (as you might be!) that the traditional method of having children “just memorize” high-frequency words just isn’t brain-friendly.
In fact, the brain just can’t learn more than a very few words that way. So we studied how the brain learns words and even wrote a book called Shifting the Balance, which has a chapter dedicated entirely to revising word learning practices.
Once we learned about Orthographic Mapping, an in-the-brain process identified by researcher Linnea Ehri, we were astonished. Not only had we not been leveraging the power of orthographic mapping, but the traditional methods we were using had actually been making it harder for children to learn sight words.
But once we understood, we wanted to spread the word by helping teachers like you learn these critical instructional routines for supporting orthographic mapping. So we started looking for materials that could support you.
But everything we found came up short in one way or another.
We couldn’t find the resources we needed to help you implement orthographic mapping in the engaging ways we wanted, so we just decided to make them.
So we decided to make Sight Word Success because we know that you’re right there with us in wanting to make learning to read easier – not harder – for your students.