Why are sight words important? As children start learning to read it is important to develop a bank of words that are known by sight. These should include sight words, as well as other words that are important to the child. If children have to sound out every word, reading becomes laborious and slow that children might want to give up, or if not, they will have a difficult time comprehending what they are reading. Many words that are used frequently are non decodable (impossible to sound out), so they must be learned by sight. Learning sight words by sight, helps children build confidence and fluency in their reading, and thus reading becomes easier and makes more sense.