1. Phonemic awareness, breaking words into their sounds, deleting and adding phonemes, blending into a word. Understanding that the sounds blend into a word in a left to right sequence.
2. Letter awareness, the alphabet, upper and lower case, letter names and sounds.
3. Book and print awareness (words, direction, purpose).
4. Background development, vocabulary (oral pictures).
5. Language development – syntax.
6. Comprehension – questions, predictions.
7. By end, alphabet, some or all letter-sound correspondences, simple decoding, some sight words.  These will be colors, Pre-Primer, and Primer words.
8. Writing, using invented (phonetic) spelling and regularly spelled words.

Some useful sites for parents to help children to learn sight words.