Sight words

Words children learn to read at a glance, like the, said and was. The Dolch lists by grade and the first 100 Fry words, with games and flash cards to print.

Listen and find

Thena says a sight word. Find it among four.

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0 of 24 stickers. Finish a round of any game to win one, and get three stars to make it shiny.

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Dolch sight words by grade

Edward Dolch’s 220 “service words”, from his study of children’s books in the 1930s, in the five levels schools use. Tap a word to hear Thena say it.

In England? Schools there call these tricky words, taught phase by phase.

Pre-primer

40 words · Pre-K and kindergarten

Primer

52 words · Kindergarten

1st grade

41 words · 1st grade

2nd grade

46 words · 2nd grade

3rd grade

41 words · 3rd grade

The first 100 Fry words

Edward Fry’s instant words are in order of how often they’re used: the first 100 make up about half of the words in everything children read.

Dolch or Fry?

Dolch’s list is sorted by grade, from pre-primer (pre-K and kindergarten) to 3rd grade, which makes it easy to know where to start. Fry’s goes on to 1,000 words in order of use, so it carries on where Dolch stops. Many words are on both.

Plenty of sight words can be sounded out: and, it, can, up. The science of reading suggests teaching the regular parts with phonics and learning only the tricky part by heart, like the ai in said. Common Core asks kindergarteners to “read common high-frequency words by sight”, and they go on learning them through 1st and 2nd grade.

Sight word flash cards

Print a list, cut out the cards and read a few each day. Put the ones they know in one pile and the ones to practice in another.

a
and
away
big
blue
can
come
down
find
for
funny
go
help
here
I
in
is
it
jump
little
look
make
me
my
not
one
play
red
run
said
see
the
three
to
two
up
we
where
yellow
you

Reading starts with sounds.

In Thena’s lessons every sound is said clearly, and children tap, blend and read with her, at their own level.

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