Dolch Sight Words
What Are Sight Words?
Sight words are frequently used words in the English language and make up 50 to 70 percent of most texts. They are called sight words because many cannot be sounded out and need to be memorized and recalled through “sight”. There are several sight word lists. At Birchview, we use the Dolch Sight Words in first through fourth grade. You can find a more in depth explanation of Dolch sight words here, at Mrs. Perkins' Dolch Words website!
At the kindergarten level and beginning of first grade, we use "Ball Words". For more information on ball words, click on the link below!
There are 220 Dolch words, and 95 nouns that make up six Dolch lists, broken down as follows:
Preprimer (pre-kindergarten) - 40 words
Primer (kindergarten) - 52 words
First grade - 41 words
Second grade - 46 words
Third grade - 41 words
Nouns - 95 words
You can access these lists, websites, printable activities and ideas for teaching sight words
by clicking on the Dolch words link below!
At the kindergarten level and beginning of first grade, we use "Ball Words". For more information on ball words, click on the link below!
There are 220 Dolch words, and 95 nouns that make up six Dolch lists, broken down as follows:
Preprimer (pre-kindergarten) - 40 words
Primer (kindergarten) - 52 words
First grade - 41 words
Second grade - 46 words
Third grade - 41 words
Nouns - 95 words
You can access these lists, websites, printable activities and ideas for teaching sight words
by clicking on the Dolch words link below!
Suggestions for using
Sight Word Flash Cards
- Take 5-10 minutes, 3-4 times a week to work with your child on these words – it is important that someone work with him/her or he/she may say them wrong without realizing it.
- It is helpful to break the words up into packets of 3-4 words, making sure he/she knows at least one or two of the words in each packet.
- If he/she becomes frustrated, stop immediately
- Mastery of a word is when your child can tell you the word within 3 seconds of seeing it, without sounding it out
- Mix the words up occasionally (I would suggest making new word groups each week)
- He/she should not sound the words out – most of them cannot be anyway
- If you see your child mixing several words up, put all those words in front of him/her and have him/her point out the differences (e.g. at, ate, and eat are common mixed-up words)