How it works
- Choose a list: one of the five Dolch levels, or your own words.
- Leave out any words your class already knows by tapping them.
- Pick practice pages, flash cards or both, and a handwriting style for tracing.
- Download one PDF: a page for every word, then the cards to cut out.
Five steps on every page
Each practice page works through one word the same way, so children soon know what to do on their own: read the word in big print, trace it, write it twice, find it among words that look alike, and spell it letter by letter in boxes. The “circle every” puzzle uses words of a similar length from the Dolch lists, so children have to look at every letter.
The Dolch sight word lists
Edward William Dolch published his list of 220 “service words” in 1936, drawn from the books children read at the time. The words are still the backbone of many US reading programs. Here is every word, by level:
Pre-primer (40 words)
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
Primer (52 words)
all, am, are, at, ate, be, black, brown, but, came, did, do, eat, four, get, good, have, he, into, like, must, new, no, now, on, our, out, please, pretty, ran, ride, saw, say, she, so, soon, that, there, they, this, too, under, want, was, well, went, what, white, who, will, with, yes
First grade (41 words)
after, again, an, any, as, ask, by, could, every, fly, from, give, going, had, has, her, him, his, how, just, know, let, live, may, of, old, once, open, over, put, round, some, stop, take, thank, them, then, think, walk, were, when
Second grade (46 words)
always, around, because, been, before, best, both, buy, call, cold, does, don't, fast, first, five, found, gave, goes, green, its, made, many, off, or, pull, read, right, sing, sit, sleep, tell, their, these, those, upon, us, use, very, wash, which, why, wish, work, would, write, your
Third grade (41 words)
about, better, bring, carry, clean, cut, done, draw, drink, eight, fall, far, full, got, grow, hold, hot, hurt, if, keep, kind, laugh, light, long, much, myself, never, only, own, pick, seven, shall, show, six, small, start, ten, today, together, try, warm
Common Core standards
- RF.K.3.CRead common high-frequency words by sight.
- RF.1.3.GRead first-grade irregularly spelled words.
- RF.2.3.FRead second-grade irregularly spelled words.
Summaries in our own words; see the Common Core State Standards for the full text.
