The Dolch Words are the 220 most frequently

found words in books that children read.

Children who learn these words develop a firm
base for beginning reading. May of these word
should be learnt as sight words.

Units and activities of various descriptions will

be constantly updated to develop the repetition
necessary to familiarise themselves with the
words.

TEACHING NOTES & OVERVIEW

I extend grateful thanks to my sources(credit below) for providing this brief

overview, and when I have combined it with the actual words lists and phrase list,
gives an indication of the INTERNATIONAL accepted norms and standards. Note
however that some work units will have some of the words in various of the other
groups.

I have my own personal method of teaching these to my own children with the aids
of many and various organisations and methods. The end requirement or result is
the same and successful. We must also bear in mind that in South Africa many of
our spellings are different to the spelling in the United States therefore we have
to adapt our teaching plans accordingly.

I have compiled flash cards, work units and sight word lists for each of the five
Dolch Groups, Nouns and the Phrases. The delay in uploading is due to the present
conversion into Afrikaans and Zulu as well, where appropriate.

Overview – Teaching Notes

The famous Dolch Sight Word lists are named after E.W. Dolch, who surveyed a great
quantity of children's books to compile a list of the most commonly occurring
words in young children's readers. He came up with a list of 220 "service words"
(primarily pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and verbs)
and 95 common nouns. It is estimated that the combined listings account for
common words that occur in 50-75% of children's books.

The Dolch words are also commonly known as "sight words" because very often they
cannot be either illustrated via simple pictures or sounded out according to
regular phonetic decoding rules. They need to be learned and recognized 'on
sight'. Given the frequency of the Dolch words in children's literature, they are
deemed crucial for beginner readers, and most experts advocate the these words be
learned by native English speakers prior to finishing the first grade in school.

The importance of learning Dolch words for beginner EFL/ESL students has also been
pointed out, but it is important to note that whereas native speakers are learning
written forms of words that have already become cemented in their oral/aural
vocabulary, this may not necessarily be the case for learners of English as a
second language. For these students, learning Dolch words really needs to go hand
in hand with a rich array of comprehensible language input in both spoken and
written form.

Dolch Sight Word Listing

Dolch organized his listing into categories that match grade levels. This
represents a sequence rather than an order of difficulty, and matches the
frequency of words according to grade-level material. Despite this
categorization, it is generally recommended that all of the words in all the
categories be learned during the first grade.

Pre-primer (In South Africa we refer to this as Grade RR (Gr 1)

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 (In South Africa we refer to this as Grade R) (Gr2)

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

1st Grade (Gr3)

after, again, an, any, as, ask, by, could, every, fly, from, give,
giving, 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

2nd Grade (Gr4)

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

3rd Grade (Gr5)

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

Dolch Nouns

apple, baby, back, ball, bear, bed, bell, bird, birthday, boat, box, boy,
bread, brother, cake, car, cat, chair, chicken, children, Christmas,
coat, corn, cow, day, dog, doll, door, duck, egg, eye, farm, farmer,
father, feet, fire, fish, floor, flower, game, garden, girl, good-bye,
grass, ground, hand, head, hill, home, horse, house, kitty, leg, letter,
man, men, milk, money, morning, mother, name, nest, night, paper,
party, picture, pig, rabbit, rain, ring, robin, Santa Claus, school,
seed, sheep, shoe, sister, snow, song, squirrel, stick, street, sun,
table, thing, time, top, toy, tree, watch, water, way, wind, window,
wood