Ways to use this list
- Speed reading: a child reads the word the moment the wheel stops. With Remove the winner on, each word leaves once read, so you work through the whole level.
- Sight word hunt: spin a word, then everyone searches a page of a picture book for it and puts a finger on it.
- Sentence challenge for first graders: spin two words, like "said" and "away", and make up a sentence that uses both.
- Smart board game: choose Team battle; a team scores when its spinner reads the word correctly within three seconds.
- Home practice: press your child's level on a phone or tablet for five minutes after dinner; any changes you make to the list are remembered on that device.
Press Spin the wheel, tap the game or press the Space bar. Change the list in the box as you
like: add your own, delete what doesn't suit you, or write *2 after an entry to give it double the
chance. The game buttons switch the same list to a duck race, hat, claw machine and more.
The full list (40 entries)
- 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
Questions people ask
What are the Dolch sight words?
They are 220 common "service" words plus 95 nouns, collected by Edward William Dolch and published in 1936. Many of them, like said, could and the, cannot easily be sounded out, so children learn to recognise them on sight.
Which sight word level should my child start with?
Pre-primer usually comes first, in preschool or early kindergarten, followed by primer, then the first, second and third grade lists. Move on when your child reads nearly every word on a level without stopping to sound it out.
How many words are in each Dolch level?
Pre-primer has 40 words, primer 52, first grade 41, second grade 46 and third grade 41, making 220. The noun list has 95; we left out its two holiday words so the wheel suits every classroom, which leaves 93.
What is the difference between Dolch and Fry words?
Both list very common words. Dolch has 315 words sorted into levels and dates from the 1930s; Fry has 1,000 words sorted by how often they appear, from a later study. The most common words overlap heavily, so either works for early reading.
How do I teach a sight word that cannot be sounded out?
Many teachers use heart words: sound out the regular letters, then draw a small heart over the tricky part to learn by heart, such as the ai in said. Then read it, spell it aloud, write it and use it in a spoken sentence before spinning the next one.