SIGHT WORDS

There are two kinds of sight words lists.  One is the Dolch List and the newer one is Fry's Sight Word list.

The Dolch sight words list is a list of the 250 most used words in the English language for the beginning reader. This list includes sight words and non-phonetic words.  The list usually has pre-primer words, and 1st through 3rd grade sight words.

Fry's Sight Word list is a newer list of the most used 100 words for each grade from 1st grade through 10th grade.

I consider sight words as those words readers quickly memorize because they are so familiar; words like a, sleep, like and play to name just a few. Once the student knows decoding skills and certain phonetic rules, sight words are easy to read and spell.

HOWEVER, the non-phonetic sight words are the most difficult to learn to read or to learn to spell.  Non-phonetic words are those that don't follow the rules of spelling.  For instance:

ONE is pronounced won.  According to the silent e spelling rule; in the word ONE, the o should be pronounced with a long sound.

Students that have a learning disability will have even a harder time learning the non-phonetic sight words like are, to, the and put than other students. 

Remember, non-phonetic words don’t follow phonetic rules and are therefore very confusing for the struggling reader.

LD students should be taught how to read using the Orton-Gillingham method OR at the very least a program that uses phonics. Sight words can be hard for a struggling reader to read IF he doesn’t have decoding skills.

Some students learn better if they have a visual cue for the word. Here is an example from iseeispellilearn.com

This red rose is for you.

MY LIST

I have developed a list of the Dolch Sight Words based on the Scope and Sequence of teaching reading using the Orton-Gillingham method and the decodable books from The Recipe to Reading Manual.

The list is divided into 2 parts. One is for beginning readers (pre-K to end of 1st grade) and the other is for intermediate readers (2-3rd grade).

If you would like the lists that I have created, you will need to request a password. Just fill in the form below and a password will be sent to you within a few minutes. THEN just click on one of the links below.

Beginner's Sight Words List
Intermediate Sight Words List

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