Dolch sight words are a list of the 220 most frequently encountered words in children’s literature and are commonly used as a teaching tool for reading, writing and spelling.

Prepared back 1936 by E. W. Dolch, the list does contain words that are no longer in common usage, such as shall and upon. The list forms a good basis of common words for children to learn between the ages of 5 and 8.

Many of the 220 words in the Dolch list, can not be “sounded out”, and must be learned by sight, which is why the list is often referred to as “Dolch Sight Word List”, and the words on it, as “Dolch Sight Words”.

Dolch excluded nouns from his main list, but did compile a separate 95-word list of nouns.

Listed in the order of frequency:

This story was written by Alex Brooks for Kidspot, New Zealand’s leading education resource for parents from sources including DolchSightWords.