Elaine

The Dolch Sight Word List is a list of 220 common English words that was originally prepared by Edward William Dolch, PhD for his in 1948 book, "Problems in Reading". In order to achieve fluency in English reading, it is necessary for a child to be able to recognize each of these words, especially since none of these words can be sounded out phonetically.

The Dolch Sight Word List is divided into five levels:

- Pre-Primer: 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: 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: 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

- Second Grade: 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: 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

Whether in K-12 education, home-schooling or ESL (English as a Second Language), it is essential that students become not only familiar with all these words, but are able to immediately recognize them. Teachers and educators therefore should try to devise activities around these words, and encouraging their learning and recognition.

One common activity is to make use of flash cards in class. Another one, which is great fun for students, but also very helpful in encouraging learning of these words, is to play Dolch Sight Word Bingo. You can use preprinted bingo cards (although these can be expensive), or create bingo cards by hand (which is cheap but time consuming), or use a special computer program such as Bingo Card Printer to produce the cards.

Bingo Card Printer is easy-to-use software for creating custom bingo cards, and comes with ready-to-use templates for quickly and simply creating all types of bingo cards. Download and try it for free! http://www.bingocardprinter.com/download.php