Once a child knows this list of words, it makes reading much easier, because the child can then focus his or her attention on the remaining words.
These words comprise 80% of the words you would find in a typical children’s book and 50% of the words found in writing for adults. The list contains 220 “service words” plus 95 high-frequency nouns. Edward William Dolch developed the list in the 1930s-40s by studying the most frequently occurring words in children’s books of that era.
The Dolch Sight Words list is the most commonly used set of sight words. For a link to a web site all about sight words, including various printable flash cards, click here. The most common sight words are the Dolch and the Fry lists. Using sight word s is an effective way of teaching a child to recognize commonly used words.
