The short answer

Sight words are words a reader recognizes instantly, without sounding them out. In schools the term usually means the high-frequency words, such as the, and, said and was, that make up a large share of any page a child reads, which is why teachers want them automatic early.

Here are the first of them, exactly as they appear in the app. Tap one to hear it with its sentence.

The lists schools use

Almost every list that comes home in a book bag is cut from one of two sources. The Dolch list, compiled by Edward Dolch in the 1930s from children's books of the time, has 220 service words and 95 nouns, grouped from pre-primer to third grade. The Fry list, from Edward Fry, ranks 1,000 words by how often they appear and groups them in hundreds. Schools in the UK work from the high-frequency words in the Letters and Sounds phases instead, which is the order this app follows.

  • Dolch sight words: The Dolch list is 220 service words in five levels, plus a separate list of 95 nouns, so 315 words in total.
  • Dolch pre-primer sight words: Pre-primer is the first Dolch level: 40 words, including a, and, I, in, is, the, to and you.
  • Dolch primer sight words: Primer is the second Dolch level and the largest: 52 words, from all and am through will, with and yes.
  • Fry sight words: Edward Fry's Instant Words are 1,000 words ranked by how often they appear in print, taught in hundreds.
  • First 100 Fry words: The first hundred Fry Instant Words are the top band of Fry's ranked high-frequency list, printed in order from the, of, and and a downward.

Lists by grade

Grade lists are a convention, not a standard: each school or district picks its own. These are the common ones.

How sight words fit with phonics

They are not an alternative to phonics. Most high-frequency words can be sounded out once a child knows the letter sounds involved, and sounding out is what fixes a word in memory. What makes a word tricky is usually one part: the ai in said, the a in was. Teachers point that part out, sometimes with a heart drawn over it, and the rest of the word is decoded as normal.

  • High-frequency words: High-frequency words are the small group of words, usually put at 300 to 500, that account for a large share of everything in print.
  • Sight word flashcards: Flashcards work for sight words when they are used on a small stack of words a child does not yet know, with a fixed routine and daily review.
  • Sight word sentences: A sight word sentence is a short sentence built almost entirely from words a child already knows, so the new word is the only hard thing in it.
  • Heart words: A heart word is a common word with one or two letters that do not follow the usual letter sound patterns, so those letters are learned by heart while the rest of the word is sounded out.

A five-minute routine that works at home

  1. Five words, not fifty. Three the child knows, two that are new. Success first keeps them at the table.
  2. Say it, then find it. Read the word, then read the sentence it sits in. Words stick in context.
  3. Point at the tricky bit. If one part of the word does not sound the way it looks, name that part and move on.
  4. Come back tomorrow. Short and daily beats long and weekly. Put the missed words at the front of the next session.

Questions parents ask

Are sight words the same as high-frequency words?

Not quite, though the terms get used interchangeably. High-frequency words are the words that appear most often in print. A sight word is any word a particular reader already knows instantly. The goal of teaching is to turn the first kind into the second.

Should children memorize sight words or sound them out?

Both, in that order of preference. Most high-frequency words are fully decodable once a child has the phonics, and sounding them out is how they stick. A smaller set has an unusual spelling for one sound, such as said or was; teachers mark that part as the bit to learn by heart.

How many sight words should a child know?

It depends on the school's list. The Dolch list has 220 service words plus 95 nouns spread from pre-primer to third grade, and the Fry list runs to 1,000 words in groups of 100. Your child's teacher is the right source for the target in their class.