The Dolch list
Edward W. Dolch, of the University of Illinois, published “A Basic Sight Vocabulary” in The Elementary School Journal in February 1936. It lists 220 words, the words other than nouns that three word lists of the time had in common: the International Kindergarten Union list, the Gates list and the Wheeler-Howell list (27 of the 220 were on only two of them). The 95 nouns the lists shared went into a separate table, headed “95 Nouns Common to the Three Word Lists but Not Recommended for a Basic Sight Vocabulary”.
The lists below use the five levels the words are usually published in today, from pre-primer to third grade, as in the Florida Department of Education’s and ReadWriteThink’s versions, followed by the nouns. The list follows today’s published versions; the 1936 table prints stock and goodbye where they have stick and good-bye. Each list has a button that loads it into the worksheet generator.
How these worksheets are set up
The box holds the 40 pre-primer words, one per line, so the PDF has 40 pages, one word on each. Repeat the word across each row is on, so on US Letter in portrait go fits four times on a row and yellow twice. Letters are Medium (¾ inch from the top line to the baseline) and every word keeps the case it’s typed in, so I stays a capital and the rest are lowercase. The title says “Trace the word”; change it under More options, or empty it for none.
To trace another list, press its button: it replaces the words in the box with that list. Each word is still its own page, so use the page range in your print dialog for a few words at a time.
The Dolch lists
Pre-primer (40 words): 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 (52 words): 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 (41 words): after, again, an, any, as, ask, by, could, every, fly, from, give, going, 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 (46 words): 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 (41 words): 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
Nouns (95 words): apple, baby, back, ball, bear, bed, bell, bird, birthday, boat, box, boy, bread, brother, cake, car, cat, chair, chicken, children, Christmas, coat, corn, cow, day, dog, doll, door, duck, egg, eye, farm, farmer, father, feet, fire, fish, floor, flower, game, garden, girl, good-bye, grass, ground, hand, head, hill, home, horse, house, kitty, leg, letter, man, men, milk, money, morning, mother, name, nest, night, paper, party, picture, pig, rabbit, rain, ring, robin, Santa Claus, school, seed, sheep, shoe, sister, snow, song, squirrel, stick, street, sun, table, thing, time, top, toy, tree, watch, water, way, wind, window, wood
For words in joined letters, switch Handwriting to Cursive, as on the cursive name tracing page. To practice reading the same words, the sight word bingo generator makes a class set of Dolch bingo cards, and kindergarten writing paper has blank ¾ inch rows, the same size as these worksheets, for writing the words in sentences.
What this page sets up
| Letter case | As typed |
|---|---|
| Letter size | Medium: ¾ in / 19 mm (K, 1st) |
| Repeat across each row | On |
| Title | “Trace the word” |
Anything else starts from the choices you last made on the name tracing worksheet generator in this browser. Settings you change here are remembered for next time, but this page's own setup, the words and the title are not, so it always opens the same way.