Sight words are short, common words children learn to read on sight instead of sounding out, because many of them do not follow simple phonics rules. The Dolch lists were put together by Edward William Dolch in the 1930s and 1940s from the words that appear most often in children's books. The pre-primer list is the first of them and has 40 words.
The full pre-primer list (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 |
A short routine: read it, trace it, write it
Two or three new words a day is plenty for most children aged 4 to 6.
Read it. Show the word and say it once. Ask your child to say it back, then point to it in a short sentence, such as "I can see a big red ball."
Trace it. Trace the word over dotted letters three or four times, saying each letter and then the whole word.
Write it. Write the word once on an empty line without looking, then check it against the printed word.
Come back to the words from earlier days for a minute before adding new ones. When a word is read quickly in a sentence, it is learned.
Printable practice pages
Our Kindergarten Worksheets have a read, trace and write page for every word on this list, two words per page, along with letter tracing A to Z, number tracing 0 to 20, counting and adding within 10. 84 pages in US Letter and A4.
See the Kindergarten Worksheets, $5© Lumineus Studio. Privacy policy