KidTeller BlogWhat Are Sight Words? The Kindergarten List and How to Teach It
What are sight words for kindergarten?
Sight words for kindergarten are common words a child learns to read instantly, such as the, and, is, you and said. Many schools use the 40 Dolch pre-primer words and the 52 Dolch primer words, 92 in all. Most can be sounded out; a few have a tricky part that a child learns by heart. Five minutes a day of games at home is enough.
Key takeaways
- Sight words are common words a child learns to read instantly, without stopping to sound them out.
- The 92 Dolch pre-primer and primer words are the list many kindergarten classes use, though each school sets its own list.
- The Common Core kindergarten standard RF.K.3c asks children to read common high-frequency words by sight, such as the, of, to, you and is.
- Most sight words can be sounded out, and the irregular ones usually have only one or two letters a child must learn by heart.
- Five minutes a day of games, a few new words each week and daily reading in real books beat a stack of 100 flash cards.
Your child comes home from kindergarten with a note that says "practice sight words," and no list attached. Sight words for kindergarten are the small, common words like the, and, is and said that turn up on every page of a picture book. This guide answers what are sight words, gives you the full 92-word kindergarten list, and shows a five-minute routine to teach them at home.
What are sight words, and why do they matter?
Sight words are words a child reads instantly, without stopping to sound them out. Most lists collect high-frequency words, the ones that appear again and again in children's books. When the, is and you are automatic, a beginning reader has more attention left for the new words and for the story.
The idea is old. Edward William Dolch published his basic sight vocabulary in 1936, and according to the Dolch word list article on Wikipedia, he estimated that these words made up 50 to 75 percent of the words in schoolbooks, library books, newspapers and magazines. That estimate is from 1936, but a glance at any easy reader shows the same small words on every line.
Two kinds of sight words: regular and "heart words"
Sight words come in two kinds. Most follow the usual letter-sound rules: can, big, run, jump and red can be sounded out by a child who knows the letters. The Wikipedia article notes that most of the 220 Dolch service words are phonetic.
The second kind has a part that breaks the rules. In said, the middle letters do not make the sound a child expects, and in was and of the vowel sounds are unusual. Teachers often call these "heart words," because the tricky part has to be learned by heart.
The kindergarten sight word list (Dolch pre-primer and primer)
The kindergarten sight word list most schools start from is the Dolch pre-primer list of 40 words and the Dolch primer list of 52 words. Some schools teach the pre-primer words in pre-K and the primer words in kindergarten; others teach all 92 in kindergarten. Every word below was checked against the ReadWriteThink Dolch word list and the Wikipedia list.
| List | Words |
|---|---|
| Pre-primer (1–20) | a, and, away, big, blue, can, come, down, find, for, funny, go, help, here, I, in, is, it, jump, little |
| Pre-primer (21–40) | look, make, me, my, not, one, play, red, run, said, see, the, three, to, two, up, we, where, yellow, you |
| Primer (1–26) | 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 |
| Primer (27–52) | 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 |
Dolch, Fry or the school's own list?
Your child's school may use the Dolch list, the Fry list, or a list built from its reading program. The lists overlap a lot, so practice at home helps whichever one the class uses.
| List | Who made it | Size | How it is split | Best use at home |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dolch | Edward William Dolch, 1936 | 220 service words + 95 nouns | Pre-primer, primer, grades 1–3, nouns | The kindergarten levels above |
| Fry | Edward Fry, 1979 | 1,000 "instant words" | Groups by frequency | The first groups, if the school uses Fry |
| School list | The teacher or reading program | Varies | Week by week | Always first: it matches the classroom |
The Common Core kindergarten standard RF.K.3c asks children to "read common high-frequency words by sight (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does)." The standard gives examples and no target number, so how many words a kindergartner should know depends on the school. Ask the teacher for the list and the goal for the year.
How to teach sight words at home in 7 steps
The best way to teach sight words at home is a short daily game that links each word's letters to its sounds. Five minutes a day works better than one long session on Sunday.
- Start with your child's name. A child's own name is often the first word they read by sight, and it teaches that letters stay in the same order every time. Point it out on lunch boxes, drawings and in stories with your child's name.
- Pick three new words a week. Take them from the school list, or from the pre-primer list above in order. Keep the words already learned in the mix for review.
- Sound out the regular part first. For can, say each sound and blend: c-a-n. For a heart word like said, sound out the s and the d, then point to the middle and say, "this part we learn by heart."
- Write the word together. Your child traces it, then writes it from memory while saying each sound. Writing a word while saying it ties the letters to the sounds.
- Play a word hunt in a picture book. Choose a book from your shelf and ask your child to find every the or and on a page. Our books for 4-year-olds and books for 5-year-olds lists have short, repetitive texts that work well.
- Play flashlight and memory. Write each word on a card, tape the cards to a wall, turn off the light and call out a word for your child to find with a flashlight. For memory, make two cards of each word, place them face down and take turns finding pairs.
- Read real text every day. The IES practice guide on foundational reading skills recommends that each student read connected text every day. Read a book aloud together and let your child read the sight words when they come up.
The part people get wrong: memorizing word shapes
Many parents teach sight words as pictures to memorize, card after card. The University of Florida Literacy Institute explains that in most common irregular words "only one or two letters don't adhere to expected phoneme-grapheme correspondences," so children can decode most of the word. Sounding out the regular part and learning only the odd letters makes each word easier to keep.
UFLI also notes that many readers remember an irregular word after one to four exposures, while a struggling reader may need 20 or more. If your child needs more repeats, that is normal; keep the games short and add exposures across the week.
Sight word games that keep five minutes fun
Sight word games work when they are short, when your child wins often, and when they end before your child is bored. Stop while your child still wants one more round.
A simple week starts on Monday: introduce three new words with step 3 and write them. From Tuesday to Thursday, play one game a day: word hunt, flashlight, then memory. On Friday, read a favorite book together and count how many of the week's words your child spots.
A practice rule: mix new words with known words
Keep about one new word for every three or four known words in any game. A child who reads most cards correctly feels successful and keeps playing. When a word is read instantly on three days in a row, move it to a "known" pile and add a new one.
How to measure sight word progress
You can see progress without a test. Watch for these signals every two weeks:
- Speed: Does your child read the word in under about three seconds, without sounding it out?
- Transfer: Does your child read the word in a new book, in a different font?
- Writing: Can your child write the word from memory?
- Stability: Is the word still known a week later?
A workable test at home
Once a month, write the words learned so far on cards, shuffle them and show each one for a moment. Put the instant ones in one pile and the slow ones in another. The slow pile becomes next week's game cards.
Share the result with the teacher if you like; it tells them what home practice covers.
Common sight word mistakes
A few habits slow children down. Watch for these:
- Drilling 100 cards at once: a long stack turns practice into a chore. Use the small set of the week plus review.
- Guessing from pictures: a child who looks at the picture and says "puppy" for dog is guessing. Cover the picture, point to the first letter and ask what sound it makes.
- Teaching every word as a heart word: most sight words can be sounded out. Save "learn by heart" for the one or two odd letters.
- Skipping real books: cards alone do not build a reader. Read together every day, and see our read-aloud books for kids for ideas.
- Comparing with other children: the age at which children read varies a lot. Our guide on when kids learn to read explains the normal range.
When your child has trouble
If your child finds most words hard after several weeks of short practice, talk to the teacher. Trouble with sight words often points to letter sounds that are not yet secure, and phonics practice helps there. Our step-by-step guide on how to teach a child to read covers letter sounds and blending.
Your sight word checklist and next steps
- Get the list: ask the teacher for the class sight word list and the goal for the year.
- Start with the name: your child's name is the first sight word.
- Three words a week: sound out the regular part, learn the heart part.
- Five minutes a day: one game, then stop while it is fun.
- Read every day: let your child find the week's words in a real book.
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Frequently asked questions
What are sight words?
Sight words are common words that a reader recognizes at a glance, such as the, and, is and you. Children meet them on almost every page, so reading them instantly frees attention for the meaning of the story. The best-known list is the Dolch list, first published by Edward William Dolch in 1936.
How many sight words are there?
The Dolch list has 315 words: 220 service words (pronouns, verbs, adjectives and other small words) and 95 nouns. The Fry list, published by Edward Fry in 1979, has 1,000 words. Any word a reader knows instantly becomes a sight word, so there is no fixed total.
How many sight words should a kindergartener know?
The number varies by school and by district. Many kindergarten lists are built on the 92 Dolch pre-primer and primer words, and the Common Core standard asks for common high-frequency words without a number. Ask your child's teacher for the class list and the target for the year.
What are Dolch sight words?
Dolch sight words are 220 high-frequency service words and 95 nouns that Edward William Dolch collected from children's books of his time. The service words come in five levels: pre-primer (40), primer (52), first grade (41), second grade and third grade.
Why are sight words important?
In 1936 Dolch estimated that his basic sight vocabulary made up 50 to 75 percent of the words in schoolbooks, library books, newspapers and magazines. A child who reads those words instantly can spend effort on new words and on what the story means.
