The Dolch and Fry Sight Words Lists Jump-Start the Road to Reading

Knowing sight words is one of the basic building blocks when learning how to read. A sight word is a word that children can read readily without having to sound it out. Sight words also are generally phonetically irregular and used with high frequency in most publications. To lay a foundation for learning how to read it is imperative to introduce sight words to children. This bolsters their confidence until they become more able to read the written word. Definitive research that involved using sight words for reading instruction purposes supports this method. These studies were based on the premise that the English language is made up of some 500,000 words and only about 200 are utilized with regularity in printed text. Edward B. Fry and Edward William Dolch composed practical lists which today are still used and highly respected by both teachers and parents.

The Dolch and Fry Sight Words Lists Jump-Start the Road to Reading

The Dolch and Fry Sight Words Lists Jump-Start the Road to Reading

---

The Dolch and Fry Sight Words Lists Jump-Start the Road to Reading

The Dolch and Fry Sight Words Lists Jump-Start the Road to Reading

Dolch, who has a PhD, published a study in the 1940s that transformed the method used for teaching reading. He wrote about his theory in a book Problems in Reading and explained that children who can identify a certain core group of words by sight could easily learn to not only read but also comprehend better. Dolch methodically composed this list containing some 95 nouns and 220 service words. He studied English text, with a focus on children's reading books, and selected words to include in his list. When a young child learns the sight words, she or he becomes a more proficient reader in less time than other learn to read methods.

Then Fry (who has a PhD too) in 1996 expanded on Dolch's research and published a book titled 1,000 Instant Words. This book is a compilation of the most common of the sight words and the list is arranged so that the most frequently used ones are given precedence. His research found that a mere 25 words (these words are listed on top) make up approximately one third of all items published. He discovered that one hundred words comprise approximately one half of all the publications written. Fry's list was composed based on these facts, as he worked to inspire young children to commit to memory these sight words to jump-start the reading process.

Both Men understood how children should learn to read. Through repeated exposure to these regularly used sight words, many of which are phonically irregular, new readers learn to recognize them upon sight. This streamlines the learning to read process, allowing certain high frequency words to be recognized instantly, then the child need only to phonetically sound out new words seen in the text.

The Fry and Dolch lists are arranged by levels of advancing difficulty. Dolch's list of sight words was designed to be thoroughly learned and mastered by the 3rd grade. Fry's list, on the other hand, was separated into grade levels specifically for the first 6 grades. Today, however, many educators are pushing students to know most, if not all, of the Dolch list by the first grade and Fry's list by the fourth grade.

Children can have an enjoyable time learning the Dolch and Fry words. Parents and educators use various methods to assist new readers instantly recognize sight words. One such approach is incorporating repetitive exposure to these common words into Computer or board games. This can be a particularly effective method since it is likely to capture and retain a child's attention.

The Dolch and Fry Sight Words Lists Jump-Start the Road to Reading