Sight Words

The development of a Sight Word vocabulary is essential to your child’s reading progress.   Sight words are words that are recognized simply by sight; in other words, by just looking at them.  They are the words most frequently found in books.  They are usually the words that ‘connect’ the other words together in a meaningful sentence. They are not meant to be sounded out.  In fact, many of them are not phonetically regular and cannot be sounded out.  These are the words that need to be read automatically, with no effort, no matter where or what they are printed in or on.  We often use the term automaticity – referring to whether or not a student can read these words accurately and without hesitancy.

The Dolch List is a well-known, researched based list of sight words.  The Michigan State Board of Education has included the Dolch List in their elementary grade level expectations, which makes them automatically part of the Grosse Pointe Public Schools elementary curriculum.    While each district across the state has the freedom to ‘assign’ words to a particular grade level, they are coming from this same list of 220 words.

The breakdown on the attached list is how Grosse Pointe has divided up the list. Please keep this list at home for your information.  Please note that these are exiting expectations.  For example, the expectation for our current kindergarteners is for them to know the words on Lists 1 and 2 by the end of the school year or hopefully before they enter first grade in the fall.   

Please note that these lists are cumulative, as well.  Current first graders, by the end of the school year, should have mastered not only the kindergarten lists but most, if not all of, the first grade lists, as well. If your child has mastered all the kindergarten and first grade lists, with automaticity, then by all means please work on the second grade lists.

If you Google, Dolch Lists, you will find several sites offering many different suggestions for helping your child with these very important words.