When my own kids were learning sight words (starting in kindergarten), I found myself searching the internet for resources that would help. I quickly realized that many people called them by different names: Dolch Words, CVC Words, Fry Words, and Ball Words. How was I supposed to know which ones I needed?
Here is a break down of what each list is and why it is called by those names.
- Sight Words – This is the more generic term used for high frequency words found in texts that children are encouraged to memorize by sight. This way they can focus on sounding out harder words later.
- Dolch Words – This is a list of 220 common words developed by a phD in 1948, so some words are not as common now as they were back then. The list contains 220 “service words” that Dr. Dolch thought should be easily recognized in order to achieve reading fluency in the English language. (See Resource Below)
- CVC Words – Stands for Consonant Vowel Consonant, these are more like cat, hat, bat and are used for teaching phonics and sounding out similar word parts, not necessarily memorization. These often get lumped into “sight words” when searching online but are really separate, yet still important. (See Resource Below)
- Fry Words – Developed by Dr. Fry in 1996, this is an expanded list of Dolch Words.
- The First 100 words should be mastered by Grade 1.
- The Second 100 Words should be mastered by Grade 2.
- The Third 100 Words should be mastered by Grade 3.
- The remaining lists (words 301 – 1000) should be mastered in Grades 4 – 5. (See Resource Below)
- Ball Words – This is the Dolch Words of 220 broken down into 11 lists of 20, calling each list a sports ball name. This way children can “chunk” out their learning and memorize complete smaller chunks to be motivated to move on to the next list. (See Resource Below)
It all comes down to which list your school district or teacher adheres to. Everything is derived from the Dolch Words list, so it is always a safe bet to use that. Our kids were asked to start with Ball Words. I really like this system because it breaks the lists out into smaller chunks and is less daunting for the kids. Plus they feel accomplished when they can complete a whole list and move onto the next one.
Comment below which list or term your school uses and how your kids like it!
Resources:
Dolch Words – https://thatfunreadingteacher.com/what-are-sight-words-high-frequency-words-and-dolch-words/
CVC Words – https://www.theschoolrun.com/cvc-words?fbclid=IwAR1DtkiPuI5C2z-AhVrR94F8FJ6uAaybinVFDjfpDgBiq_wFqxEpWQCU_zw
Fry Words – http://www.uniqueteachingresources.com/support-files/fryfirst100set.pdf
Ball Words – https://keenonkindergarten.weebly.com/sight-wordsball-words.html
As a former preschool teacher, I was always encouraged to use the term “sight words” with my students. This was also the case, as my daughter was growing up. I like that term because I find it provides clarity & makes it tangible for the students (to grasp the concept of high frequency words).