Sight Word Bingo: Dolch Lists by Grade
Every Dolch sight-word list with its own generator: pick a level from pre-primer to third grade, the 95 nouns or a list sorted by word length, print one unique card per child and call the words from the shuffled caller sheet. Each page shows the full word list, word-length and first-letter counts, how the list overlaps with the others and how long a round takes for 10, 20 or 30 children.
Updated
Dolch levels
- Dolch pre-primer 40 words for Pre-K, 3.3 letters on average: "a", "and" and "away"
- Dolch primer 52 words for Kindergarten, 3.5 letters on average: "all", "am" and "are"
- Dolch first grade 41 words for Grade 1, 3.7 letters on average: "after", "again" and "an"
- Dolch second grade 46 words for Grade 2, 4.2 letters on average: "always", "around" and "because"
- Dolch third grade 41 words for Grade 3, 4.3 letters on average: "about", "better" and "bring"
Combined lists
Lists by word length
Dolch nouns
What the Dolch lists are
Edward William Dolch published his list of 220 "service words" in 1936 and also compiled a separate list of 95 common nouns. The service words are grouped by reading level: 40 pre-primer, 52 primer, 41 first-grade, 46 second-grade and 41 third-grade words. The 16 lists on these pages come from those published levels (the About page names the source), plus combined lists, lists sorted by word length for practicing short and long words separately, and the nouns split into three topic groups.
Running sight word bingo in class
Give every child a different card, read each word aloud once, use it in a short sentence, and let children find and mark it themselves. The shortest list here, the two-letter Dolch sight words, has exactly 24 words, so a 5x5 card with a free space holds all of them and every card shows the same words in a different order: a good first round, because every child gets to find every word. The longer combined lists put a different selection on each card, so children cannot copy a neighbor and still win. A 3x3 or 4x4 card keeps a pre-K round short; a 5x5 card with a free space suits first grade and up. Tick the words on the caller sheet so you can reteach the ones that took longest to find.