Three-letter Dolch sight word bingo cards
Three-letter Dolch sight words: 58 words for Pre-K–Grade 3. A 5x5 card with a free center shows 24 of them (card 1 starts with "yes", "one" and "try"), so a class of 30 gets 30 different cards; every word has 3 letters and 7 start with the letter H.
| B | I | N | G | O |
|---|---|---|---|---|
yes | one | try | two | any |
you | she | eat | why | ask |
for | was | FREE | get | new |
him | now | use | fly | how |
but | hot | ran | can | all |
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Edit words (58)
Cards update as you type. Long entries shrink to fit their square; a very long single word is split over two lines with a hyphen (up to 40 characters each). The PDF uses a built-in font: emoji and non-Latin scripts print best with Print cards.
Caller sheet
Every call in a shuffled order. Tick each one as you read it out; the same share link always gives the same order.
Updated
About this list: Three-letter Dolch sight words
Three-letter Dolch sight words is every Dolch service word of this length, drawn from all five levels (12 pre-primer, 19 primer, 13 first grade, 6 second grade, 8 third grade). All 58 words are 3 letters long, and 15 of them start with a vowel.
Source: Dolch's published lists, 220 service words and 95 nouns (Dolch, E. W. "A Basic Sight Vocabulary." The Elementary School Journal 36(6), 1936, pp. 456-460; Dolch, E. W. Problems in Reading. Garrard Press, 1948). The words are taken from revision 1094285022 (June 21, 2022) of the Wikipedia "Dolch word list" article, checked against those published totals on 2026-10-23.
All 58 words, A to Z
From "all" to "you", grouped by first letter (20 letters used); all 58 are loaded in the generator above.
- A: all, and, any, are, ask, ate
- B: big, but, buy
- C: can, cut
- D: did
- E: eat
- F: far, fly, for
- G: get, got
- H: had, has, her, him, his, hot, how
- I: its
- L: let
- M: may
- N: new, not, now
- O: off, old, one, our, out, own
- P: put
- R: ran, red, run
- S: saw, say, see, she, sit, six
- T: ten, the, too, try, two
- U: use
- W: was, who, why
- Y: yes, you
Word lengths in Three-letter Dolch sight words
All 58 words have 3 letters, so length gives no clue: children have to read every square.
| Letters | Words | Share | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 letters | 58 | 100% | and, big, can, for, not, one |
Most common first letters
"had", "has", "her" and "him" all start with the letter H: call them far apart.
| First letter | Words | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| H | 7 | had, has, her, him, his, how |
| A | 6 | and, all, are, ate, any, ask |
| O | 6 | one, our, out, old, off, own |
| S | 6 | see, saw, say, she, sit, six |
| T | 5 | the, two, too, ten, try |
| B | 3 | big, but, buy |
| F | 3 | for, fly, far |
| N | 3 | not, new, now |
Three-letter Dolch sight word bingo at a glance
| Words | 58, from "all" to "you" in A-Z order |
|---|---|
| Grade | Pre-K–Grade 3 |
| Card | 5x5 card with a free center: 24 of the 58 words |
| Different cards possible | about 7.96 × 10³⁹ (order matters) |
| Different word selections | about 1.28 × 10¹⁶ sets of 24 words |
| Average word length | 3.0 letters ("all" to "you") |
| Expected calls to fill one card | 56.6 of 58 |
Overlap with other lists
"and" and 57 more of these words also appear in All 220 Dolch sight words. Every list that shares words with this one, largest share first:
| List | Shared words | Share of these 58 | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| All 220 Dolch sight words | 58 | 100% | and, big, can, for, not |
| Complete Dolch list (220 words and 95 nouns) | 58 | 100% | and, big, can, for, not |
| Dolch kindergarten (pre-primer and primer) | 31 | 53% | and, big, can, for, not |
| Dolch primer | 19 | 33% | all, are, ate, but, did |
| Dolch first grade | 13 | 22% | any, ask, fly, had, has |
| Dolch pre-primer | 12 | 21% | and, big, can, for, not |
How long a round takes
150 shuffled orders of the 58 words, played on this set's first 30 cards. With 20 children the first line usually comes on call 18 ("old" in this set's order), about 5 minutes at one word every 15 seconds.
| Class size | First line (median) | First line, 80% of games | First full card (median) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 children | 21 calls | 14-26 | 54 calls |
| 20 children | 18 calls | 12-22 | 53 calls |
| 30 children | 16 calls | 11-21 | 52 calls |
How to play three-letter Dolch sight word bingo
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Pre-teach the look-alikes
Read "had", "has", "her" and "him" together before the game; they all start with the letter H and have 3 letters.
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Print one card per child
Card 1 starts with "yes", "one", "try", "two" and "any"; every other card mixes the 58 words differently, so no two children share a card.
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Call, say and use each word
Say "her", use it in a short sentence, then spell it if needed; this set continues with "out", "own", "the" and "big".
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Check the winning line
With these calls, card 8 wins first on call 12 with the diagonal from the top left: "run", "all", "out" and "its". Ask the winner to read the words back.
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Review the words that were not called
When card 8 wins on call 12, 46 words are still uncalled, such as "did", "far" and "who"; read them together or put them on the next review list. 15 of the 58 start with a vowel ("and", "one" and "all").
Other sight word lists
Frequently asked questions
How many words are in the three-letter Dolch sight words?
58 words for Pre-K–Grade 3, from "all" to "you". Each card uses 24, so 34 stay off every card; the shortest word is "all" and the longest is "you".
Are all three-letter Dolch sight word bingo cards the same?
No. About 7.96 × 10³⁹ different cards are possible (about 1.28 × 10¹⁶ different selections of 24 words). Card 1 and card 2 of this set share 13 of their 24 words, and no card repeats inside one set.
How long does a round of three-letter Dolch sight word bingo take?
With 20 children, three-letter Dolch sight word bingo reaches its first line after about 18 calls (12-22 in 80% of simulated games), roughly 5 minutes at one word every 15 seconds; a full card takes about 53 of the 58 calls.
Can I print three-letter Dolch sight word bingo cards for a whole class for free?
Yes. A free set prints up to 30 different cards from the 58 words, one per child for a class of 30: Print cards sends them to your printer and Download PDF saves one card per page (30 pages plus the caller sheet). With 30 children the first line comes after about 16 calls, with 10 after about 21.
Can I mix the three-letter Dolch sight words with another list?
Yes: paste both lists into the generator and duplicates are removed automatically. All 220 Dolch sight words is the closest match: it shares 58 of these 58 words (100%) and adds 162 new words, for 220 in total.