Dolch 3rd grade sight words Reading

3rd grade Dolch sight words

When young readers memorize sight words, they advance in confidence and fluency. Here are the 41 sight words that will improve your third grader's reading skills.

What are sight words? They are words a child learns to recognize on sight. Back in 1936, Edward William Dolch published this list of sight words for children learning to read in preschool through third grade. There are 220 Dolch sight words in total across those early grade levels. The theory is that these words are used so often in print that they make up an estimated three-quarters of all words used in children’s books. Since they appear so often, they’re also called high-frequency words.

As kids learn to read, the four main reading skills are decoding, fluency, comprehension, and knowledge. A child’s ability to decode (or sound out) words is crucial to reading. But to become a fluent reader, it helps if kids don’t have to sound out every single word they come across. So being able to “read” or recognize high-frequency or sight words without hesitation can help children read more fluently and, by extension, help them better understand what they read because they’re not stopping to sound out every word. In other words, memorizing these sight words for third graders can help your child keep going and gain momentum as they learn to read.