Dolch Words List - For Up To Year 3 Primary School
This section is relevant to those parents that have begun their preparation for the Eleven Plus Exams pre-Year 3 or earlier of primary school and need a benchmark basic word list to gauge progress.
Parents looking for a word list for 11 plus are advised to look at the NFER Word List provided by The Tutors from Wirral in the 11 Plus Free Downloads Section.
In 1948 Dr. Edward William Dolch wrote a book Problems in Reading
. In this book he included 220 of the most high frequency (common) words excluding nouns in the English language. In more recent times this has formed the basis of some reading age tests, since many of these words cannot be sounded out as they do not follow decoding rules, they have to be learnt as sight words. The testing is by way of flash cards.
Number Of Dolch Words Recognised & Estimated Reading Level
- 0 - 75
- Pre-Nursery
- 76 - 120
- Nursery
- 121 - 170
- 1st Year
- 171 - 210
- 2nd Year
- Above 210
- 3rd Year+
Dolch Words List
| a | as | again | about | any |
| all | away | ate | after | better |
| am | be | over | always | both |
| an | black | but | around | bring |
| and | brown | cold | ask | carry |
| are | by | cut | because | clean |
| at | came | fast | been | could |
| big | did | first | before | done |
| blue | eat | five | best | don’t |
| call | fall | fly | buy | draw |
| can | find | four | does | drink |
| come | for | give | far | eight |
| do | get | goes | found | every |
| down | going | from | full | hurt |
| funny | have | got | gave | know |
| go | her | green | grow | light |
| good | him | had | hold | myself |
| he | his | has | how | never |
| help | if | hot | just | own |
| here | into | its | keep | pick |
| I | laugh | long | kind | right |
| in | let | made | much | seven |
| is | live | many | must | shall |
| it | may | new | now | show |
| jump | my | not | off | their |
| like | no | of | once | them |
| little | old | open | only | then |
| look | on | please | round | there |
| make | one | or | sleep | these |
| me | put | our | small | think |
| out | saw | pull | take | those |
| play | said | read | tell | together |
| pretty | she | start | thank | use |
| ran | sit | say | that | very |
| red | some | sing | they | want |
| ride | stop | six | this | warm |
| run | three | soon | too | wash |
| see | today | ten | try | went |
| so | two | upon | under | what |
| the | was | us | walk | when |
| to | will | who | well | where |
| up | work | why | were | which |
| we | yes | wish | white | would |
| you | yellow | your | with | write |
