Sight word checks without flash-card dread: Dolch, Fry and a listening quiz

1 Dolch and Fry: the two lists you will meet

Most sight word lists in American schools come from one of two people. Knowing which list your school uses saves a lot of confusion when a parent brings home a different one.

Dolch

Edward W. Dolch published his basic sight vocabulary in 1936, in an article in The Elementary School Journal. It holds 220 words and, on purpose, no nouns; the nouns were kept as a separate list of their own. The 220 words are the small "service words" that hold sentences together: the, and, said, because, which. Teachers sort them into five lists that carry grade names: pre-primer (40 words), primer (52), first grade (41), second grade (46) and third grade (41). The grade names are traditional and only a rough guide; a child moves on when they read a list easily, not on a date.

Fry

Edward Fry, a professor of education, made a list he called the Instant Words. It is ranked by how often each word turns up in print, from the most common down, and it is taught in hundreds: the first hundred, the second hundred and so on. Versions in schools vary in length; the one the Utah Education Network posts has 600 words in six hundreds, each split into small numbered groups.

The two lists share many of the same small words. The main practical difference is shape: Dolch comes in five grade-named lists, and Fry comes in ranked hundreds. Use whichever your school or reading program uses, so children and families see one list, not two.

2 What the quiz maker's sight-word source holds

The quiz maker has a source called Sight words, marked for grades K–2, and it is where kindergarten opens. It holds the 220 Dolch words, in the order of the five lists, cut into 22 parts of ten. It does not hold the Fry list.

• Parts 1 to 4 are the pre-primer list exactly, starting with the, and, a, to.
• Parts 5 to 10 are mostly the primer list; part 10 runs from the end of the primer list into the first-grade list.
• Parts 11 to 22 carry on through first, second and third grade, ending with words like shall, show and warm.

Each part is labeled with its first and last word, such as "Part 2 (for … here)", so you can match it to the list you are teaching. The full lists, with flash cards for the projector and a checklist, are on the Dolch sight words pages, for example the pre-primer list and the primer list.

The words come from the same practice ladder the kids' reading games use. That matters for one reason: the two wrong answers beside each word are the ladder's own look-alikes, chosen to catch the mix-ups beginning readers really make, as the next chapter shows.

3 How a listening quiz prints

A sight word printed as the question would give its own answer away. So in the sight-word source, the word is never printed as the question. Each question on the student's page simply says Listen., followed by three answer boxes: the word you will say and two words that look like it.

The two look-alikes

The wrong boxes are picked by simple rules about how words look. One shares the first letter and the length, or differs by one letter. The other is the word backward, or a word that rhymes. So was may sit beside saw, and the beside she. A child who reads only the first letter, or who flips letters, will be drawn to one of them, which is exactly what you want the check to show.

Your script

The directions at the top of the page add "Your teacher will read each word." The answer key page, marked for the teacher, ends with a line headed Read aloud, in this order, listing the words by question number. If you print versions A and B, each version has its own order and its own read-aloud line, so read from the key that matches the version in front of the group.

• Three boxes prints ten questions to a page, with an optional bubble sheet.
• Fill the blank turns each question into "Listen and write the word." with a line: a short spelling dictation.
• Exit ticket prints three words per ticket, four tickets to a page.

The Play it live button leaves sight words out, because the live game shows each question on the screen, and on a sight word quiz that would show the answer. Sight word checks stay on paper.

4 Running the check with a group

A listening check takes about as long as it takes you to say ten words slowly. Done in small groups, it replaces most one-on-one flash card sessions, and children who freeze when a card is held up often relax when everyone is circling at once.

1. Pick the part you taught this week and print ten questions with the key.
2. Model one first on the board: say a practice word, show three choices, and circle the right one together.
3. For each question, say the number, say the word, use it in a short sentence, then say the word again. "Number three. Said. She said hello. Said."
4. Wait until every pencil is down before the next number.
5. Collect and mark with the key; with versions, check the letter at the top of each page first.

What to sayPut your finger on number one. Listen. The word is was. I was at the park. Was. Circle the word was.

Keep the room quiet enough to hear and the pace slow enough that no one has to guess. For kindergarten, five questions is often plenty; choose 5 in the maker. Seat children so neighbors can't see each other's page, or print two versions so neighbors have different orders.

5 Reading the results

A score out of ten tells you who needs more help. The wrong boxes children chose tell you what kind of help.

• Chose the backward word (saw for was): practice left-to-right tracking, finger under each letter, and say the sounds in order.
• Chose the same-first-letter word (way for was): the child is guessing from the first letter. Ask them to look all the way through the word before they decide.
• Chose the rhyming word (she for the): look at the first letter or two together; say both words and compare how they start.
• No pattern, many misses: the part is too far ahead. Go back a part and check again next week.

Sort the papers into three piles: every word right, one or two wrong, three or more wrong. The first pile moves to the next part. The middle pile gets the missed words added to their practice. The third pile needs teaching, not more checking.

Write results on paper or in your school's own system. The quiz maker keeps no scores and no names, and there is no reason to type a child's name into it.

6 Checking Fry words

The quiz maker's sight-word source is Dolch only. You can paste your own list under My list, but a pasted question prints on the page, so it can't hide the word the way the sight-word source does. For Fry words, a few other routes work better.

• Read-aloud check from a printed list. Print the hundred you are working on and have each child read down one column to you. Tick the words read at once, dot the ones sounded out, and circle the misses.
• Flash cards on the projector. The flashcard maker builds cards from your own words. Show a card, count to three in your head, and have the group read it chorally; listen for the voices that drop out.
• Spelling dictation. Say a word, use it in a sentence, and have children write it. It checks memory for the whole word, and you can read twenty papers in a few minutes.
• Partner reading. Partners take turns reading a card pile to each other and sorting it into "knew it" and "not yet".

Whichever list you use, check in small sets. Ten words a week that a child truly knows beat a hundred that they half know, and small sets make the next step obvious.

7 Sight words and phonics together

Many words on both lists can be sounded out: and, can, up, it, not. Teach those with the phonics pattern they follow, and they stop being something to memorize. Only part of a few words is truly irregular, like the ai in said or the o in of.

A simple routine for a word with a tricky part: say the word, tap out its sounds, write it, and underline the part that doesn't follow the rule. Children remember one odd part much more easily than a whole word as a picture.

• Sort the week's words into "sounds out" and "has a tricky part" with the class.
• Put the tricky part in a different color on the word wall.
• Read the words in short sentences, not only alone, so children see them doing their job.
• Revisit older parts every few weeks so early words don't slip.

For the sounds behind this, the guide on how to teach phonics walks through a sequence, and the phonemic awareness page in the Library covers the listening skills that come first.