Dolch List of 220 Sight Words - By Parts of Speech

Edward William Dolch, Ph.D. created a list of 220 sight words which contains conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives and verbs. He referred to these words as “tool” or “service” words because these words are found in all reading material, regardless of the subject matter. The same cannot be said of nouns; they are directly related to a subject matter. As a result, he created a separate word list which contains 95 nouns.

Early emergent readers should focus on instantly recognizing by sight these 220 words. Dolch’s list of 220 sight words categorized based on parts of speech is listed below.

Sight Words: Conjunctions

They join words or parts of a sentence; connectors.

and

as

because

but

if

or

Sight words: Prepositions

They show position or time and can compare or contrast; locators.

about	after	at	by	down
for	from	in	into	of
on	over	to	under	upon	with

Sight Words: Pronouns

They take the place of nouns; substitutes.
They can indicate ownership and used to ask questions.

he	her	him	his	I
it	its	me	my	myself
our	she	that	their	them
these	they	this	those	us
we	what	which	who	you	your

Sight Words: Adverbs

They modify verbs (adjectives and adverbs too); describers.
When? How? How much? Where? To what extent?

again	always	around	away	before
far	fast	first	here	how
just	much	never	no	not
now	off	once	only	out
so	soon	then	there	today
together	too	up	very	well
when	where	why	yes

Sight Words: Adjectives

They describe or modify nouns (adjectives too); describers.
Describes a person, place, or thing.

a	all	an	any	best
better	big	black	blue	both
brown	clean	cold	eight	every
five	four	full	funny	good
green	hot	kind	light	little
long	many	new	old	one
own	pretty	red	right	round
seven	six	small	some	ten
the	three	two	warm	white
yellow

Sight Words: Verbs

They show action or state of being.

am	are	ask	ate	be
been	bring	buy	call	came
can	carry	come	could	cut
did	do	does	done	don’t
draw	drink	eat	fall	find
fly	found	gave	get	give
go	goes	going	got	grow
had	has	have	help	hold
hurt	is	jump	keep	know
laugh	let	like	live	look
made	make	may	must	open
pick	play	please	pull	put
ran	read	ride	run	said
saw	say	see	shall	show
sing	sit	sleep	start	stop
take	tell	thank	think	try
use	walk	want	was	wash
went	were	will	wish	work
would	write

Source: Edward William Dolch, Ph.D., Problems in Reading.
College of Education, University of Illinois, 1948.

Word of the Day: Lexeme

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines this word as a meaningful linguistic unit that is an item in the vocabulary of a language.

Wikipedia defines a lexeme as an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word.

Perhaps an example will illustrate this simple concept that when defined makes my head spin. A great example is the the word, be, which has the following lexemes – am, is, are, was, were, been and being. Be is called the lemma.

Interestingly enough, ten different lemmas account for approximately 25% of all the one billion words used in the Oxford English Corpus; that’s one out of four words. These ten words are included in Fry’s top twenty-five instant word list as well as included in the Dolch word list. These words are commonly referred to as sight words or high frequency words. As a result, all of these words are incorporated in the sight word game, Erudition.

The ten lemmas are as follows: the, be, to, of, and, a, in, that, have and I.

Sources:
http://www.askoxford.com
http://en.wikipedia.org
http://www.merriam-webster.com

Kindergarten Homework - 2nd Marking Period

As stated in my previous post, homework serves to reinforce concepts learned in the classroom. A child should do their best and be proud of their accomplishments. During the second marking period, our kindergarten curriculum required the completion of the following tasks:

Monday - write the assigned sight words 5-10 times in your journal.
Tuesday - complete the sentence by drawing a picture. If possible, label your drawing. We do this five times.
Wednesday – sort objects
Thursday - math related assignment (worksheets reinforcing positional words, ordering numbers 1 through 20)
Everyday - read for 20 minutes

Week 10:
They did not have any sight word related homework. They did have a math worksheet that focused on positional words. Click here for a PDF.

Week 11:
Family fun week: Disguise Tom Turkey

Click here for a PDF of Tom Turkey. Using items found at home, disguise Tom Turkey (i.e. sheep, cat, pilgrim etc.) to avoid his capture and subsequent use for a Thanksgiving feast.

Week 12:
Sight words: to, like
Sentence: I like to go to the _____.
Sort: Beginning sounds sort - Rr and Pp. Pictures (e.g. rain, ring, ruler) with the beginning sound /r/ from pictures (e.g. pen, pizza, pig) that begin with the /p/ sound.

Week 13:
No homework this week since it’s the week of Thanksgiving.

Week 14:
Sight word: said
Sentence: I said I can see the _____.
Sort: Beginning sounds sort - Ll and Nn. Pictures (e.g. lion, light bulb, leaf) with the beginning sound /l/ from pictures (e.g. nest, nail, net) that begin with the /n/ sound.

Week 15:
Family Fun Week: Decorate a Gingerbread Man

Click here for a PDF of a gingerbread man. Write a list of the materials used to decorate the gingerbread man. Similar to the story, The Gingerbread Man, our masterpiece will run away from school. Via US mail, each gingerbread man will surprisingly end up in our home. Each parent is instructed to secretly send in an addressed envelope with postage.

Week 16:
Sight word: you, is
Sentence: You said I can see the _____ is ______.
Sort: Beginning sounds sort - Ff and Gg. Pictures (e.g. fish, fire, frog) with the beginning sound /f/ from pictures (e.g. girl, grapes, glove) that begin with the /g/ sound.

Week 17 and 18:
No homework - Winter break and snow days prevent school from opening for two weeks

Week 19:
Sight word: it, here
Sentence: Here is a _____. It is ______.
Sort: Ending sounds sort - Tt and Ss. Pictures (e.g. cat, net, hat) with the ending sound /t/ from pictures (e.g. bus, dress, eggs) that end with the /s/ sound.

Week 20:
Sight word: come, up
Sentence: Can you come to my ___? Do you see the ____ up in the sky.
Sort: Ending sounds sort - Pp and Kk. Pictures (e.g. stop, lip, lamp) with the ending sound /p/ from pictures (e.g.snake, bike, duck) that end with the /k/ sound.

Week 21:
Sight word review

Review the 25 kindergarten sight words. Pick six words that your child could not identify and write them 5 times. If your child knows all the 25 kindergarten sight words, proceed to the next 25 sight words. For a list of the kindergarten sight words, please visit a previous post, High Frequency (Sight Words).

Play sight word memory. Pick six words that were difficult to read. Write each word in two different squares on the sight word memory paper. Color the back of the card or use a thicker paper. Cut out the word cards. Play the memory game with these cards. When you turn over a card, use must read the word. Play this several times.