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The Critical Importance of Dolch Sight Words
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Why You Should Teach Dolch Sight Words
The child who can recognize on sight 8 of the 10 words in the sentence before him can read that sentence and, generally, decode the remaining words by means of context, phonics, or illustrations. Most importantly, he can understand its meaning!The 220 Dolch Words comprise from 60 to 85% of the text in children's early reading materials. Therefore, a child who knows the Dolch Words has much of the base needed to recognize the majority of the words in a typical selection. The Dolch Words in the following excerpt from a popular children's book are shown in red to serve as a graphic example of this point. Dolch Sight Words comprise 81% of the vocabulary and 88% of the total text used in this book ("Ten Apples Up On Top!" by Theo. LeSieg).
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LeSieg, Theo. “Ten Apples Up On Top!” New York: Beginner Books, Divison of Random House, Inc. 1961.
The text of this children's favorite has a 75 word vocabulary; 61 (81%) of them are Dolch Words!
But 88 % of the actual text is composed of Dolch Words, as shown by the words in red:
- One apple up on top.
Two apples up on top.
Look, you. I can do it, too.
Look! See! I can do three!
Three... Three... I see. I see.
You can do three but I can do more.
You have three but I have four.
Look! See, now. I can hop with four apples up on top.
And I can hop up on a tree with four apples up on me.
Look here, you two. See here, you two. I can get five on top. Can you?
I am so good I will not stop. Five! Now six! Now seven on top!
Seven apples up on top! I am so good they will not drop.
Five, six, seven! Fun, fun, fun! Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one!
But, see! We are as good as you. Look! Now we have seven, too.
And now, see here. Eight! Eight on top! Eight apples up! Not one will drop.
Eight! Eight! And we can skate. Look now! We can skate with eight.
But I can do nine. And hop! And drink! You can not do this, I think.
We can! We can! We can do it, too. See here. We are as good as you!
We all are very good I think. With nine, we all can hop and drink!
Nine is very good. But then... Come on and we will make it ten!
Look! Ten apples up on top! We are not going to let them drop!
Look out! Look out! I see a mop.
I will make the apples fall. Get out. Get out. You! One and all!
Come on! Come on! Come down this hall. We must not let our apples fall!
Out of our way! We can not stop. We can not let our apples drop.
This is not good. What will we do? They want to get our apples, too.
They will get them if we let them. Come! We can not let them get them.
Look out! The mop! The mop! The mop!
You can not stop our apple fun. Our apples will not drop, not one!
Come on! Come on! Come one! Come all! We have to make the apples fall.
They must not get our apples down. Come on! Come on! Get out of town!
Apples! Apples up on top! All of this must stop, STOP, STOP!
Now all our fun is going to stop! Our apples all are going to drop.
Look! Ten apples on us all! What fun! We will not let them fall.
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When kids hooked on phonics programs have just learned to read "A fat cat sat on a mat," or "A big pig did a jig," "Picture Me Reading!" students already are happily and fluently reading such books as Ten Apples Up On Top, Green Eggs and Ham, and The Cat in the Hat, and other Dr. Seuss favorites, often making 6 MONTHS of reading progress in 6 WEEKS or less!
In 2006, we added a new book, “Picture Me Reading Favorite Bible Stories.” The text consists of about 80 percent Dolch Words. See a sample page here. |
Many teachers are unaware that it is possible to use the Dolch Sight Word List to gain an estimate of reading level. In his book, Diagnosing and Correcting Reading Disabilities, Second Edition (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1981, p. 159), George D. Spache provides a rating scale for the Dolch Sight Word List. This rating scale is invaluable for use in the writing of Individual Educational Plan (IEP) goals and objectives, and provides a quick and unequivocal assessment tool for pre- and post-testing. To see the rating scale, Click Here.
Some More Examples
Note the remarkable percentages of the total text which are Dolch Words in some other favorite children's books from the "I Can Read It All By Myself" Random House group of Beginner Books:
- · 87% - Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
· 78% - Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman
· 78% - Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman
· 82% - I Want to Be Somebody New! by Robert Lopshire
· 83% - A Fly Went By! by Mike McClintock
· 78% - The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
· 81% - The Cat in the Hat Comes Back by Dr. Seuss
· 75% - One fish two fish red fish blue fish by Dr. Seuss
These examples clearly illustrate the importance of early mastery of the Dolch Sight Words. Many of the Dolch Words do not fit the usual rules of phonics (e.g., of, laugh, one, once, eight, could). The "Picture Me Reading!" visual-conceptual method eliminates the need to try to explain the many exceptions to the "rules" which occur when all vocabulary is taught by using phonics. Once this core of basic sight words has been committed to memory, children generally go on to master phonics rules and generalizations more easily and efficiently, as well as reading more fluently and with greater comprehension. If you don't already have a list of the 220 Dolch Sight Words, we will be happy to provide one to you as an e-mail attachment in Word.doc format. Just click here to request it now, or you can send an e-mail later to DolchWords@picturemereading.com
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You can try out our "Picture Me Reading!" Dolch Sight Word Flash Cards today!
To do a free trial, just Click Here.
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